Alright, most of the responses were garbage but I will take time to respond to those that did interest me: Duff: I am not looking for instaneous results as I know first hand that you will never ever be able to make someone else a successful trader. The best you can do is to lead him to the door and he has to open it. The problem with the vast majority of the responses out there is like those "helpful" people are telling me the door is out there somewhere and if that's the only thing they have to say then don't expect me to be thankful. As for Candle's advice for the open, let's just say if you don't play the open then don't tell me what to do off the open. Instead of telling me first 30 minutes is dangerous, tell me how you actually trade it. As for pressure, I always had pride that I perform my best under pressure, we will see about that. Limbo: Last time I checked you haven't made a dime from your own trading yet, last time I checked which was back in December Mrs D haven't got a check for 3 straight months, last time I checked I don't want to be in her situation which is why I look at every slump as something that may turn into something potentially a career ender. If my techniques don't work with the market I want to detect it as early as possible and make all the changes neccessary. Shortee: Surrender is not an option let's just leave it at that. I have always held an all-or-nothing attitude, either I go top tier or I sell hot dogs on Wall Steet, nothing in between. I am not going to waste four years picking up stuff I find of little to no value. Treykool: The truth is a lot of people made more money than their actual skills indicate over the past a few years, this year will be a true test of who is meant to be in the game for the long run. Qwik: I am pleased to tell you that my numbers YTD as far as among the team leaders are concerned actually moved up in rank versus 2001 as many of them now carry a heavy loss. Now it is of zero value to me if I don't start making money myself but I can assure you I treat everyone on my team with respect and I am a very very fair leader. I don't sugar coat stuff when I see trash and I will take apart your recipe line by line. Your slump story Let's just say anyone going through a multiple month losing streak needs to make serious adjustments to their TECHNIQUES. You can talk about perspective and psychology all you want but the truth is your techniques are wrong for the market condition and until you change it there is not a single thing you can do to save your bacon. Interesting read but nothing of value there, let's see the actual recipe. ***first of all, you have to prepare yourself emotionally for a small win.. *** Which is what I am trying to do but pretty damn hard when you go 30% shooting don't you think? I even said in my journal that a $500 day felt like $2000 given the way I was playing. ***dont go into the day thinking about how much you are down.. dont think about making 1000 dollars.. you have to get humble and say i just want to come in and make 100 or 200 dollars.. *** Let's see, I never saw black during the last 3 games, and during the only winning streak I had YTD, I started it off with a win of three dollars, and I recognized the psychological value of that victory. ***second, you have to force yourself to double check every setup to make sure that all criteria are present.. *** This is just total BS, by the time you double check something it is already gone, you see it you pull the trigger, you don't feel confident about there is nothing wrong with taking 100 shares. (I can't tell you how many 100-300 share positions I took over the last 3 games) The more you hesitate the colder you get then you get into a real losing streak. ***third, you have to force yourself to focus on what you are doing.. dont think about something new.. dont think about the weather.. dont think about what you will do after work.. force yourself to concentrate on what you are doing.. *** When I am trading I even block out 99% of the princess stuff, for me that is concentration as there is no other thing that interests me even remotely at this time. Believe me, focus is not a problem. ***then you just go in and take the easiest trades you see.. the goal is to build up a string of small wins.. *** Yeah, what I thought to be easy trades turned out to be steak knives. What I thought to be hard trades turned out to be point movers. ***the reason you want a string of small wins is because its emotionally satisfying*** I know that, I have always told people that it doesn't matter if you are up five dollars for the day as long as you are up you maintain your confidence and rhythm and as soon as you get one good trading day you will score big. ***but i know tomorrow will be fine, because i know how to get myself out of this.. *** Everyone who ever saw a check at my firm tell themselve so when they face a losing streak, some never recover. It is not the psychology, it is the techniques. Any technique can become obsolete at any time for any reason, hence it is so important to know not just the strength of your techniques but the weaknesses to it. LET'S PUT IT THIS WAY: Instead of writing recipes, if everyone on this board post their best trade of the day along with an explaination of why they took them, that will help me (or other traders for that matter) far more than anything else. Instead of talking about trading, write about your trades along with why you took them and be willing to answer questions, I don't even need to hear about your losers or care about your actual P&L, all I need is some new ideas on how to make money from this market and I will be able to incorporate them into my own trading. If I see what works then I will be able to adjust my own style accordingly. I mean what hell, I will see that gee today I went short here but he went long instead because of <insert signs here> he saw in the market, and next time I better pay attention to that too . . . That's the help I appreciate, everything else I look at as pure entertainment. Threei: Another garbage article, I mean let's see what I did during this recent slump: ***First of all, stop trading for a while.*** I don't believe in that, I believe in trading 100 shares if you want but I don't believe in taking time away from the game (unless of course, I lost say 3 points on 2000 shares or something of that nature). The game after my worst game of 2002 was an up day for me. ***Decide to trade very carefully and slowly.*** For my style I have to take a lot of shots and unless I substantially modify my TECHNIQUE there is no way I can cut down the number of shots. I did cut down my size (haven't took a 1000 share position last 3 games) and I did sat through hours without a shot despite of having a deficit on Friday. ***Stop looking for a trade!*** Then why bother to show up for work? ***Sit and wait for the right trade to yell at you from the screen*** Horrible advice right there, if you sit there for hours without a shot, chances are when the right trade does come you will miss it. When we are in a slump the trades that yell at us from the screen are usually invitations to be ran over by a truck, you lose that sense of being right when you are down which is precisely why you must keep shooting with 100 shares if neccessary so you can keep your mind in the game. Sitting through hours without doing anything AND maintain the intense concentration at same time is almost impossible. ***Ignore all the trades that wouldn't allow you to get out with smallest loss possible.*** Useless advice, any trader worth his salt will be churned to death, frustration max out then and only then he is vulunerably to take high risk shots. By that time even if someone points a gun to his head, he would have probably took that high risk trade anyway because he already lost it. Everyone gets into that type of situations, when you get blown out it is not because of probability, it is because you lost your cool. ***When you see the right trade don't second guess it.*** Useless advice again, the biggest problem for a trader in a slump is not the inability to take the shots, it is when they do get into a good situation they will get shaken out at the first wiggle. It takes mental endurance to hold through wiggles and your mental endurance is at the all time low when you are in a bad streak. ***Take relatively small profits not allowing them to disappear.*** See above, you take a quarter here lost a pair of 10 cents there and you are back to where you were before. Psychology IS important, but other than taking the neccessary pre-cautions such as cut the size etc there is absolutely nothing one can do about their psychology. You can look at someone else's mental state and you will never ever be able to learn anything from it because you are bleeding slowly to death while he is making a killing. Techniques on the other hand can always be refined, looking at someone else's trades who have done great in this market CAN help you to further fine tune your own techniques. Telling someone what they are doing is wrong without showing them what works is NOT helping. I had a guy who traded profitably and all of a sudden took a big hit in one stock and I didn't even say a word to him, because the expression on his face told me that he will remember that lesson, unless I can show him what do I do to make money in this market, I shut up and play.
Hitman, i NEVER said not to trade the opening 30 minutes... go back and carefully read what I said about your Friday trading... I often trade the open... indeed gap fills (gap fades) can be a positive expectancy trade. I steer clear of immediate entries in the same direction as a gap... in those situations I wait for a 30 minute confirming breakout. Good trading. Regards, Candle P.S. Your vitriolic dismissal of Threei's (Vadym's) article points to a worrying degradation in your personality Hitman, I sense you are a different person these days.
I love it. Hitman you're a trip. How can you downgrade an institution like threei? Don't you like syrup? Just because you make your living trading you think you're better than al these wannabes? Don't you realize that free advice is worth what you pay for it. Get with it man.
The above quote sounds exactly like what I've been telling Hitman and SK many posts ago when SK was going through a slump. Apparently Hitman does listen sometimes. He just doesn't like to admit it b/c that means admitting an obvious weakness in his game. It's easy to talk psychology & conviction when you're "in the zone". But when you still have the same conviction as before and all of a sudden you're in a slump, the only thing left is to examine the individual expectation of each trade.
Candle: Look, I have been trading long enough to know what I did wrong when I have a bad day, if you want to be helpful, tell me what you did on Friday, let me see what worked and allow me to ask some questions. I will walk your dog and mow your lawn for that. If you are just trying to point your fingers at my trades after the fact, it won't help anyone. We don't trade the same way, and now, let's say your style is infinitely superior to mine in efficiency etc, I would absolutely positively love to learn about it, but either give me some meat and potato or keep the bones for yourselve, Don Bright style responses won't help anyone except those naive enough to think that crumbs can make oatmeals.
Easy Rider: I have no problem with people posting whatever they want on my thread, I read it and sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes I don't. But it started with someone telling me that I should be thankful that all those great people are offering me advices, and I said I haven't picked up anything useful from anyone other than maybe Tony Oz and Brandon. Then there is all this "you gotta keep an open mind", what hell? My mind IS open but nobody is feeding it with anything other than stuff I can find in any day trading book.
"either I go top tier or I sell hot dogs on Wall street, nothing in between". Now come on Hitman will you really sell hot dogs on Wall street and if you do I hope you don't keep the ones you didn't sell in your bathtub so they can be fresh for the next morning. Maybe you could sell those to the traders still hanging in there at Worldco.
Dottom: In the training manual I wrote for my team during my winning streak, on the first page I outlined exactly what I felt were the weaknesses of it, I even told them what I felt to be weaknesses of me as a trader. So yes, I do listen, but telling me my strategy has certain flaws doesn't help, I trade it of course I know what is wrong with it, every style has flaws and you always try to capitalize on your strength and avoid your weakness. I will say this one more time, either you tell me what works by showing me a few sample trades that you took last a few days, or I don't consider it helping. If you are not willing to go to the point then don't expect me to appreciate your help. Everyone who ever did anything for me I always appreciated and always paid back most of the times far more than what I was given, those that have nothing to offer I am not going to try to squeeze blood out of a stone.
If you want some ideas and good advice talk to risk management ask for the worldco proverbs. I learned a lot from them
Well, son of a gun, hot diggity dog. I might be an old geezer (not really) but this "sounds" like asking for some advice. Candle?