If it were not so sad, it would be funny, and these guys charge thousands to teach others to trade. Yet the line of people does not end.
I watched a few of those competitions. It was basically just a publicity thing put on by Infinity. The "competition" rules forced them to trade. So if someone did not trade and therefore lost no money, but his competitor took a trade and lost, the trader that lost money was the winner. They also had to close their trades by 10:30 ET. If they were in a trade and did not close it, it did not count. Some of the contestants stated that they did not normally trade the opening hour (9:30 - 10:30 ET) but would for the competition. If you look at the link above, you'll see that both the finalists lost money, Hoffman just lost less. I am not a Hoffman fan. Right after his humiliating $312K blowout losing trade last July he changed his style, and stopped teaching scaling-in (Martingale). After a bit he started pitching "small trader trades" - "large account wealth building trades". In effect small traders should not scale, wealth builders could. He limited his small trader trades, typically one contract and no more than four. But by doing the occasional risky large trade he could throw around thousands rather than hundreds when doing his sales pitches. I just attended one of the TTM free trading room events and noticed that Hoffman is once again teaching up to 10 contracts and scaling for small traders. He is good at teaching patience and waiting for his price-action setups. But he does not like to take a loss. His ego and martingale technique will get him again, it's just a matter of time.
The main premise of these trading firms and these competitions is marketing. The marketing allows for 'churn' to not impact the revenue stream.
Hmm... I have read John Carter's book, and thought it far from the worst trading book I have come accross. I sometimes watch the free videos, but have never been tempted to subscibe to TTM. I didn't know about Rob Hoffman's big loss last year, it seems rather odd that Carter & Senters are still associated with Hoffman to be honest, after that sort of loss in a single day/position. Does anyone know how much he made/claims to have made in the year before the loss ? Just interested.
You should watch this video from Carter & Senters talking about how they expected Rob to eventually blow up. In other words, they PREDICTED that Rob would eventually blow up! "...I tell you what...I just can wait to see him blow up...and you know it's gonna happen!" (both of them laughing) "...but you know he's gonna blow up" (laughing) "...that's a recipe for disaster....no stops" Here's the link to the video: http://www.mrswing.com/articles/When_Will_Rob_Blow_Up.html
What you describe there is not any type of serious trading contest... it is merely enticement for the prime majority of high-value target audience those outfits seek. Nobody can accomplish anything in one designated hour of trading, not in any instrument or any market condition. That is just a joke. The reason they structured that event as such is simple: the vast majority of men interested in trading are interested in day-trading, are primarily interested in short-term or "scalping" trading. The vast majority of men interested in trading are not really interested in the making money part: they are action junkies at heart. They want to trade actively every day, preferably all day and night with nothing else in their lives except trading's constant adrenaline flow. An hour contest fits into their attention span. Any longer than that, a vast majority will click away to check out what's going on in the two - three other room and two - three other message board threads they frequent all day. So in order not to lose the attention of their prime candidate audience, "contest" structure is as such. Secondly, the whole trading world from rank newbie to somewhat experienced to seasoned veteran individual all the way thru battle-tested hedge fund managers has contracted. Greatly. This is an industry which has shrunken noticeably. The vast majority who churn thru quickest are the at-home gamblers, aka action junkies. The most stable group in our industry are the men and women who are serious about trading for money, are willing to adapt themselves into whatever present markets require. If that means fewer trades for longer holds, fine. If that means sitting idle from noon until the next business day because price action is dead, so be it. Whatever it takes. Seen any people who post umpteen trades per day in ES or CL or whatever when ranges are totally sideways and dead? Seen any of those same people doing it again and again and again? Why is that? Are they in for the money? Not hardly. And that is the prime candidate client for TTM operation. Someone desperately hoping that someone else can show them how to win every trade for years without taking a loss. Someone who can show them how to "scalp" quick profits for multiple shots of adrenaline jolts. Stocktwits and public message boards used to be full of them. In current economic conditions, there are fewer and fewer all the time. A greater percentage of current active traders do not fall into this category, and they are not prime targets for the action junkie marketing approach. ** As for Hoffman and his eventual return to Martingale tactics: I have never met or seen anyone who at one time or another made big money returns for even a brief period of averaging down, ever able to quit that habit forever. Once they see = experience high win %s and big money result from averaging down, they will keep going back to that forever with hopes of fixing that one little nagging detail about losing it all in one fell swoop. I would personally be shocked if Hoffman can ever give up the Martingale fallacy forever. If so, he'd be the first,
I think there are three basic types: 1) those who care more about the "action" than the money, 2) those who care more about the money than the trades, 3) those who care more about the trades than the action and/or the money