Go to the wayback machine and search trading for dummies. There you will find a modern day miracle. A successful trader giving up the keys to the kingdom. So, what will you find here in this journal? A trader making his comeback, someone, who will also give you a set of keys to the kingdom! I know what you are thinking, "This paper trader is delusional as fuck!" You might be right. You may also be thinking, especially if your system involves mean reversion, trading illiquid instruments, or the necessity of not competing for shares, that will fuck up my system. Mine does not. The pathway to my system: trend trading works - see TfDummies since 2008 my sole mission has been to find a way to adapt this to futures Why futures? tax advantages over trading options or stocks, google it the ability to scale up Why give it away? it would be very difficult to code even still, the method would work on AAPL, futures or any other instrumenr that moves - liquidity would no longer be a problem, but the tax man remains the only one who could bring down Al Capone as long as the system remains in the hands of a trader, I know how hard it is not to tinker with it, only trade when it sets up, hold for hours, call an audible on a stop, etc., the realities of trading There are two principles that I live by. Seek and you shall find and "What you make happen for others the Universe will happen for you." Some people call that karma. Others call it sowing and reaping. Persistence and a little bit of good karma is like the Hadron Collider. You are the miracle! Destiny collides with desire! I will tell you what I will also give you, an audited report to back up what I am teaching here. For that you have to wait. I have yet to get out of debt and fund my account. Truthfully, it has been in the last week and a half that I realized, actually realized, a simple way to accomplish my mission. What made dummy trades work in the stock market universe? Gaps on high volume, expansion and contraction, entry and exit criteria that were repeatable while protecting equity and taking full advantage of trending moves. What didn't work? Trading the indices in the direction of the gap is a bad strategy in and of itself. The eminis, oil and other instruments often times will trade off of news that comes at any time during the day. Indicators lag, so I never found a consistent way of using the MACD or some other momentum indicator to accomplish what I needed. What did work? Keeping this journal. Giving away info that I believe to be useful. Why am I so certain? The 3bt pattern is something that I stumbled upon keeping this journal. It does not setup on every trend day. However, when it does it takes advantage of the internal mechanics of the dummy system. Expansion! Contraction! Expansion! It is also not as clean in the indices as it is on a mid-cap that just knocked earnings out of the park. That is where experience comes in. That may be a benefit, or detriment, to your results. I know, for a fact, that many will make more money than me who follow this system. What is more important, to me anyway, is if I follow the system. It is also important that I give it away as the original system was given to me. Analyzing my losing trades made me realize something. I have ONE golden arrow in my quiver. From here on out, I will ONLY analyze my WINNING trades, at least on the journal. For those who are playing along, just pull up a 30' chart of the future or ETF equivalent. (This is the part where I normally say your welcome. It is actually a thank you to the Chairman.) @eyal I will still post each trade as I take it, but that is only to benefit me; to keep me honest. Seek and you shall find. What you make happen for others, the Universe will make happen for you.
All we have seen thus far is a lot of trades, and your balance from the starting point of $5,000...Your current balance is $5,100?
@shopster posted this: Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money. I think that if people look deeply enough into their trading patterns, they find that, on balance, including all their goals, they are really getting what they want, even though they may not understand it or want to admit it. A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. Thatâs the kind of thing winning traders do. Systems donât need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible. I donât think traders can follow rules for very long unless they reflect their own trading style. Eventually, a breaking point is reached and the trader has to quit or change, or find a new set of rules he can follow. This seems to be part of the process of evolution and growth of a trader. Feelings naturally appear during trading. The feelings we donât like seem to have roots deep in our unresolved issues. Somehow they get stuck and do not finish passing through, and can cloud the judgment and interfere with trading. The feelings we do like seem to pass through quickly without much trace. I suggest getting to know your feelings, by experiencing them, expressing them, letting them pass through and finding out they are pretty much all good ones. Jet engines work best when they are open at both ends. A trader at one with his feelings feels nothing between himself and executing his method. I usually ignore advice from other traders, especially the ones who believe they are on to a âsure thingâ. The old timers, who talk about âmaybe there is a chance of so and so,â are often right and early. I donât judge success, I celebrate it. I think success has to do with finding and following oneâs calling regardless of financial gain. The elements of good trading are cutting losses, cutting losses, and cutting losses To avoid whipsaw losses, stop trading Ed Seykota
Today was quite a boring trading day. I took one trade, and it did not really move. No big deal there! In the interest of pure entertainment I thought of a great game for Elite Trader. It is called, "Name that Trader." The unknown trader offered this piece of advice to become a better trader: Good points all around. I have a plan, I have found it hardest to stick to it in the heat of the moment. And as I am discovering, dressing up nicely (not really a suit, just a Tee and Jeans and definitely not boxers) is helpful. Can you Name that Trader? At least now I know why certain body parts stick to this leather chair. I never even thought to wear boxers!
That's a really fun game. Haha you are so clever. So stop trying to distract from your own issues, and show us how you are doing with the $5,000 opening balance, minus commish and fees. Hello, yes? You are not being honest here.
For me the worst question on any job application is, "Have you ever been fired from a job?" The easier question would be what jobs have I not been fired from? I had just been terminated from a full seevice gas station for smoking weed at work and needed some quick cash. My girl was riding me and it became clear that she was tired of me sitting around the house. Sandee worked for the State Attorney's office and I guess she had bought into the American dream, work - work - work! That has never been my dream. Johnny Rock has always been a man of leisure, but if I must work, it is important to keep my mind right. Amoco did not agree. There were not many full service gas stations in the area, but the few that existed, ownership knew one another. What was I going to do for work? My friend Doug told me that if I went to the labor pool, and did not show up drunk, I could probably land a full time job. Okay, bet! I didn't really understand the nature of a labor pool and showed up around 2:30 the next afternoon. As luck would have it they needed one man at the ice cream factory. I spent the next ten hours in a freezer stacking 5 gallon drums of ice cream on pallets. I never came out for air. The boss was so impressed he offered me a full time job. The hours were perfect. Come in around 5 pm everyday, spray all the chocolate and ice cream off the conveyor belts and machines, and run a few chemicals through the pipes. You hose the equipment first, otherwise it sticks, and takes forever to remove. That was the most time consuming task and took a good hour or so to do right. So this is where I meet Artie. Artie would rue the day I was hired on as his side kick. We had a good thing going. After the machines were sprayed down our job was to re-route the pipes in different configurations and add a chemical cleaner to clean the insides. The remainder of the shift would mostly be watching and waiting. Artie lived close by and his girl, Karen, didn't seem to mind if we dropped by and hung out. We had free reign at the factory and Artie had a penchant for cocaine. I would dabble, mostly geeking joints and getting my head right. On Old Tampa road there was a rock and roll club and I could not even tell you who was playing that night. Cocaine has never been as expensive as the bar tab that comes along with it! This would be the first time I would ever see it snow in FL. Remember when the youngsters were making it rain? Way before that Miami was making it snow. Instead of immediately spraying the machines, Artie had an idea, let's go see Karen. Bad idea. That would not be the last time I experienced a FL blizzard. We never made it back to ole Larry's Ice Cream. It took an entire production crew one full day to clean up the caked up mess the following day. Oh well, easy come easy go. Sandee wasn't too happy, so the following Monday I show up to Labor Ready - and boy was I ready - at 5:00 am. Now I know how it works. Show up early and sober. Gotcha. About 7:00 am I am still there with at least 20 people. The man behind the desk says, "I need one man to 'throw' garbage." I jumped up. Nobody else even budged. Minimum wage was $3.35 at the time. I could care less. Sandee was on my back. The only way to get her back, on her back, was to get back to work! This would end up being a turning point in my life. A positive one. Steve, Tubbs and I are on the way out to the Timberlane subdivision in the western part of the county. These were small, working class homes stacked on top of each other. The route was compact and heavy. "Player, you ever thrown garbage before?" I can't say that I have, but in reality, how hard can it be? I simply responded, "Nope." On the first street a customer brings three beers out to the truck. It is not even 8 am. I knew I found my niche - a legitimate job where my coworkers shared similar values. Drinking, smoking weed and the occassional tab of acid. There are times in life when one must walk through open doors. This was one of those times. We worked through blistering heat, torrential rains and even the occasional cold spell - the cold spells were the worst. You didn't even want to get out of the truck. Like me, many of my fellow employees of Peterson Corp. on Linebaugh Ave. knew the power of getting one's head right. Dave and Delano were like brothers to me. Delano was the driver, so he didn't partake when we were on the clock, but he didn't care what Dave and I did as long as we brought the route in. But we better do it fast. I had dropped acid once before when working with Theto and it gave me super human strength. I was no longer bound by the limitations of my mind. The route came in on record time. No kidding. LSD was a wonder drug. Sometimes I wonder, "What the hell was I thinking?" A different time and a different place, for sure. Dave and I decided to do a tab for our Saturday morning routes. The company had switched grom three man trucks to two man trucks, but most routes were done by 10:30 am on Saturdays. We had to time this right. It can take a minute for LSD to kick in, and generally, lasts about eight hours. Our plan was to peak on the truck. Dave and I were already tripping before we hit the yard. This morning we were stuck on stupid. There were only a handful of white guys at Peterson at the time. Both of us are in our early twenties, decked out in work boots and all of our hair band glory. It was a different time and a different place. Yo! MTV Raps was our favorite show. We would drink Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull and talk like we were black. We would joke around with his Mom and say, "We are 65 year old ni**as doing the work of these young jitterbugs." Did I mention Delano was black? So on this particular Saturday morning on the way out to Race Track Road I am starting to peak and I keep repeating the mantra, "I am a 65 year old ni**a doing the work of these young jitterbugs." Delano shouts, "You are not a nigger!" Okay, its best I keep my mouth shut and just bring the route in. Out on Race Track Road is a parcel of land subdivided into plots of about 10 acres each with ranch style houses, horses, and peace of mind. Very seldom did you see the customers in this area. But this day would be different. I see this giant of a man with huge popeye arms. For the most part you know what is a hallucination if you know how to handle the substances desiring to hnandle you. Acid is a friendly drug! At least it was to me. I grab the can, spin around and shoot the garbage in the truck. It saves a few steps, but I did it because it looked cool. The garbage would fly througj the air and if it was not in bags it would resemble a shotgun blast. So, when I set the can down and look again, here is this giant standing right in front of me. It was the wrestler Rick Rude. Rick would always come to the ring while they played the song Smooth Operator. Here he was with his wide lats and jacked up biceps. I decide to flex! I raised my arms like Lee Haney and kissed each bicep. Rude wasn't having it! Not at his house. Rick cut a promo on me and I took off running to the next house. Since that day I have always been aware of the limitations of the mind. Because of that day I am also aware of how our minds can play tricks on us. It was not until I entered the world of day trading that I became fully aware of how delusional I could be! It was not until I entered the world of elite trader that I realized, "I am not alone!" For that I am thankful.
Keep in mind that the barchart is delayed, but you can see the watetfall action on the 5'. I posted the 30' for two reasons: to show yesterday's inside day (contraction) I will be looking for the 3bt pattern to develop for a potential short