You would have to be crazy to trade at $700/car margin when doing this for a living. There's just no reason to use such high leverage: a run of bad luck would take you out of the game completely, and trading on the edge like that will screw with your mind. Use $5-$10,000 per car and you can't say that you return 100,000% per year, but your maximum potential dollar profit will be the same: that's a function of how many cars you can throw at the market. Note here that Sicktrader is a) doing this thread as a stunt/demonstration and has repeatedly said he uses a less aggressive MM strategy on his real account, and b) evidently has tons of cash sitting around that's always available when he needs to "top up" his trading account.
Sick is one of the most interesting posters we've had here in a long time. Why do people attack before they see how it plays out? Sick only managed FOUR trades before he was tarred & feathered and run out on a rail. Let the guy show us what he's got.
Yeah, T, I haven't posted anything all weekend. Where's my $100 from Pekelo? I'm no wannabe hedge fund. I'm there. No sane person would seriously trade $700 per contract as their position size. Many people will read this thread and see both traderzones and myself, as well as any other basher was spot on. I took the line he'll quit before Wednesday without ever providing proof of his trades. Sick is just another example of a wannabe trader that thinks you can get instant fame by flash in the pan enormous profits. He would have had subscribers at collective2 by now, but that's beside the point. Sick is really offensive on so many levels to traders that work hard to prove their methods, and especially for those who have. I see Atticus post as the very first post in this thread, that was more or less asking for proof. There are two things I look for when deciding whether someone knows how to trade: 1) is strategy, and 2) is money management. He failed both of these on a yes-no test. TZ suspected he was another looney alias claiming to turn their $500 life savings into 6 figures in less than 6 months, because the claim is so prevalent that it instantly attracts attention. Every trader knows that doesn't happen, and I have a lot of input as to who the newbies in this forum are: ie:they are anyone that gave sick any chance to do what he was saying. You didn't need to see anymore trades, because you already know the outcome is a total loss as it's too much leverage at 10%/0.2%=50:1, and that's not pseudo intellectual conversation, that is an actual calculation from the CFA exam. More relevant to options pricing in calculating the delta, but it works just the same for futures.
You don't need to see anything from him. The leverage would have destroyed the account. It's better that he leaves, so we can talk about more serious strategies and trading methods.
I still don't get you. He may have blown his account in 3 days, he may have lasted 3 weeks but why didn't you guys just let it play out and let him fail on his own? Seriously if someone wanted to start a journal claiming to make their trading decisions by dropping dried up chicken bones into a ceramic bowl over an open flame shouldn't they have the right to do so? Do I think that person would have a snowball's chance in hell of successfully trading? Absolutely not. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to have their journal does it? Should they have their thread invaded by people posting page after page calling them a liar, or an idiot? They would learn soon enough without your bombardment of negativity that chicken bones and a ceramic bowl does make for profitable trading.
For the same reason I got on someone in a famous thread called MMO and Cramer's pink tie for a psychologist that thought they could read what the market was going to do essentially by watching TV and observing how the commentators were dressed and how they were acting. It was the world's first mood ring trading system, and sicks system is no different for the same reason that money management without a strategy is not to be paid attention to. If someone comes on here and says I'd <i>like</i> to turn $700 into $200k is one thing, saying that <i>he can</i> do it and this is by when without how is offensive. Sure we'd all like to do it, but the serious trader is far more rational than sick is. Sick is definitely a compulsive gambler and alcoholic, or at least appears to be an alcoholic and that came through more in his deleted threads. I let it play out but now he's leaving because he knows he can't do it, and I could provide more colorful reasons why not, but the bottom line is that he will not be able to provide proof even of the trades he claims to have done. If he wants a fair shot, he can go to collective2, or submit the TS code to futurestruth.com. Though, if he's only been around trading for 30 days he has no ability to do this, because it takes a lot more time. I'm gald to see you understand what he's doing would lead to failure, but you got to understand there is always a sucker out there, and I'd find it unfortunate if I could have done something to prevent someone from losing money with this yahoo. Losing money is one thing, losing all of it is inexcusable, and that's what's going to happen. And we all know it, so there's not much else I need to say.
Dammit - you promised you would never divulge my personal strategy to the trading public. Thank God you didn't also give away the all-important concept of moisture content. Thanks for nuthin' ...
I am not saying you should not have posted one, maybe two warnings to newbies that this type of strategy "is not to be paid attention to". Post after post, after post was just over the top too much though. The ultimate truth is ST pretty much used you and TZ to help him keep his thread at the top of the forums in much the same way Alex from PureTick goads people into continuously posting in his thread to keep them near the top. Although it really is pretty smart of them to do this.
Blowinsky, there are thousands of threads on ET and nothing stopping you from starting thousands of your own to discuss whatever strategies you want to discuss. Why is it you fel you are the final arbiter of what people should and should not discuss? Why don't you just go back to your own little journal?