I think the P&Ls of certain posters are very inspiring but there is one major flaw to the thread. This flaw is illustrated by one individuals habits in particular. Someone, who I won't name, posted consistently over the last few weeks with consistently big days...$5-15k daily. Then the $ machine broke down, as it does for all traders. What did this trader do? He ran for the hills and we haven't heard from him since. When times are good, you can't shut him up--he loves to self-congratulate. But where is he when the going gets tough? It's the tough times that prove the truly great traders from the flashes in the pan. Ok, so why do I have a problem with this guy and/or posters like him? The problem I have is that it creates what they call in the field of psychology "Survivorship Bias". In a nutshell, the P&L thread is mostly good P&Ls and very few negative ones because traders don't like to post the latter. Those that get posted are inherently going to be good ones. This produces a systemic mis-representation and offers FALSE hope, not reality, to junior traders. The solution? First, don't visit the thread if you've been trading less than a year. Your time is better spent studying the craft of trading, not gawking at the 'success' of others. Second, if you do visit, follow just one or two guys. Do your research on who you follow. Only follow the guys who post daily for months and months and who post the good the bad and the ugly. These guys are the real deal and represent success AND reality. Ignore the rest.
I agree with your thoughts. I've always enjoyed the P&L thread and it gives me a good reference on how I'm doing. Seeing some impressive numbers has motivated me to improve my trading. I have a lot of respect for anyone who posts on it consistently no matter the result. It annoys me that there are some who come post their 'lucky' day and you never see them again. The most likely reason is that they are losing money the rest of the time. This gives new traders a false impression in my opinion.
Each individual gets from ET what they want to get - pure and simple. I don't think in the BIG picture there is anything wrong with someone posting A GREAT DAY -- even IF they never post again! It is very neat to see someone WHACKING THE MARKET for some coin --- IMO. With the wins, comes losers BUT I would bet those posting sporadic BIG days, do not have as many losing days, nor sizable losses AS you would think. But heck, WHO knows ... for me, I post consistently WHEN I am in WORK MODE....
I don't believe anyone should post results without first substantiating it and then do it consistently on everyday bases. The problem with that thread is it's admin who only cares about posting numbers to increase it's readership. I have previously posted there but received very discouraging PM from it's admin because of posting substantiated results and talking about encouraging another poster who had in fact also posted his trade list after seeing mine in there and the dumb admin deleted my post and sent me a ridiculous PM that he only cares about posting raw numbers and to increase the reads. How much falser can it get. I wish someone would launch a new thread whereby the posters would be requested to post their more info on their trading without disclosing any confidential data. I have already done something similar on another board very successfully when I needed to demonstrate that 2% a day is possible with scalping. Each run was for a complete month consecutively reporting every trading day and with full info and supporting reports and even statements. That way the audience can benefit quite a lot and the expectations will be based on reality, to the contrary as is done in the PL thread here is a waste of time. Like I said, the problem here is with the shortsighted narrow minded admin of the PL thread who not only discourages posting substantiated results but very rudely deletes the ones posted when encouraging those who did.
I posted this in the Trader P/L thread, but it will probably be deleted so here it is: I'm confused by Peabo's ELN positions. He never seems to take a loss on ELN after riding each long position through painful drawdowns. His magical mystery basis price always seems to go lower than possible. Peabo can you explain? Peabo's ELN position Aug 28: 1900 shares, basis of 19.215 Peabo's ELN position Aug 29: 2300 shares, basis of 18.869 Your blotter says you traded only 400 shares today. If you bought 400 shares at ELN's low of the day 18.81 then your basis would be at 19.14. Even if you bought 400 at the overnight low of 18.50 then your basis would still be 19.087 at the lowest. I've seen your basis in ELN be way lower than what seems possible many times in the past. Am I miscalculating? Can you clarify?
In general, I believe the posts on the p&l thread and I like seeing what kind of a day it was for other traders. It's one of the best threads on ET. I believed nysekiller last year until that day when he claimed to have traded umpteen million shares of F. There's one current poster I'm slightly skeptical about, but hey, there's no reason for me to get bent out of shape about it and no reason for others to get bent out of shape because there's a skeptic. Getting bent out of shape isn't good for trading.
Hi Cpt Power, I'll be glad to explain. There are others that use MB Trading that can attest to this problem. If you strictly daytrade using MB Trading, all numbers will be accurate. If you hold overnight positions, your actual cost basis gets changed to the closing price for the day, so you can't rely on the cost basis for swing trades. This is a bug within the MB Trading Navigator platform. I don't intentionally want to mislead anyone. If you follow my trades, ignore my overnight positions because the cost basis will not be accurate. To illustrate: Peabo's ELN position Aug 28: 1900 shares, basis of 19.215 The next day, my cost basis on these 1900 shares was changed to 18.86 (closing price for Aug 28). Peabo's ELN position Aug 29: 2300 shares, basis of 18.869 My new (incorrect) cost basis was 18.86 plus the 400 shares I purchased on Aug 29th. My real cost basis should have been 19.215 plus the 400 additional shares, NOT 18.86 plus the 400 additional shares. Hope this helps!