Want to bet on your statement? I am a small trader. You are welcome to bet against me. Post your acceptance of my bet proposal in my thread "2012 Trading Journal of 2steps." For your convenience, I will repeat my bet proposal here: If I lose (how much? by what time? your choices), I will invite you to a restaurant of your choice in a city of my choice. If I win (how much? by what time? your choices), you will invite me to a restaurant of my choice in a city of my choice. Let everybody see that you really believe in your own statement: small traders just lose! To OP: You may shadow me if you want to, I don't mind being watched at all. As a matter of fact, almost all my letters arriving in my mailbox were checked by the US Post Office (the post office tax money supported parasites would open a corner of the back flap of the envelope and make sure that I know they are watching me. I hope they will go bankrupt soon!!!). I am sure they are checking my email and recording my phone conversations as well. These days the memory technology makes it very cheap for tax money supported parasites to record vast numbers of phone conversations of innocent citizens. Used to be prohibitively expensive to record conversations on magnetic tapes, now a little chip can store so many phone conversations and videos. NO BAILOUT for US Post Office parasites!!!
I find it super annoying just having my cat in my office snorring let alone someone watching me. We all get into our "grooves" of being alone in our little man caves, concentrating totally on my charts hoping I hit the buy button instead of sell button. I never found anyone in the past who gained much knowledge for a day or week watching me trade while I lost opportunities trying to explain what was going on, or miss tightening up stops while talking. Only the students I had who sat with me for one to six months would gain value when I did that fifteen years ago. It's just easier to do over the phone at times when markets slow down than for most to lose out on great running Price in morning session. As far as someone learning my 'edge' watching me, an inexperienced trader couldn't learn much of anything. Just be a waste of his time and loss of profits on my side.
At the urging of my wife I am actually considering letting someone watch some of my trading for 60 or 90 days. Here is why: We are accustomed to travelling a great deal -- mostly in Europe -- yet have actually traveled very little in the past three years as I have devoted myself to learning the very complex art of trading intraday. Those of you who are tempted to tell me how simple it is and that I must be a moron to consider it complex please just go somewhere out of sight and die! I have funded the first two years of full time trading and learning out of pocket and was fortunate to end up almost break even. I was profitable for the first time in 2011 and things get a bit stronger every month. That said, up until quite recently the minimum wage was more or less an OK month. It is now a chunk better than that (OK ... maybe two chunks) but it is still a struggle. The bottom line is I am a discretionary trader who is succeeding yet not yet consistent enough or profitable enough to think of myself as yet a success. I now know enough to share important information with a novice and can probably save him a year and some thousands of dollars. That said I will not share information on my very short term scalps. Liquidity can be an issue in the very short time frames and while I am not suggesting I have invented the wheel I have no interest in sacrificing any liquidity. But in the "longer" trades ... the intraday swing trades particularly in ES I am willing to be quit open. We want to spend some time in Europe and if we connect with someone who has comfortable lodging for us I would teach you what I have learned. A separate apartment on or near your property would obviously be ideal but we would consider a room in a larger house that had real privacy and a private bath. Let me be clear: Luxury, while nice, is not a prerequisite. An interesting city -- Mumbai, Bangkok, Madirid, Rome, Naples -- I love Naples!! -- Kiev or Prague with modest lodging and people who are interesting is MUCH more important to us than luxury. our time frame is leaving New York sometime after May 1st. We wold require two reasonably powered computers -- my wife trades with me, at least four screens total and a REAL broadband connection. Please understand that before we agree we would hire -- at our expense -- an IT guy in your city to check out the connection. I cannot make money on connections that many people consider adequate. Maybe they can but I can not. Why do we want to do this? As I said we want a change but it is also important to us that we do not deplete our capital. Money is fuel in this business and I want a surplus of fuel as we struggle to make this work in a major way. My guess is that it will be very difficult to find the other side of this transaction. Not because we do not have anything of value -- both you and us -- but because this is not like buying a loaf of bread or renting a hotel room. I have no intention of talking this to death here in the thread although I might answer a question or two from the non-moronic contingent here at ET. Trolls and morons are gently requested to post somewhere else. If intrigued send me a PM and then we will talk by Skype. I am prepared to prove we have something to offer and will set up a private webinar for you to view some days of my trading before we commit to anything. Strange one, huh?
OP: Here is a daytrader with trend pullback / oversold reversal tactics that really helped me. I then coded up a similar system and back tested it on various stocks. It is definitely profitable. At one time he was offering a one week trial of his live trading room service. He uses this technique in up trending stocks. http://www.tradestocksamerica.com/trading-room.php
This is an interesting proposal. If I lived in one of those cities I would be tempted to take you up on it. Unfortunately I'm in boring ol' US of A.
Not sure if making it simple or complex is really that important. Making money is what is important. Really the only important aspect of trading is making money. There are no significant ancilliary benefits, unlike most other professions. Make money or stop trading. For me, the more simple I make my trading, the more profitable I am. I am a level I tape reader, scale in and scale out of positions, add to winners and remove from losers. That is about it. I am profitable 19/20 days with the losing day less than $500. Winning days range from $200 - $2,000 / day with an average of about $700/day. Then again, I don't trade a wide assortment of vehicles; no natural resource companies, no oil & gas, no pharma, no futures, no options, no ETFs, no FOREX...I could go on. No stochastics, no 50/200 MA, no crossovers, no MACD, no volume, etc....next step is to get rid of the charts. If visiting South Florida, anyone can drop by and watch me trade. Magellan