Would you share a trading idea?

http://www.zyworld.com/financialtrader/eds.pdf

edit: bottom of page 2

 

In my opinion, there is very little risk in sharing a trading idea with ET members.

Just by reading the posts over a period of time, I know that very few ET members have any real trading skills, and those who actually have a trading account exhibit very little discipline. For anyone who doubts that, I can direct them to any number of threads and to specific posts, where ET wannabees and fantasy traders talk about their failed "attempts" at trading. Sharing an idea?

I have shared a number of ideas, some of which had (and in my opinion still have), significant value. Although I trade for living using those approaches, I have never received any communication from an ET member who has been able to make them work.

Since I anticipate negative comments from some folks about the value of my comments, let me say that this is not just my experience. Look at Spydertrader's journal. How many ET members have displayed the discipline and work ethic necessary to make money with it. Not too damn many I can assure you.

There have been a number of examples going all the way back to an ET member whose name was "no pm please" (Emini Divergence). He was able to take $30,000 and run it up into several hundred thousand in a couple of years. He was kind enough to post the complete method for us all. Read the posts, very few learned to do more than complain about how hard it was to hold on while the trade worked out. This it typical of ET members. No guts, no glory.

Now some of you may get pissed of that I am pointing this out. You may say I am exaggerating or that I am wrong. I dont think so. If I am, lets see someone search out and bring to everyone's attention the many posts where people indicate that they have made money using an "idea" that was shared here.

I look forward to all the positive replies proving me wrong.

Steve

 

Aptly put! Sharing with others trading rules or secrets is no guarantee for automatic success. It takes discipline and other human elements to succeed.

 

Indeed. In almost any endeavor one chooses to take on, be it trader, actor, first baseman, business manager, professor, what-have-you, we all have opportunity, both personally and professionally. That's a bit of my point, we all possess the "goods", we all have the chance to excel. Yet how many do? The world is filled w/mediocrity. Only a relative few really shine thru. That's just a fact. Talent is that elusive, ultimately indefinable quality that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. "Knowledge, skills and experience" may be components of success, but w/o talent to bring them to a higher plane, where they meld into one another till you can't distinguish one from the other, they remain mechanical and uninspired. Talent is that extra "oomph", that ethereal "something" that enables one to succeed where others fail in exactly the same circumstance w/exactly the same tools.

Some might say that talent is in a way simply a greater passion, that it transcends the mind and taps into the spirit, so that science becomes art, and the mere practitioner becomes the artist.

H

 

Would I share my trading idea? My 'edge'?

No way.


There is nothing to gain and absolutely everything to lose by sharing.

What do I gain by sharing an edge? Putting money in another traders pocket? That warm fuzzy feeling from being a 'nice guy'?

Like another poster mentioned, there are better ways to act charitably then enriching other traders with my hard work.

True, many ET members couldn't achieve profitability with a cash cow system even if it was spelled out for them.

But how many more members and lurkers who DON'T post could make that system profitable? Or code it and resell it? Only to have it resold again and again?

That’s a fantastic money maker right there - if a mechanical edge existed in the public domain and one had the programming skills to black box it. Or start a signals service. Or sell to a hedge fund. etc etc. Free money.

Discussing general market observations is a different idea entirely and something I’m open to.

Btw, thanks to Steve46, Acrary and others for pushing the importance of dependence and serial correlation in successful strategies. Those posts served to confirm my 'ideas' of market behavior.


On the other hand, if you're inclined to share an edge and regard 'cagey' traders – like me - paranoid for protecting an idea they unduly feel would 'self destruct' in the public domain, more power to you.

To each his own.


Btw, the idea that sharing an edge is an innocuous and harmless endeavor because ‘everything has been done under the sun’ is a red herring.

Every profitable strategy may have very well been conceived. But that DOES NOT mean each of those ideas has been completely defined and detailed in the public domain. Many of those profitable strategies are kept secret for good reason.

Honestly ask yourself if you developed a strategy that turned 5 grand in 5 million (im not saying I have), would you ‘share it’? LOL!!

And if you do manage to create an exceptional edge, what are the chances members of an internet chat board struggling for profitability can contribute anything meaningful to it??

Honestly.

 

Regarding Steve46's post:

No_pm_please's posts are a good example of the point I was trying to make earlier about sharing discretionary trading ideas. No_pm offered a completely disclosed method and it benefitted me. But I'll never be competing with him for entries. I took what worked for me in his method and applied it in my own way. There are number of traders on ET who regularly share ideas, methods, offer advice. My efforts to share some of my methods has only sped up my learning curve via other traders' input (both positive and critical).

I think this exchange of ideas reflects ET at its best.


Thru

 

Kiwi, as you now know, I recently published the only complete version of Turtle events.