Institutional Equivalent Education?

No problem Dave,
Although there are a few MT4 indicators which rely on 3rd party external data,they all have limitations compared to using the equivalent on a platform which has the correct data feed.

One other thing, most of Ray's students Self Help Group have migrated away from MT4 - even those still trading the Spot FX. Our preferred charting platform is Sierra Chart which is a platform you have to pay for, but it is well worth it. It is fast and Stable ( much better than Ninja Trader, though NT9 is supposedly a big improvement on NT8) , works with Futures or the free FXCM data feed and has very sophisticated Order Flow indicators.

I get not money from Sierra Chart or any other service that I recommend!

An update on my post-Referendum trading:

On Friday 24th I made +1% on the new post-referendum account size. Looking back I was trading too cautiously, due to being aware of the possibility of losing a lot due to overconfidence.
On Monday 27th I made +1.6%. My first 3 trades lost me around 3% purely due to carelessness and not looking at the larger timeframes. So I did quite well to recover from such a bad start.
On Tuesday 28th I lost -2%. Same story as Monday, but with an additional fairly large losing trade. Account total now just above what it was at the end of my referendum trading.
Today Wednesday 29th I made +1.2%. Again the first trade was a maximum loss. After that I grabbed a few smallish profits before making +2.4% on the Crude Inventories (I have only had 1 loss on this so far in 2016). My account is now above the total on Friday evening, but below that for Monday evening.

As you can see, I still have some way to go, even after making a profit every day last week including that big win on the Referendum by using my experience from Crude Inventory trading and Over/Undercooked news trading.

Ian, just stick to the Inventories and play it with bigger risk.

So you get an idea of the variety of differnt trade types Ray's students have learned, here is my skype andswer to a question fom a Self Help Group member about how I trade the Crude Inventory Release. The 'secret' parts part has been edited out and relpaced with xxxxxxxxxxxxx, and so has the name of the member who asked the question. I also posted the unedited version to the Group Skype for all my Self Help Group members - who also have access to the documents I mention which are in our Hipchat 'rooms':-

Hi Ian, I thought I understood the method a while ago but on re-visit do I understand that the non-book map method the entry zone is the area created between the xxxxxxxxxxxx candle? Perhaps I am confusing your discussion of book map with the trad method.

[17:05:43] Ian Foster: There are a few non 'Liquidity Heatmap' ( BookMap, Jigsaw Auction Vista or Sierra's heatmap - only out a few days) ways of trading the Crude Inv . I describe the 'safest' ones in my document, they are: 1. Trade bounces off a xxxxxx- which I call a HVN either the 1 or 2 minute HVN for the initial trade and/or the 30min release HVN which Sam pioneered and which we call the Inventory Level. 2. You can use the Sequence of Events (SOE) method pioneered by Jason M. This is mainly one for people who don't have access to Sierra or Ninja, but you can use it on lots of markets with any charting platform.
[17:11:53] Ian Foster: In addition to those there are the more risky standard News Trading approaches that I use. These are NOT recommended to be used on the Inventories release except for those with experience of trading conventional news events with them. These approaches are much more risky on the Crude Oil Inventories release because it is the only release where the major reaction can be completely the opposite of what it 'should be'. Some info on how I trade standard news events is in Hipchat in the News Trading room.
[17:14:16] Ian Foster: In fact, I counted 4 consecutive Crude Inventory releases where the major price reaction was the opposite to what the release numbers would suggest! So if you use my standard news approach you need to be able to detect when this is happening and it is not just a fake-out.

[17:15:51 XXXX: righty is that the under/over cooked scenarios? I certainly need to fill that gap in my trading experience.
[17:18:26] Ian Foster: Yes, the basic part is the Over/Undercooked trades, but with Crude Oil you need to be much more aware of external factors and Intrinsics.

I think I tried the MT4 cumulative delta indicator a while ago. I don't think it is wise to rely on tick volume. The results seems to vary from broker. I could also be subject to manipulation by a broker (not saying it is, but it could be).

If you are using Trading View, might want to look at the IDC-feed which aggregates volume from different exchanges, brokers and liquidity providers. Not exact but pretty accurate!

More interesting thoughts in the latest email from Boris Schlossberg:
*****************************************************************************************************************************
Lies Traders Tell You

1. Trade with a Positive Risk Reward Ratio

Of all the lies taught in trading this is perhaps the worst. Mainly because it sounds so reasonable. Who wouldn't want to risk $1 to make $2? You only need to be right 40% of the time to win! It's such a seductive pitch. Too bad it's total BS.

Maybe that approach works on swing trading which is much more like a lottery type business model ( You catch one good trend and that can make your year). In day trading the positive risk/reward model rarely works. You need superhuman timing skills and it's almost impossible to maintain your skill/luck over the long term.

What works in day trading is forgiveness. You need to give yourself lots of room to be wrong. You need to create more than one opportunity to resolve the trade profitably. And most importantly you need to trade with a very, very, very negative risk to reward ratio.

I know. One trade. JUST ONE LOSING TRADE! And you will blow a week's worth of profits. Well yes that's an extreme you probably don't want to reach. That is probably too negative a risk to reward ratio. But one losing trade for two days of profits is actually quite doable. In my room I have guys who have gone two, three even three and a half weeks without hitting a losing trade. In the month June I managed to lose money on only two trading days banking 10% for the month, so it's possible. The key to day trading isn't cutting you losers short and letting your profits run -- it's making sure that you can resolve each trade with either a profit or a scratch.

2. When You are in a Losing Streak the Most Important Thing to Do is Stick to Your Strategy!

Yet another platitude that sounds great when you hear it but crumbles under the pressure of real trading conditions. When you lose money the greatest damage done is not to your account, but to your psyche. There is nothing so fragile as a male ego (since 95% of traders are men let's just focus on the lesser sex for this one). The moment you lose, you damage your confidence. I remember in the late 1990's when I was trading stock index futures, I lost 18 straight trades in a row and stopped trading after that for more than 2 years. I followed all the rules. I stuck to my strategy and I basically wound up abandoning the markets because I destroyed the most important thing a trader has -- his sense of self.

So no. When you are on a losing streak the most important thing is not to follow your strategy. The most important thing is to win. If you strategy calls for a 10 pip take profit and you are 5 pips in the money -- take it. Do that two, three, four times in a row until you have your mojo back. Those trades do not matter. They are not part of your "sample". You don't use them to evaluate the long term statistical viability of your strategy. They are there for one purpose only. To make you a winner and to get you comfortable with taking risk again. Which bring me to my third biggest lie.

3. Strategies Matter.

Strategies do not matter at all. All strategies can be divided into two simple trades -- mean reversion or momentum. Everything else is tactics. Which is why the best traders in the world never really follow rules, but rather establish guidelines and constantly adjust against those parameters.

In my trading room we have a great mean reversion strategy. It works more than 90% of the time. Yet not one trader follows it exactly to the tee. Everyone has their own variations not only in tactics but in trade selection, time selection and currency pair selection. That's why when people jealously guard their "secret" strategy I laugh. They may as well guard air -- it's just as pointless. Share your ideas and they will only get better. Hoard them and they inevitably get worse.
*****************************************************************************************************************************
My thoughts on the above:

1. I have mentioned before that Reward:Risk is only theoretical. Ray, Eusebio and other great traders adjust their trades in the context of what is happening (both in the market traded and in the wider financial markets). Thus you may have an idea about what the initial R:R may be and if so, you should also have an idea of the expectancy of the trade. It is only the %Win that makes that makes the R:R remotely useful.
A trader should always be trying to maximise profit for a given risk. This may mean taking trades with poor R:R but a high %win, as well as /instead of taking those with a good R:R.

2. My point above about trading in context is the key thing here. I would never rely on trading a mechanical system with fixed Stop Loss and Target as Boris talks about. So far as losing streaks is concerned, it is important to have records both from your live trading and form, either simulated trading or backtesting. Only if you have those can you know the size of losing streaks which fall within the expected range of results.
Also you should only be trading a trade type where you know you can psychologically and financially handle its expected losing runs and drawdowns. This is why the trend-following 'Turtle' system is impossible for the majority of traders i.e having drawdowns for months if not years at a time.

It is obvious that you should always check if you managed a trade correctly. Post trade analysis is a part of good record keeping because records are useless if on some trades (of the same type) you handled it one way and sometimes a different way without differentiating between them. It is only if you yourself (not accepting results from somebody else) has done the groundwork in order to have as much confidence in your trading as possible. Then if you are trading 'correctly' and getting poorer results than expected you need to look at whether something in the market(s) has changed from the conditions under which you did your initial assessment.

I agree with Boris that snatching profits so as to get a few smaller winners can be a morale boost, but it can also be highly dangerous since you can fall into the trap of always doing that - thus turning a profitable trade type into a much less profitable, or even overall loss-making one.

3. I am agnostic about whether Strategies matter. In think it depends very much on the personality of the trader. He is correct that ultimately there are only 2 Strategies which I would call 'Trend' and 'Counter-trend' or 'Continuation' and 'Reversal'. But there are some traders who just can't Fade and there are some who can only Fade. The most fortunate ones are those who can use both Strategies when appropriate i.e. in the correct Context.

Thus the crucial thing for all 3 types of traders above, is that they learn how to recognise the correct context in which to employ those 2 strategies, as well as a few good tactics for employing the 2 Strategies. Otherwise they will use one Strategy all the time regardless of whether it is appropriate, or they will use them completely at random. Neither of which is any good for their account. I searched for over 10 years before I found a person who could teach me that correct recognition of context and while I am still learning, I have made huge progress thanks to Ray.

I have just been attempting (and failing) to catch up with my emails from 'Your Trading Coach'. I have just been doing those I received in April 2016 and came across one which is about one of may major failings which is lack of consistency.
In one of his emails, Lance Beggs says that consistency is vital to enable you to analyse your failings in order fro your trading to progress to the next level.
He suggests doing a minimum of 20 of the same trade types (consistently) before anaysing them in order to make potential improvements to your trading plan.

His overall trad improvement plan looks like this:

http://www.yourtradingcoach.com/imag...to-fight-1.jpg

Then the actual process within each of the boxes above looks like this:

http://www.yourtradingcoach.com/imag...-do-this-1.jpg
He says:
"
20 trades is of course the absolute minimum required. Feel free to increase it if you prefer larger sample sizes. But do not reduce it. Any less that 20 and your sample size is too small to provide useful data.

Anyway, today I want to discuss a NECESSARY component of this 20 trade review process.

I had a chance to speak to a trader this week who was not progressing well, despite tracking stats for 20 trades at a time.

Here's the thing though...

She was NOT being consistent through the whole sample.

A 20 trade sample is of LIMITED VALUE if it plays out like this:

1. 8 trades from Monday trading YTC Scalper pullbacks to the Major-WS zone.
2. 5 trades from Tuesday trading only from the short side, because "well yesterday all my buy trades sucked."
3. 6 trades from Wednesday... who knows what the plan was here???
4. 1 trade from Thursday trying to jump aboard momentum after a news release

Not good enough!

YOU'RE LACKING IN CONSISTENCY!

If your BUY trades sucked on Monday, that's fine. As long as you haven't hit any money management drawdown limits, then keep trading the same plan on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Finish the series!

Clearly something was wrong. Perhaps it was just you having an off day? Perhaps it was just you failing to adapt to the particular conditions presented by the market that day?

Whatever it was, it will REALLY help to know if it's a problem isolated to just that one day, or have you uncovered a larger and more widespread concern.

So whenever you're starting a new series of 20 trades (or more), please commit to being consistent throughout the WHOLE SERIES.

Document the plan that you will follow throughout the whole series.

Ensure consistency in strategy.

But more than that... consider the following as well.

Ensure consistency in pre-session routines.

Ensure consistency in during-session routines.

Ensure consistency in post-session routines.

Effective growth and development depends upon you identifying what works well. And doing more of it. And identifying what is not working well, in order to improve.

CONSISTENCY is a NECESSARY part of the process!

At least for the whole 20 trade sample.

Changes should only be made AFTER a whole series is complete and the stats and trades have been reviewed."


One of my major failings is that I am trying to master too many markets and too many trade types at the same time. Sam has twice pointed out that I really just ditch everything except the Crude Oil Inventories trades and the Over/Under-Cooked news trades. Yet I keep getting caught up in Ray's enthusiasm for other trades and hget sucked into trying some of them - usually with too late an entry and too big a Stop.

Sam has twice pointed out that I really just ditch everything except the Crude Oil Inventories trades and the Over/Under-Cooked news trades.

Great advice. We can partner to trade 20 inventories and examine the outcome. Let's first agree on a strategy we will CONSISTENTLY apply. Mine is to trade reactions to S/R following the release. If broken, I take the pullback. If not I take the second entry.

BTW, what is over/under cooked news ?

Sorry Muntu, I can't partner with anybody who has not taken Ray's course otherwise if I revealed the methodology I am using I would be breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement.


Over/Under cooked : Undercooked news is where the market is either slow to react enough to the news - so you take the continuation on a hesitation or a pullback. Or even initially goes in the 'wrong' direction as implied by the news outcome - in which case you take the fade on exhaustion.

Overcooked news is where the market reacts too much - so you take the fade on exhaustion.

I was on Skype with a potential new Ray student last night. He told me that he Compass are preparing for Ray to do another full course of classroom sessions in late September or early October.
So anybody interested should get on the early-bird offer and get immediate access to the live room and the prior course material.
Three people took the early-bird back in June/July so they have already had over 2 months plus in addition to getting the next course whenever it takes place. Kevin reported that although he has been trading for several years he had his first profitable week after joining Ray. In fact he has been profitable every week since then and says he made a massive 50% on his account last week.
Jennifer has been doing well too, though she was already fairly consistently profitable before joining Ray.

Naturally both of them joined my Self Help Group which is free for Ray's Students.

That guy I spoke to yesterday was very interesting in that he already had a buddy who has done at least one of Ray's courses. He told me he has been trading for over 25 years , used to trade the S&P but now only trades the CL. He seemed most interested in how much of what Ray teaches can be completely rules-based trading and how much is completely discretionary.

In fact Ray teaches every way he can find that a Trader with 'retail' resources can trade like a top Predatory Prop shop or prop desk at a big institution encompassing everything from macro trades that may last months to scalping the ES or ZB on 'auction charts' such as OFA or NOFT. So while much can be rule based, there are always more discretionary things you can add to them. It is as complete an institutional trading for the retail trader that you can find anywhere.

I had to laugh when he asked me which timeframe charts Ray uses. Ray teaches us using everything from the Monthly charts down to 1 minute and 'Auction ' charts. He says that probably the majority of traders for the Biggest Boys don't use charts at all - just price feeds and other information in order to trade hedges, spreads and statistical arbitrage. Naturally Ray also teaches us about those trade types even though most of us don't have the account size to do it ourselves, because understanding those traders helps us with our simple directional trades.

Sometimes a news release is just TOO GOOD!
The EIA Crude Inventories was a big disappointment for me I only made +1.4% on my account instead of the usual 3% on a more moderate release.

My limit Long front-running the first big lower liquidity didn't get hit. I knew the Bigs wanted to go long when I saw them take out the higher liquidity at 47.53 (from the 5th) and the lower liquidity at 46.10 (from earlier in the session). But I have never had the confidence to enter before the news and hold it through.

Both the FXCM feed for USOIL and my broker's feed for US Light Crude (October) froze for several VERY LONG minutes. When Sierra Chart caught up it showed only 1 lot traded between 46.19 and 46.97.
I had managed to get in 46.99 but unfortunately it then froze for around 4 minutes - so it had already gone up to around 47.18 and re-tested 47.0 before I could do any trade management.

Another interesting email from Boris Schlossberg. I am only quoting the last half since the first half is talking about which one of two strategies is the best - where in my view and I am sure that of all long term students of Ray, both strategies are very poor.
Anyhow here is the 2nd half of Boris' email:

"
Casinos have absolute control because they control the rules of the game and create a fully closed end system. They know as surely as day follows night, as certain as death and taxes that given enough occurrences they will always win, because they have the edge -- because they MANUFACTURED that edge.

Alas, no such certainty exists in the financial markets. Markets are the exact opposite of casinos. They are an open end system where the edge is always fluid and always changing. No system is certain for any length of time. The best example of that in my life occurred very early my career, when as a young broker at Drexel Burnham I helped raise money for commodity fund run by Richard Dennis. Dennis was considered to be a trading god, a man who was one of the original Turtles who was profiled in Market Wizards as the king of trend trading, a man who took $200 and turned it into $100 Million. After we raised money for him Dennis proceeded to lose almost all the funds trading worse than the most rookie retail trader I've ever seen. When it was all over he lost something like $75 Million in a matter of months. Why? Because he was stupid enough to believe that he had a permanent edge. In reality, the great boom in commodity prices was over and trend trading failed to work for more than three decades after that.

You know who doesn't believe in permanent edge? Insurance companies. They, better than anyone, understand that life evolves and changes. They constantly research, constantly adapt and constantly change their products. For example in the 1970's it was a no brainer to sell annuities because most people died of smoking-related illness or cancer and the actuarial table hugely favored in the sellers. But the odds have changed, Better medicine, less smoking and healthier lifestyle have extended the lifespan considerably, so you better believe that insurance companies are not going to "trade that strategy" anymore.

That I think is my answer in a nutshell.

The Casino model is highly seductive because it is static. All you need to win is to repeat the algorithm ad infinitum. Real world is the farthest thing from being static. It is dynamic, always evolving and always demanding reevaluation of your assumptions on a near daily basis. That's why the insurance model is the much better path for traders. Both casinos and insurance companies rely on the law of large numbers, but that's where the similarity ends and to believe that your edge is stable much less permanent is to fall for a Richard Dennis scale of folly. "

****************************************************************
I find it fascinating that Boris has personal experience of the great Richard Dennis consistently losing a total of around $75 Million. No wonder Boris believes in taking profits early.
It is too bad that he didn't make the transition to Ray's style of trading:
1. Always trade Multi-unit so you can manage both your entry size,scale-ins and scale-outs.
2. When trading against the intrinsic value or against the longer term PA or Technicals trade smaller and SCALP, but leave a small position as a runner since you may get lucky and catch a turning point!
3. When trading in line with the intrinsic value, longer term PA or Technicals, trade in progressively larger size dependent upon the number of components in your favour.
Then A). Always take a reasonably early partial profit anywhere from 1/5 th to 1/3 rd to lock in an overall small profit or break-even.
And B). Take the bulk of your profit at a logical target point as determined by PA, technicals, etc.
And C). Use built up profits to re-enter i.e scale-in at appropriate points.
Finally D). Only take a final exit when the probabilities have turned against your trade.

Note that ALL trades start out as a Scalp because you cannot know if or how far they will go in your direction. But the vast bulk of profits are made where you are able to keep taking some profit and re-investing a portion of that on a scale-in. Or at the very least hanging on to a trend for most of its duration. If you are not an out and out Scalper, the important thing is to stay around Break-Even or better until you can catch a bigger trade.

It is too bad that Boris appears unable to do that, so he wont even get a single 10R trade, much less multiple 10R trades in one day much less a
+168% single (multi scale-in/out) trade on Brexit followed by a +34% trade the following Monday. Those figures are for Eusebio I don't have Ray's figures but they would be even better still since he managed over 1 year's target on Brexit alone.

Can you post proof of this incredible claim?

@Hostwey, What is the point in that? Those who think it is not possible will claim it is faked.

Eusebio stopped showing his account statements because it just generated more claims of faking.
Ray isn't allowed to show his account because it is the Prop Firm's account since as an employee he is not allowed to have a personal account.

But anybody who has done the appropriate MAX course(s) can verify that the screenshots of trades that Eusebio posts do only show correct entries and exits.
Note that I don't say that Ray's or Eusebio's results can be replicated by their students, just that they use consistent methods and that students can at least get some of their valid entries and exits.

I think it is good to give a flavour of what good interaction we have in the Self Help Group. The only editing I have done is to protect the members identities.

[05:22:20] Cxxx Rxxx: Question in relation to Nics trading summary. If its OIL, I have rbob and DX, or EU. So when I start approaching that pivot and I see, oh wait rbob is currently down and euro is down YET my oil price is going higher, Please can someone clarify the intrinsic relationship - I thought Euro was negatively correlated to oil? Please can someone confirm or deny?? Thanks
[05:52:52] Kxxx D.: Cxxxx in the Dollar Index (DXY), the EUR has a weight of 57,6%.
Therefore when EURUSD rises, the DXY in most cases will fall.
and
when EURUSD falls, the DXY in most cases will rise.
So, the EUR is +ve correlated to Oil.


[09:35:31] Ian Foster: @Cxxxx: Just to hammer Kxxx's point home. Oil is priced in USD so for those outside of the USA the higher the USD, the more they have to pay for Oil (assuming the same Oil price). Thus when the USD is high they are less likely to buy as much Oil - thus capping the Oil price. Thus since the Euro makes up 57% of the Dollar Index it is positively correlated (to a certain extent) to the Oil Price. RBOB is completely independent of the DX or Euro because it is a market which is internal to the USA .
[09:38:12] Cxxxx Rxxxx: Aaah that makes total sense - thanks Ian
[09:39:02] Cxxxxi Rxxxx: Ive added that to my notes
[10:26:29] Ian Foster: Small rant brought on by reflection on Cxxxxx question about correlations: The whole point of all that Ray teaches is that it is based not just about what happens in the markets, but upon the reasons thing happen in the markets - the WHY.
The difficulty with this comprehensive approach is that there are so many reasons for things that you will get conflicting analysis quite often.
This is why it is no use to just learn the various correlations and ways of determining a Bias, you must understand why those exist. Only then are you able to decide what is driving the Market right now i.e. when you are doing or re-visiting your analysis, because things can change very quickly in the markets!

Only use something Ray has taught if you can explain why it does that. If you can't then either study it some more, or use something else.
Ifyou are not at all interested in the puzzle of the markets, then you will continue to struggle with Ray's teaching even though you can get some quick fixes like the various Box or time of day trades, pre-new sentiment trades, Over/Under-cooked news trades, ART trades, Pivot Stop-Run trades, C-Liquidity Squeezes etc.
Because two identical price patterns are not equal even if the volume looks almost identical!
[10:30:23 | Edited 11:15:06] Cxxxx Rxxxx: I so totally agree with you, Ian. I find it absolutely fascinating - looking forward to coming back soon to learn some more - I hope you are not having a go at me though
[12:16:01] Pxxx J: Agreed Ian, not only an interest in the puzzle but also experience. That's why I find concentrating and specialising more heavily on sentiment trades and macro level trades (low hanging fruits), is a good way to tide one over whilst learning these market complexities.
[12:18:18] Pxxxx J: @cxxxxx there is a CL & Yield Spread cheat sheet in the docs folder that you might be interested in also if you don't have it already.

Just a reminder:
Membership of my Self Help Group for current students of Ray is free, but you need to join while you are still a student (if you do that, then you remain a member even if you take a break from subscribing to Ray's live room).

Compass say that Ray will be doing a full set training again soon (whatever that means).
They have an 'earlybird package' which means that anybody who signs up before the stat gets free time Ray's live room until the end of this set of training. Plus they can join my Self Help Group to help them learn Ray's teaching faster.

If you have signed up and want to join the Self Help Group, or if you just have questions you can Skype chat to me and I will reply when I am able. My Skype id is ianf0ster that is a zero in my name.

Hi Ian, if it's ok with u... for an "outer circle trader", I'm curios from where can I find some info on the % of market influence, let's say for CAD?
How much it's OIL influence, how much other commodity influence? how much inner economical... which I guess are a result of other factors...
How much is interest rates, and interest rates differential compared to US, and other currency (probably basic trading agreements with other countries).
Really I'm curious to see if I could find and maybe get some understanding about this stuff... One thing I understand for sure that EUR is funding currency for US, as long as EU will exist...

Hi Christy,
Correlations don't work as simple as just being a fixed % all the time. They vary considerably. How it works is that the Big Boys who trade the differentials between correlated Markets always have to be able to see enough value to make their trade (trading them back into line) to make sufficient profit. What to look for is them being way out of correlation at what Retail call a Support level or a Resistance level.
It is when you get such Price Action Triggers that the correlations tend to start moving back in line.
However because all markets have several (even many) correlations you need to figure out which correlations are driving your particular market today.

You ask specifically about the U/Cad and Oil. As you say the interest Rate differential between the US Bond Yields (2yr, 10yr, 30yr) and the equivalent Canadian ones have a big effect on the U/Cad, but Oil tend to have a bigger one.

Novices please note that the Correlation between the Usd/CAd and Oil only works in one direction i.e the price of Oil (which is in USD) affects the USD/CAd exchange rate and NOT the other way around!