Institutional Equivalent Education?

The news you have been waiting for: I had my first losing day since March - or did I?
Yesterday I was down -2.4% on the day (though still up on the week) coming into the API Crude Oil Release (21:30 London time).

I traded the release and when the Crude Market closed ( 22:00 London time) I was even further in the red.

I got out of bed at 03:30 (London Time) and closed out my trade at 03:34:35 for a profit which more than recouped my earlier losses.

I think this demonstrates 3 things:
1. You must have a passion for trading, otherwise it is not worth the effort.
2. I may be getting overconfident, since I was able to sleep with that trade open in the market.
3. My recovery from the heart bypass operation is progressing since I was able to focus well that late at night.

Instead of positing a chart like this why don't you just open a demo with a genuine forex broker and use their charts instead of online based? There are several brokers that offer free demos, brokers such as freshForex, FXCM and many others offer free demos.

Francmorio, Thank you for looking at my thread - even though you chose to comment on a chart from over 2years ago.
That was a demo chart from a genuine forex Broker - actually DirectFX based in Australia but the re-badged for CompassFX clients.

Shortly after that time I migrated to Sierra Chart for my charting, though my Broker doesn't support that one either, however it is far superior to anything I have seen offered by a Broker.

I really missed a great opportunity this morning. It is a lesson in the pitfalls of trading from your home.

Just before the UK GDP release 04:30 Eastern Time (= 09:30 London Time), my wife came into my trading room to ask me to phone our energy provider to sort out some issues.
That was enough to distract me and I lost focus on the bigger picture.
So I traded the release and made a profit, but forgot that on the GBP/USD the level 1.3000 is currently an important wholesale level. Thus I didn't re-enter short on the first pullback - missing out on a 50 pip move.



Here is the picture on the 30min chart - the bright green horizontal line denotes the previous day's high:

Trading is simple - in theory, but difficult in practice without lots of practice

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Guys,
I hear that several people (possibly from this thread) have been going to Ray's new SmartAlpha.global website and trying to sign up for a service.
The website it still being built and is currently being tested by Ray's current students. So it is not yet ready for handling service subscriptions.

They are talking about a plan for Ray to offer a new cheaper, more basic course for new students plus extras at additional cost - such as weekly classes on techniques not covered in the basic course; Market Wrap-ups going over the major trades taken in the live room that day; Weekly outlook and Tweets(mainly Overnight) for acting on the next day; and finally the 'Elite package' which would include all of the above plus the live trading Desk room.

Please note that Ray is still contractually prohibited from making live calls, but his suggestions ( hours or days ahead) of at which levels (and even when) to look for certain trades is much better than any live trade calls I have seen elsewhere.

Example of a Call over 24hrs in advance Original tweet sent at 01:34 (UK time) on 24th May.
By VC he means 'Volume Cycle'

As for my trading this week, I only caught 1 biggish trade all week.
As reported above in this thread on Tuesday it depends upon where you take the start/end time from as to whether it was my first losing day since March or was a decent winning day. But all the other 4 days were definitely profitable - especially Monday.


A tally of +14.8% on the week

what is a volume cycle?

Juangecko, Oh come on, I am already close to breaching the Non-disclosure Agreement.
Surely you can figure that out!

Found it, for the moment it say a subscription of 50$... but I guess as u said it's just for test purpose.. u know an estimate when it will be ready? thx cris.

They are still trying to sort out the various service options. Even then it will probably start out with just those for existing students for a few weeks.

I am hesitant about posting this, but I have decided not to trade the API Crude Inventories release tonight since i have no other reason to be at the computer at that time.

This means I have now done all my trading for this month of May.
The percentage figures are amazing - beyond my wildest dreams, though my account is still quite small.
Profit for today = + 3.0%
Profit for the week so far (= 3 days) = +10.6%
Profit for Whole Month of May (23 days) = +71.8% (This includes my spread rebate from April since it was paid into my account on 2nd May).

Some Self Help Group chat about my trading:

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[05:48:38] Ed **: Congrats Ian, very happy for you!
[06:52:56] Ian Foster: Thanks guys, I doubt I will be able to keep that % up, but I feel that 5 to 10% per week should be possible for me most weeks.
Also I think that Kim (CompassFX) exagerates how small my risk is. On normal time of day trades my risk is up to 2%. On non-Oil news trades it can go up to 3%.
On the API crude inventories it can also go up to 3%, but on the EIA Crude Inventories I am risking up to 5%. BUT on all of those (except the API), I may take several 'bites at the cherry'.
Thus picturing a really bad day with no winning trades it might go like this : 08:00 Dax trade(s) -4%, 09:00 Dax -4%, 09:30 UK news trade(s) -6%, 13:30 US news trades(s) -4% then 14:30 NY Open trades -6%.
That is a extremely unlikely but possible -24% in a single day with just 11 or 12 trades (which is not unusual for me).
[06:58:47] Ian Foster: @Rod: No I only trade Oil for the 2 crude Inventories releases each week. The market I trade most is the DAX index (or German30 as my Broker calls it).
On that I do 3 sets of 'time of day trades' per day. I also trade big news events for the following UK, USA, Eurozone, and occasionally Canada. I find that since I am trading 'full time' I need enough events to keep me interested and prevent boredom. I know if I get bored I might take some stupid trades where I have no edge.
[07:05:10] Ian Foster: With so many trades and such 'normal' results you may think I have a lot of losses - not so, I just have a lot of very small wins and scratches.
My actual losing trades must be less than 10%, probably even less than 5% because I am so aggressive about protecting a profit even if the net profit smaller than my spread.
My ratio of net profit to spread is less than 2 : 1. - Yes Spread, not Risk!
I have finally taken what Ray said about 'taking a big edge but small net profit all day long' to heart.
[07:07:17] Ivan ***: Hey guys, may I ask, were u finding value in the bank reports I was sending every morning? If so, I will try to resume the service by providing a link when I find some time....
[07:09:27] Ian Foster: @Ivan: Many thanks, my recent success is partly due to you! It was you who pointed me to the free Talking Forex via a demo account with FXPro.co.uk.
I find it almost as useful (and complementary to) Dataflash.
[07:10:35] Ian Foster: Without it I could not trade the API Inventories report plus several unscheduled news events
[07:10:42] Ivan ***: np Ian, if u need additional docs, indis, resources, ask away, if available, won't mind to share it
[07:16:17] Ian Foster: When I think about it, everything I am doing and all the resources I am using have been taught/suggested to me by Ray, Sam and Ivan.
I have just worked out how I need to use them.
[07:20:14] Ian Foster: Correction to the above :- I found my Broker by myself. Though later I did see Ray showing one of their charts.
Because of my high spread to profit costs, getting a spread rebate is really good for me.


*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just an additional note on the chance of me having that really bad day mentioned above:

Expected max sequential losses on a 90% wins record when taken over 1 million trades is 6.0
over 10k trades is 4.0
over 100 trades is 2.0

For a 95% win rate the figures are :- 4.61 . 3.07 and 1.54

Oops, Sorry Sam - I missed editing out your last name. Fixed now.

Ray will be teaching a formal course again soon - the first one in over 18 months.

In preparation for that he is opening up his Trade Room to his ex-students next week.

If you have not been in the room over the last 3 months you will find much has improved and the recordings are now shorter and full of content on specific subjects. The Tweets are giving out on average at least one great trade per day ( plus several other decent ones).
Check it out.

If you are an ex-student of Ray then you should have got an email from Kim with the details.
If you didn't get it - then contact Kim for the Link and password.

I have also posted it in the Self Help Group Skype.

There are now dates for the first full trading courses Ray has done since December 2015:

Sharp Edge Institutional 3 Day Trade Workshop July 25th-27th
Sharp Edge Institutional 10 Day Trade Camp August 7th - 18th

There is an 'Infomotional webinar tonight for anybody wnating to see what Ray teaches his Interns.
His first one 'Ronaldo' left Ray to work as a trader for the German Bank. You may recall that he had no losing days over a 3 month period - see earlier posts.
The latest one 'Junior Junior' is only 18 yrs old and is also doing very well - also no losing days so far

Here is the email I got. (And I can confirm that some ex-students actually logged in over 24hrs early, but I think that they were a little confused about which day it is being held - since they are Australian and it was already Thursday for them!)
No Registration necessary:

Come join Ray Thursday evening at 7:00 PM EASTERN for a very insightful session about your trading!

The session is going to GREAT… we had a sneak peek today and you don’t want to miss a single minute. He will be showing you the exercise he uses with new interns to eliminate their fear placing trades and he is also going to cover what he say is the most important aspect of your trading and overlooked by most traders…getting your macros right.

Traders are so excited, our emails are blowing up…traders don’t want to miss Ray. We have not held a webinar for 18 months, some traders already logged in to make sure they are ready, way too funny!

Live "Sharp Edge Trading" Webinar with Ray Thursday at 7:00 PM EASTERN (Save This Date)

http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge
PASSWORD: macro (No Registration Required)

The stumbling block for most traders is the fear of being wrong…see how Ray solves this for his traders.

Join us Thursday and spend time with Ray an institutional quant trade model developer who always gives traders a comprehensive look into the market and a completely different understanding to developing trading edges.

Traders continue to be blown away by Ray's knowledge, skills and insight into the markets teaching them to develop their own edge for trading and the "WHY" behind their trades, true game changer.

In yesterday's webinar Ray gave out more information about how his interns learn to trade including an exercise they use to gain proficiency with their entry orders. He also shared some of the details about how he teaches his retail trader students to trade.

A recording of this Webinar and recordings of some of his previous webinars can be found by using the Link and login details as in the post above:

http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge
PASSWORD: macro (No Registration Required)

Institutional Trading for Retail courses from Ray on offer are :

Sharp Edge Institutional Trading 3 Day Workshop Tuesday 25th to Thursday 27th July at 15:00 New York Time, for a give away price of $197.
This is at least 9hrs tuition (could be as much as 15hrs the way Ray overdelivers).
All recorded and you get access to the recordings even after the workshop has finished.

I think I heard this also comes with 2 days trade room access ( wjich is active from 06:00 NY time to 18:00 NY time and sometimes even later).


Sharp Edge Institutional Trading 10 Day Camp 7th August to 18th August at 15:00 New York Time, for a price of $1,497
All recorded and you get access to the recordings even after the Camp has finished.
This one includes the previous 3 Day Workshop and gives you full access to the Trade Room from when you sign up.

Here is what Ray's students said when they heard about the $197 3 Day Workshop:
https://gyazo.com/26d757012f1ff43ebf5384f061f9b5ec
https://gyazo.com/21f879ef962d6fd11832142d873e4fc8
https://gyazo.com/40b018884b05def16bebdaa493cf4f8e
Oh and that last screenshot shows the Documents tab just below the yellow Send Button on the bottom Right.

I think Compass have got their pricing wrong , so any doubters should take advantage. If you take the $197 Workshop you will get about as much Institutional Trading for Retail education as those who paid up to $2,000 for Ray's earlier courses. Then you can decide if you want to reall invest in your trading education by adding in the 10Day Camp. And unless you can't afford the $1497, I could not understand why anybody would not then want as much training from Ray as possible.

Some more detail on content:

There was another super webinar from Ray yesterday. I was not checking my email, so I missed about 1hour of it.
People were super impressed by the way Ray calculates (potential) targets for exiting at least part of a trade.
Of course Value trumps technicals, but from March up to date he showed how his target method was super accurate on Daily chart of the Gold CFD.

Probably the best Retail trader in the world is Eusebio Nanni - often makes over 20% in a day with a 0.5% risk , last losing day was back in 2012.
Eusebio is impressed and has signed up again (3rd year in succession) for his Holiday (from teaching Forex) education.

If you were not able to attend, you need to catch the replay…it was so insightful.

REPLAY: Super Sunday Session with Ray
http://compassfx.webinato.com/archives/330406

REPLAY: Sharp Edge Thursday Webinar with Ray
http://compassfx.webinato.com/archives/330306

Thanks, Ian, for this thread. It was helpful to me when deciding if I should sign up for the 3 day workshop. I just did.