Institutional Equivalent Education?

If you are in anyway serious about becoming a professional trader then I highly recommend you attend this webinar. There is no one else out there who knows the markets like this man does.

For a pleasant change there were only serious well behaved attendees in Ray's webinar last night.
And what a webinar it was, he demonstrated several jaw-dropping techniques both on the short timeframes and on the longer timeframes. He showed why traders get fooled by indicators:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Some good questions were asked:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Oh here are the answers to those questions:-

1. All conventional Indicators based upon price alone are almost completely useless. But Institutional level indicators based upon Volume on Liquidity, on other correlated markets, on equity Index Market Internals etc. ARE USEFUL!

2. Ray was not trained by his current employer, all his recent employers have been buying HIS Intellectual Property - not him using theirs. So anything for which he has not sold exclusive rights to them, he can teach to us !
Thus although he can't give specific details of his employers trades before the take them, he can give very strong hints beforehand and he can mention them as soon as they have got their full size on - in some cases this is before the big move!

Some Testimonials - ones from last year, but those 2 students are still with Ray and are still happy an still learning more about the markets. With Ray you never stop learning more about the markets!

A little about the course:-

Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program (August 13th – September 14th)
Institutional Order Flow Workshop August 13th – 17th
Institutional Base Trade Camp August 20th – September 14th
Daily Trade Sessions Monday – Friday 8:00 AM EASTERN
(Ray delivers commentary during the London Session as his schedule permits)
Daily Class Sessions August 13th – September 14th Monday- Friday (11:00 AM EASTERN All Class Sessions Recorded)
August 20th – August 31st Two-A-Day Camp Class Sessions 11:00 AM EASTERN / 3:00 PM EASTERN (No 3:00 PM EASTERN Class Session on Wednesday

Oh, several people signed up for the course last night and 2 of those also joined by Self Help Group today and had their first chance to spend some time in Ray's live room.
The one who was asking those questions in the post above ( Ed C. ) was one of them, this is what he thought of his time in Ray's live room today:



Link for the course: http://www.compassfx.com/sharptrade

Here is a link to the recording of Ray's webinar : https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/

At last we have been given some dates and more details of the course Ray will be teaching.
As always with Ray, this one will be bigger and better - so it is ONLY for serious traders who are prepared to work at learning everything a Retail Trader needs to know about Institutional Trading:-


**********************************************************************************

HOW the big Institutions trade and WHY they trade that way plus HOW YOU can be right there with them on their trades!

Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program (August 13th – September 14th)
Institutional Order Flow Workshop August 13th – 17th
Institutional Base Trade Camp August 20th – September 14th
Daily Trade Sessions Monday – Friday 8:00 AM EASTERN
(Ray delivers commentary during the London Session as his schedule permits)
Daily Class Sessions August 13th – September 14th Monday- Friday (11:00 AM EASTERN All Class Sessions Recorded)
August 20th – August 31st Two-A-Day Camp Class Sessions 11:00 AM EASTERN / 3:00 PM EASTERN

Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program
A superior and comprehensive approach to trading, an institutional grade training program that teaches traders institutional insight and knowledge to be the smart money in the markets and is taught by Ray, a bank strategist, an elite quant bank trade model developer.
Learn what drives your market
Institutional Order Flow Basics, trade using simple concepts of Absorption and Exhaustion, Market Imbalances, Block Trades, Market Delta, Passive vs Responsive Action understanding Auctions.
An in-depth understanding of Fundamentals and Technicals in all markets...how Banks Trade the News.
Price Discounting Process
Value Trading – How the Banks trade
Entering the Matrix. Identifying the Key Situations where Decisions are to be made and WHY
Price Action to Fine Tune your Entries
Forex – Basics to Advanced including Book Balancing Events that Drive Cashflows...Money Flow
Equities – Event Horizon Trades
Oil – Using what the Banks do to Give you an Edge
Bonds – Curve and Outrights...learn the Logic of the Markets
Index Markets – Market Internals used in the ES...the Rotation Principle of Money

Take advantage of EARLY BIRD ACCESS and be ready to join us Monday in the LIVE Trade Room
If you want to check out more details and hear more Ray visit the site.
NEW Institutional Trade Insight Available On-Demand:
https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/
This Blog has several very informative video clips as well as a link to details of the upcoming course.

Check out Ray’s recent Institutional Trade Sessions, excellent knowledge for your trading:

Ten Institutional Trade Commandments
Institutional Market Makers Model
“Trade the Macro”...Stop Trading Noise
“The Big Short”...Oil, did you deal?
“The Process” ...Cracking the Trade Code
Equities – Market Internals – Buy/Sell Programs – Market Maker Pricing – ROB
Order Flow Elements...Trade Perfection


Hurry and SIGN UP NOW before the Fast Action SPECIAL BONUS EXPIRES!
See you in session...signup today!

P.S. Do you know any hardworking traders that are still struggling for consistency? Share this information. If they take action, they’ll thank you for it!

**********************************************************************************

P.P.S. I will probably be taking part in an 'Ask the Students' webinar on Thursday and if all goes to plan I will be doing a little session on what started to turn my trading around: A retail version of Institutional Trade Management.

I hope to see my readers in there, have some questions for me and we will see if we can all learn something!

Now for something lighthearted, 'laughably stupid', yet serious like life and death!

Yes, it is Boris Schlossberg's weekend email. In it he is doing what he does best - pointing out a common flaw in reasoning, but confusing things, ignoring the most appropriate solution and suggesting his own pathetic attempt at a solution.

I won't try your patience with all the ramblings in his email. Here are the highlights and lowlights - LOL !

************************************************************************************************************************************

Dear Ian
There is no Difference Between Discipline and Stubbornness
https://mlsvc01-prod.s3.amazonaws.co...2d68f11e6c.jpg

As an investor, how do you know if you are disciplined or stubborn?
If you go broke you are stubborn.
But if you survive and make money you are disciplined.
That’s laughably stupid if you think about it for longer than a minute.

Yet every single day you are bombarded with the conventional pablum that all you need to do is be “disciplined”, buy an index fund and keep buying more on a regular basis and 30 years later you will be rich. The underlying assumption is that the upward drift in stocks will continue infinitely. But the future is almost never just a slightly different version of the past.
***********************************************************************************************************************************
So far so good - it is a common flaw in thinking, as common as mistaking Luck for Skill.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

The laughably false distinction between discipline and stubbornness (there is no way to judge which is which until you get the final result -WRONG!!!) was made very vivid this week by the tragic travails of David Einhorn -- a one time a hedge fund God, a Master of the Universe, the King of Value and the present day owner of Greenlight Capital who is suffering the humiliation of seeing his fund lose 20% this year. Again. Einhorn, who for the past ten years has been busy losing all the money that he made in the ten years prior, wrote a letter to his investors noting that, “Right now the market is telling us we are wrong, wrong, wrong about nearly everything….And yet, looking forward from today we think this portfolio makes a lot of sense… We have been accused of being stubborn, but one person’s stubbornness is another person’s discipline.”

To which the inimitable Matt Levine of Bloomberg, the best writer in finance today, responded, ”Yes! Correct! Let me make that a bit more explicit: If you have a plan, and you do the plan, and it makes money, people are like “good job being disciplined in sticking to your brilliant plan.” If you have a plan, and you do the plan, and it loses money, people are like “bad job being stubborn in sticking to your dumb plan.

I mean! This is wrong! In fact, people regularly distinguish stubbornness from discipline, and evaluate the quality of your plan, without reference to current results; they care about the process by which the plan was arrived at and the quality of your reasoning and the convincingness of your explanation of how the plan will make money in the future. It is not incoherent to say “my strategy is good, and I am right to stick with it, even though so far it has lost money.” It is just kind of funny. And of course, in the long run, how would you distinguish stubbornness from discipline other than by results?”

Exactly.
************************************************************************************************************************************
OK, so Matt Levine of Bloomberg appears to saying that you can distinguish between stubbornness and discipline in the shorter term, though people might reverse that opinion later, based upon the results.
- This makes sense if you believe in a fair and deterministic universe. But we all know that LUCK plays a huge part in any venture, as it does in life.

I and probably the vast majority of people reading this had the great stroke of luck to be born in a country in which the rule of law applies and education is reasonably easily available to all. More than that, we were probably born to parents who were not either starving, or totally irresponsible.
Not everyone is so fortunate!

************************************************************************************************************************************

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have wait until you lose 75% of your money -- whether you are a buy and hold Mom and Pop investor or hedge fund titan to find out if you are “disciplined” or “stubborn”. If you day trade and if you do it right (not correct, but right, meaning that you slice risk into teeny, tiny pieces by making lots of small trades, you will never put yourself into such a no-win situation. You will have near instant feedback on whether you are correct or not (-wrong, according to Boris' assumptions you actually only get instant feedback on whether you are lucky or not, to determine skill you require a large number of results!) and more importantly you will have much greater control over your drawdown. My pal Robbie Booker showed me an account today where he made 12% return while drawing down just 3%. Boris misses out one key piece of information here - Is this over a very large number of trades, over a long time - or did Rob just get lucky with a few huge winners? - This matters! The best part is that he did it by trading 1000 unit size on a 10,000 dollar account.
That’s right he traded 1/10th leverage and STILL beat the S&P! But that’s not unusual. I have seen many traders in my chat room achieve 20% returns with 3% drawdowns all because they traded small and controlled risk on every trade. -Yes, trading small is good, but trading small and smart beats trading small and stupid!

That’s the beauty of day trading. The discipline is in the size and in the stop. You don’t need to come up with excuses. You don’t need to wait years to be proven right or wrong. Your results are there every day -wrong again, unless you do at least 30 trades per day then any daily result is likely more due to luck than to skill! and you have much better control of your financial destiny.
************************************************************************************************************************************

OK I have been criticising, so what is my better solution? - Simple, trade smart - understand Value, Sentiment, Liquidity and Order Flow. If you do that, then you have a valid basis for your discipline and can easily distinguish it from stubbornness - even if some results don't go in your favour ! Luck is always a factor!

Another chance to experience one of Ray's live webinars:

LIVE Institutional Market Insight Session with Ray Tuesday August 7th at 7:00 PM EASTERN
“Stop Making Mistakes”...know the markets you are trading, know what drives your market.
LOGIN: http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge (Password: focus)
(No Registration Required to Attend This LIVE Event)

Here is a link to the recording of the session I mentioned above. Ray concentrated on the 'Before She Goes' trade aka'Squeeze'.


Sharp Edge RECORDING LINK http://compassfx.webinato.com/archives/362885

Two of us students will be doing an 'Ask the Student' session Tomorrow at 15:30 Eastern time.
The link is https://www.webinato.com/pages/sc2/r...0&roomID=47380
No registration required , Password = focus

As well as a little about my journey I will be discussing Institutional Style trade Entries and Exits, plus realistic compounding of an account.

Then David Tough who coded the OFten (OrderFlow indicator) suite for Ray on Sierra Chart will be talking about the OFten Suite of Indicators.


Just in case there are some tech issues with my presentation, here is an old format MS Word document on which it is based:

Attached File(s)

Ian's Presentation.doc   952 KB | 365 downloads

And here is my updated Trading Biography:

Attached File(s)

My-Trading-Biography.doc   25 KB | 325 downloads

See you there !

I got the following email today from somebody I didn't know, I think both the email and my reply may be of interest:

-----Original Message-----
From: M...... <[email protected]>
To: ianf0ster <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 3:20
Subject: Sharp edge (Rays course) at compass FX
Hi Ian,

I am very interested in the course, but am trying to find the fund to attend the course as my pocket is a little bit tight right now.
Just wondering is the course available after it is over? and is it in GBP or USD (as in course fee)?

Thanks
M...


Hi M...,
Yes, it is possible to take the course from the recordings that will be made, in fact when people signed up for this course a few days/weeks ago they had access to recordings of several of Ray's previous courses.
And if they were smart they spent their time going trough those rather than being in Ray's Live room. Each of his courses (except the 3Day one last year) has been much bigger and better than the one before.

But I have to warn you that all Ray's full courses have been extremely intensive. He is not teaching a single indicator based method like almost all the other educators. He is teaching how to understand the market and thus giving students the tools to build their own personalised trading style which suits their personality, skills, resources and account size.

The difference is like the difference back in the early 20th century when automobiles from different manufacturers had very different controls. The normal educator would be like somebody teaching you how to drive one particular model of automobile back then. But Ray would be teaching not just how to drive one, but about the way all the different controls on the market worked - so you could drive any of those automobiles!

Or the difference between a 'Middle school' course on Physics and a PhD course on Physics.

Best wishes,
Ian

P.S. If you do eventually sign up for a course from Ray (either live or via recordings) let me know, so that you can join our Self Help Group and get some support for your trading journey.

PPS. The Course fees are in US Dollars.

Boris Schlossberg's latest email is of more interest than usual, particularly since I too believe in keeping records and I too suffer from Trading Psych problems.
So here it is in full before I add my comment in Blue:

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Dear Ian
The single most important trading system is – YOU

Standard economic thinking would have you believe that the bigger the financial incentive the better you will perform. The idea is that if I pay you more money you will exert more effort and will do the task better.

That’s actually partly true. Uri Gneezy, an economist at University of California at San Diego, paid college students $300 instead of the usual $30 to type a sequence of keys on the computer. Accuracy rates went up from 40% to 80%. For mindless rote activity higher incentive produces better results.

However, that assumption fails miserably when the task at hand requires even a modicum of cognitive ability. The same experiment of paying students tenfold to add a series of numbers in matrices showed a massive decline in success rates from 65% to just 40%.

An even more striking example of this dynamic occurred in poor regions of India where Gneezy ran an experiment asking people to pack tools in the most efficient manner. Participants were paid 10 cents, 1 dollar and 10 dollars each (10 dollars represented a month’s worth of wages for that cohort) At $1 per task 25% of participants succeeded in the task. When the payoff went to $10 every single person who took test failed it. That’s a remarkable insight into human psychology and goes a long way towards explaining why when you decide to “size up” on the exact same setup that you’ve been trading for years you suddenly start to bleed money.

The greatest thing about trading, aside from the potential for profit, the intellectual challenge of finance and the emotional engagement of the game is that the markets are probably the purest, biggest psychological laboratory in the world. If you are honest with yourself and step back to examine it you would have to admit that trading has probably revealed more about your true personality than any other activity you’ve ever done. Good or bad, the markets lay you bare in front of the world in ways that few other things in life do.


I was thinking about that a lot this week, after listening to a wonderful System Trader podcast interview with Mandi Pour Rafsendjani who, instead of focusing on yet another mind-numbingly boring quant system talked about what it really takes to be a successful trader. It’s a wonderful episode and I encourage you to listen to it -- but there were a few key points that she made which I thought were amazingly perceptive.


First and foremost if you are anything like me you probably got into trading for the sense of autonomy. You hate being told what to do. You hate working under other people’s rules and you like the sense of freedom that trading brings you, even with all of its crazy risks. But if you are that type of rebellious person, you probably also hate paperwork and bureaucratic processes and record keeping. After all -- you are trader, not a bookkeeper!

Yet Mandi makes a very interesting point that it is precisely the structure of record keeping that is the gateway to the freedom you seek. Because it is only through record keeping that you will be able to improve. Mandi, who has interviewed scores of traders, notes that winners focus on facts and figures while losers focus on feelings.


Still, the record keeping she has in mind is unlike any you’ve ever seen before. Mandi will be the first to tell you that if you don’t have a setup that you can write out on the back of a napkin, you have nothing. In short, you need a clean, clear set of rules that will guide your trading. But keeping score of the winners, the losers, the drawdown, the entry and exit permutations, the instrument selections and all other usual suspects of trading is just the beginning. In fact for us in FX, the act of record keeping can be 99% automated with journaling websites likewww.myfxbook.com.

When Mandi talks about record keeping, she has something else in mind entirely. She believes that record keeping of your state of mind is just as important as journaling your trades. Here are just some ideas she shares. Do you have a magic number of trades after which you get sloppy? For example, she notes that after five winning trades she tends to give a lot of her profits back. So now she simply walks away from the screen and works LESS. What about treating same trades in a different way? For example, when a trade initially goes into profit and then into a loss, do you have a hard time taking the stop versus a case of when a trade goes negative right away? (Guilty!) What about fixating on reaching a key dollar figure on your account equity (like say $10,000) which forces you to leave trades open because they haven’t reached your “target”? (Guilty!) What about trading a style that does not fit your personality because everyone tells you that’s what you are supposed to do? (Guilty!)

For me, the two greatest recent realizations have been that I am a serial, not a parallel trader. I do best when I trade one position at a time. (Read my New York subway column from a few weeks back for more details on that) The second most important realization is that I always lose money if I trade without an execution algo. If I am tapping buttons on my MT4 iPhone app as I dart in and out of the subway -- that is always the start of a journey to trading hell. I will ignore my sizing parameters, I will ignore my stops and I will inevitably cover for a loss after needlessly battling the market for days. On the other hand, if I am entering from a preset template off my well worn MT4 EAs, my control is assured. I may win or I may lose, but either way, I will do it properly and will not damage my account unnecessarily.

Using Mandi’s approach of recording your own state of mind as well as your trades has been an eye-opening process. The irony of her approach is that while winners may indeed be preoccupied with facts and figures while losers are obsessed with feelings, the key facts and figures aren’t actually the standard trade blotter, but the emotions you go through as you establish your trade. Losers may focus on feeling, but winners focus on recording and studying those feelings on a continuous basis. What becomes very clear as you listen to the podcast, is that profitability in trading is much less a function of tweaking your system parameters and much more the case of minimizing your tendency to make psychological errors. Walking away from the interview you realize that the single most important trading system is -- YOU.
***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Although Boris and I trade in extremely different ways, I agree with almost all of his points:
If I am not well prepared, if I am rushed, if I am interrupted, if I have been a little lazy and not done all my prep work for a trade...
Well then it is much more likely to turn into a disaster ! - No surprise, except to me when I'm in my 'inflated ego' state of mind !

Personally I don't record my emotional state before every trade - I don't need to because deep down I know when I am in a state that is bad for trading.
Do I still trade in that state? - Well heck yes, I do sometimes because in that state my ego occasionally overrides my common sense!
But immediately after I exit such a trade, Win or Lose - I know that I shouldn't have taken it !

Ray's students who trade Oil and followed his Tweet did well:

Sorry, my link (a few posts above) to tonight's webinar seems to be bad, but the one be below works:

Two of us students will be doing an 'Ask the Student' session Tomorrow at 15:30 Eastern time.
The link is http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge
No registration required , Password... focus

I am logged in there now:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

CompassFX sent me an email to tell me about the webinar that David and I did last night.
It is interesting to see what people think of me.
It has a link to the recording:

***********************************************************************************************************************************
Hello Ian
As promised...the “Ask the Student” Session was very enlightening, we’ve got the proof!
REPLAY: “Ask the Student” Ian’s Trade Journey http://compassfx.webinato.com/archives/363063
Ian revealed all his challenges and how he handles his weaknesses with trade management to keep from blowing out his accounts like he did in the past. Yes, he told on himself #relatable
The session was very enlightening and certainly worth taking time to hear what he believes truly helped him turn the corner.
When he was asked by an attendee, “what is different about Ray”...Ian replied, “everything...he does everything differently.”
Ray has such a depth of experience and knowledge it is always fresh and always relevant according to Johnny, one of the students.
Closing comments from Ian about working with Ray when asked how long it would take them to become profitable **WARNING: This ONLY Works IF YOU DO THE WORK – It is definitely NOT an easy option!
If are considering joining the group, take a listen to Ian...his journey and struggles may hit home!
New Institutional Trade Class with Ray Starts Monday August 13th...SIGNUP
NEW Institutional Trade Insight On-Demand: https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/
SIGNUP Today for the NEW Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program with Ray
Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program (August 13th – September 14th)
Institutional Order Flow Workshop August 13th – 17th
Institutional Base Trade Camp August 20th – September 14th
Daily Trade Sessions Monday – Friday 8:00 AM EASTERN
(Ray delivers commentary during the London Session as his schedule permits)
Daily Class Sessions August 13th – September 14th Monday- Friday (11:00 AM EASTERN All Class Sessions Recorded)
August 20th – August 31st Two-A-Day Camp Class Sessions 11:00 AM EASTERN / 3:00 PM EASTERN (No 3:00 PM EASTERN Class Session on Wednesday

Sharp Edge Institutional Trade Program
A superior and comprehensive approach to trading, an institutional grade training program that teaches traders institutional insight and knowledge to be the smart money in the markets and is taught by Ray, a bank strategist, an elite quant bank trade model developer.
Learn what drives your market
Institutional Order Flow Basics, trade using simple concepts of Absorption and Exhaustion, Market Imbalances, Block Trades, Market Delta, Passive vs Responsive Action understanding Auctions.
An in-depth understanding of Fundamentals and Technicals in all markets...how Banks Trade the News.
Price Discounting Process
Value Trading – How the Banks trade
Entering the Matrix. Identifying the Key Situations where Decisions are to be made and WHY
Price Action to Fine Tune your Entries
Forex – Basics to Advanced including Book Balancing Events that Drive Cashflows...Money Flow
Equities – Event Horizon Trades
Oil – Using what the Banks do to Give you an Edge
Bonds – Curve and Outrights...learn the Logic of the Markets
Index Markets – Market Internals used in the ES...the Rotation Principle of Money
Take advantage of EARLY BIRD ACCESS
If you want to check out more details and hear more Ray visit the site.

NEW Institutional Trade Insight
Available On-Demand: https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/
Check out Ray’s recent Institutional Trade Sessions, excellent knowledge for your trading. YES!
Ten Institutional Trade Commandments
Institutional Market Makers Model
“Trade the Macro”...Stop Trading Noise
“The Big Short”...Oil, did you deal?
“The Process” ...Cracking the Trade Code
Equities – Market Internals – Buy/Sell Programs – Market Maker Pricing – ROB
Order Flow Elements...Trade Perfection
Hurry and SIGN UP NOW before the Fast Action SPECIAL BONUS EXPIRES!
See you in session...signup today!

P.S. Do you know any hardworking traders that are still struggling for consistency? Share this email. They’ll thank you for it!

*********************************************************************************************************************************

I just got a question via Skype:

just booked my first profitable month in my 4 years of trading. thanks for the thread Ian

I am very pleased for you. I hope it is the first of many profitable months !

I was wrong about that, I juts had a skype from Kim at CompassFX and she said:

'Actually, Ray just confirmed we could do a final session Sunday Evening at 7:00 PM EASTERN
I have not had a chance to start on the announcement yet
It will be in the same room we were in yesterday@

So that means it will be in this room:-

The link is http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge
No registration required , Password... focus

Thanks for sharing all the great info, Ian. I "know" FC from another forum; omg, you ALL must HAVE the PATIENCE of SAINTS!!!! Reading his inane self-absorbed comments would make it hard for me.

Yes, FC is VERY TALKATIVE and VERY LOUD.
But we have been trying to discourage him from too much of that.

I do what I do because next to actually trading, the thing I enjoy most is helping other traders.

A new student, but one with lots of trading experience reacts to FC and give his view about what Ray has shown in the last few days: