Institutional Equivalent Education?

Special offer from Compass announced on the Webinar just completing.


OrderFlow class coming up soon:



There will be a full class later on, costing (i think) $1497 - sign up for that and you get the OrderFlow Workshop for free.

Why retail traders deserve to lose their money.
This was one of 2 contentious opinions raised in yesterday's webinar.

Because I missed the first 45 minutes, I had been hoping to find that the recordings (yes plural because it lasted over 3 1/2 hrs) had been
either placed in the CompassFx Sharp Edge blog : www.compassproptraders.com/blog
or left in the documents folder (folder symbol on bottom right) in the webinata room the webinar was held in.
But there is no sign of them (yet).


So I will describe a bit about how I stirred things up a little in the webinar:

I told attendees about my trading 'journey' and how before I came accross Ray I had spent over $30K on useless courses (plus around $500 on a course which was good but was unsuitable for me). Plus I had traded and lost aver £50K in various accounts.

Some people said that sounded just like their trading history, while others said that it was a lot of money.
But I stirred things up when I went on to say that I deserved to lose that money, because I had not secured some 'institutional equivalent' education before I started trading a live account.

Trading is about the only highly skilled, highly rewarded profession where novices with little or no knowledge and resources take on some of the biggest institutions and the most skilled and resourced professionals in the world ! As one attendee put it, it is like gaining entry to a modern tennis championship and then having to use a wooden racket ! Or as I put it, taking on a modern fighter plane in an old WW2 plane.

So why is it that so very many people (the vast majority) don't search hard enough to find and invest in some serious education before trading a live account. I can only answer for myself - probably being gullible, thinking that SpotFX was totally different to Stock Investing, impatient, and overconfident that my 'logical', mathematical and computer programming skills would give me an advantage!

What a dumbass I was - LOL !

Although Value is the key to trading, in effect you are trading against other humans - not trading against an inhuman market. This is because of the way that the institutions need to trade hundreds or even thousands of times larger size than a retail trader, they need to do everything they can to manipulate prices so that they can get the liquidity that the need both to enter and to exit.
It is their struggle to get a big enough trade on their books as they trade the 'Fundamentals', that creates all the 'Technicals' so beloved of retail trading gurus!

This brings me to the second area of contention: A guy called Sean said something to the effect of 'Fundamentals are meaningless'.
Now I can't understand he said that - why anybody with even half a brain and after a moments reflection about the implications of such a statement would spout such obvious garbage in a public webinar!
If I am very charitable to Sean, then what he may have meant was that he didn't know of any way of trading based upon 'Fundamentals', or that he himself either had never been taught about 'Fundamentals' in SpotFX, or he had tried and failed when attempting to trade based upon 'Fundamentals'.

Sure, on the timeframes that Retail traders use, it is difficult to only trade based upon Fundamentals while ignoring Market Structure, Liquidity and OrderFlow! But the big objectives of the trades of the biggest of big guys are always 100% based upon Fundamentals - or else they don't last very long!

The key to making both Fundamentals and 'technicals' work for the retail trader is to have an understanding of the way that the major market participants work their business plans in the markets. This is what Ray (but hardly anybody else) teaches!

Why retail traders deserve to lose their money .... continued

In the webinar, Tim talked about his 'trading journey' and how he found there was some self sabotage going on.
He said that he was making progress on that and had found a book very useful:
'The Presence Process' by Michael Brown.
In my case (not the same problem as Tim), A psych book that helped me is from the opposite end of the spectrum
i.e. it is not 'touchy feely' at all. It made me, especially after my triple bypass operation, understand that I don't have unlimited time and that I needed to look at:
1. Just focusing on the style(s) that naturally appeal to me and work well with my skill-set and resources. 2. Designing my trade/money management system so as to compensate for the trading psych problems that I suffer from.

The book is called 'The Mental Edge in Trading' and it is written by Jason Williams MD a Johns-Hopkins trained Psychiatrist, who also happens to be the son of the famous trader Larry Williams.
Interestingly enough, the below title section sentence (presumably put there by the publisher) is the complete opposite of my take-away from the book. It says 'Adapt your personality traits and control your emotions to make smarter investments'. My take-away is that there are as many ways to trade as there are successful traders and that some (like Larry Williams) are even famous for methodologies they are able to formulate, but which they themselves are psych incapable of trading! - So find one that YOU can trade given your own skills, resources and flaws.

"I deserved to lose that money, because I had not secured some 'institutional equivalent' education before I started trading a live account."

Nonsense. How could you have known? Ignorance, not stupidity, is why most retail traders lose their money. Are you saying that two friends of mine, both of whom blew out their account funded by their retirement accounts, deserved to lose their money? That's not only harsh, that's ludicrous and judgmental. No one knows when they first start trading what's going on. Oh, it looks easy, but it isn't. And how is someone supposed to know that "'institutional equivalent' education" is even available? If you would've known that people like Ray were teaching when you first started trading, would you have immediately availed yourself of that training? More than likely. But you didn't, probably because you had no idea that folks like Ray even existed, and few out there still do, because they have no idea that the real deal even exists. There are lots of charlatans out there, claiming they're ex-pit traders, ex-floor traders, etc., teaching their "secret indicator" that they'll gladly sell you for a few thousand dollars, plus a thousand or more for "training" that shows carefully cherry-picked charts to "prove" that their indicator will make you money. How is anyone to know the difference?

Hi N7ekg,
Obviously I have hit a nerve here:

You say "How could you have known? Ignorance, not stupidity, is why most retail traders lose their money. Are you saying that two friends of mine, both of whom blew out their account funded by their retirement accounts, deserved to lose their money? That's not only harsh, that's ludicrous and judgmental. No one knows when they first start trading what's going on. "

My point is that even at that early stage, it should have been obvious that one of the highest paying professions in the world can't really be so simple - especially for a novice who knows nothing about how the big institutions trade and has virtually no resources of any kind, much less ones of close to institutional standard.
Even at that stage I should have known that I didn't have the full picture and thus limited my trading to just demo accounts.

I do admit that it takes a while before it is possible to tell the real knowledge from the marketing B*S*, but why trade a live account when you are uncertain?

You say "If you would've known that people like Ray were teaching when you first started trading, would you have immediately availed yourself of that training? More than likely. But you didn't, probably because you had no idea that folks like Ray even existed, and few out there still do, because they have no idea that the real deal even exists."

Certainly even when I first started trading, I knew that Quants and Analysts existed. I 'd had an interest in the Stockmarkets for over 30yrs by then, I had also lost thousands of pounds 'investing' in stocks - usually selling at the bottom, but sometimes by buying at the top. Back then so-called 'Rocket scientists' were often in the financial news. Why would that have been the case if all an institution needed was an MT4 platform and some lagging indicators?
I knew that trading Algo existed, I knew that the big investment banks were pouring millions of dollars into them. Why would anybody (especially me) think that they could compete with that when using a free (Broker provided) platform and no financial training?

You say "There are lots of charlatans out there, claiming they're ex-pit traders, ex-floor traders, etc., teaching their "secret indicator" that they'll gladly sell you for a few thousand dollars, plus a thousand or more for "training" that shows carefully cherry-picked charts to "prove" that their indicator will make you money. How is anyone to know the difference?"

Several of the 'charlatans' are actually ex- pit traders (who couldn't make the adjustment into screen-based trading), or 'Bank traders' (who just filled customers orders rather than trading the Bank's own book). Plus there are those who just lie about their background, experience and wealth! But until you can at least partly replicate their claimed results and until they show that their method/system is fully consistent, why risk trading real money using it?
Are there really so many intelligent people who are prepared to gamble all their hard earned savings without any real evidence? - Well, yes there are and I was one of them - thankfully I didn't risk it all though!

I have just been told about this Audio interview with a real Market Maker.
To hear from a real Market Maker about what they do:

https://t.co/5koZ48vDIK

Here is a link to a sort of educational post in my new thread (Why Retail Traders deserve to lose money):
It is called: Hints on how to hook a 'fish'

https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...5#post12100215

Saw that over the weekend - excellent video! Thanks for posting the link!

Here is a mark-up of the situation that the Market Maker describes in the audio link 2 posts above:
with corrected diagram

The recordings from saturday's webinar: Traders Only - Talk are now up on the CompassPropTraders Blog https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/

They are 03-09-19 "Traders Only Session" 1 which is the longer one and features Nicholas, Ed, Tim and David
and 03-09-19 "Traders Only Session" 2 which continues with David and then me.

Here is another follow-up to post number 783 in this thread.
Lance Beggs (of Your Trading Coach) talking about trading with a 'Guard Rail' to help you stay with the trend - or at least never to Fade your account away!

Unfortunately because of the number of pictures, it will run over several consecutive posts in here.

****************************************************************************************************
Trading with a Guard Rail for Increased Confidence in Bias

Let's look at a tool that can help you manage the conflict between what you FEEL should be happening and what you SEE is actually happening. Particularly for those of us who prefer clean charts with price only.

Here is the NASDAQ 5 minute chart from Monday 4th March 2019.

Attached Image

You can't get an indication of how bearish it was due to the scale on the RHS being quite compressed.

This was a REALLY nice move.

But the day after I had some email discussion with a trader who was beating himself up over missed opportunity.

In his words...

Attached Image

Yep... we've all been there... sitting on the sidelines while we watch the market go on without us. Can't go short because you FEEL it will rally any moment. But can't go long because you SEE it just keep falling.

The old saying comes to mind... "trade what you see, not what you think".

But like all of these simplistic truths, they're much tougher to put into practice than you'd imagine.

My immediate thoughts - don't beat yourself up. Ever.

Or if you feel it's warranted, then allocate a few minutes to let it all out. And then move on.

Today is just one out of thousands of trading days you'll have over your career. Take the hit. Learn from it. Move on.

And really... at least you didn't try to fade the move all the way down. It could have been a whole lot worse.

(NOTE: He actually profited on the day. All the anger and regret were simply because he knew he could have got a lot more.)

So we discussed a few issues.

Missing the initial short was a key part of the problem. This then triggered a shift to "outcome thinking" rather than "process thinking"; not wanting to make a bad situation worse by following up a missed opportunity with a losing trade.

As soon as you fear losing on a trade, it's game over.

So this is an issue he will work on, recognising now that missed opportunity can be a trigger that shifts his mindset away from productive thought processes.

But that is not the point of this article.

Our discussions also led to the recent article series - My Go-To Method for Solving Trading Problems. (Part 1, Part 2)

Because it provides a technical solution to another key part of his problem.

Something that could have provided confidence in entering and holding a short position while he sees that the market keeps moving lower, despite his bullish internal bias.

In other words... he needed a guard rail.

(NOTE: We're going to leave out discussion of S/R, which may have also helped. The trader does not use an S/R framework at all, instead trading the trend structure.)

The Guard Rail is a concept that was discussed in part 2 of the article series.

Think of this:

Attached Image

The primary purpose of the guard rail is to prevent (or limit) damage should you veer off the road.

But it also provides a secondary function. It allows you increased CONFIDENCE in driving along the road without fear of falling over the edge of the cliff.

Can we achieve the same on our charts?

I think we can (to some degree).

Trading with a Guard Rail - continued

Trading with a Guard Rail - continued

Attached Image

Attached Image

Attached Image

Attached Image

Attached Image

Give it a try next time you find conflict between what you feel should be happening, and what you objectively see is actually happening.

Add a guard rail to the chart. Let it act as a clear line in the sand, dividing the chart into two zones. One side allowing you trade what you see is happening. The other allowing you to trade what you feel (and hopefully by then also see) is happening.

Happy trading,

Lance Beggs
****************************************************************************************************************

My Alternative to Lance Beggs's 'Guard Rail' :

Think back to 'The Market Maker's Model' and 'The Intern's Excercise' aka 'Platform Familiarity' aka 'Scalping Training' - both of which Ray has 'given away' i.e covered in marketing Webinars and/or in the video 'snippets' on the free Compass blog :
www.CompassProptraders.com/blog/

Then using these principles we can clearly see that in a Down Trend the long candles are red - thus market makers are probably pulling their liquidity lower down so as not to be long at too high a price (or else they are standing their ground and being overwhelmed by Sellers). Either way, this only gives us permission to trade to the Short side - no Long trades allowed!
So using the Intern Exercise we can attack the Weak Holders' Liquidity i.e the stops of the Longs, all the way down until there is either a successful pullback (into the Long's Liquidity), OR there is a long Green Candle showing that the Market Makers are now probably avoiding getting caught short at too low a price (or else are being overwhelmed by Sellers).

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Naturally I prefer my alternative rather than relying on the vagueness of having to set a Moving Average to an appropriate value and then interpreting when it is showing that the Trend has changed !

Here is the latest email from Boris Schlosberg. I understand what he is saying about trading, though I don't always agree (my comments in blue), but I know nothing about the US TV programs he mentions.

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

What Flip or Flop Taught Me About FX Trading


I have never owned a house. In fact, in more than half a century of being alive I have never held a deed to anything more valuable than a couple of rusted out 1990 Honda Civics. My life has resembled nothing so much than the classic 30 Rock episode where Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy, interrogates Tina Fey’s character.
“Lemon, where do you put your money?”
“The bank.”
“What?! What are you -- an immigrant?”
(Guilty as charged)

So it’s no small irony that my one big weakness for TV is HGTV. I haven’t had cable for more than a decade, but when I am on the road, there is nothing I like more than binge-watching home renovation shows. I like the Scott brothers, the ever-chipper Chip and Joanna Gaines and Nicole Harris’s rehab, but I love Tarek and Christina el Moussa the most. (And yes I was heartbroken when they divorced).

There is no greater voyeuristic pleasure than watching Flip or Flop episodes as they go through the struggles of buying dilapidated property and then restoring it to its utmost beauty and value. Each show is a mini-drama that happily kept me glued to the TV screen in many hotel stays.

So I was instantly intrigued when a CNBC clip of Tarek popped up my Twitter feed this week, and like the fanboy that I am, I instantly clicked to watch it. What surprised me however was that in his two and half minute appearance Tarek laid down more trading wisdom than I’ve heard in years from seasoned market pros. Here are some of his pointers.

1. It’s not the exits, it’s the entries. - No whether you make a profit or a loss depends upon both entry/entries and exit(s).

As Tarek says, “You make your money when you buy the house.” What he means, of course, is that every investment (or trade) is only as good as the price you pay for it. This made me step back and re-examine my own trading systems. The default move of my strategy is to go market when the signal sets up. What if, I wondered, I just laid out limit orders 3 pips under the market for day trades, and 10 pips under the market for swing trades? Would the price run away from me? Turns out that no. In fact, I pick up as much as five extra winning trades per week and for a guy who does more than 100 trades each month, that is a massive, massive edge that I intend to explore.

2. Less positions, more money. - In general I agree it is best to have few concurrently open positions because all markets are correlated, and because the more open positions the less you can focus on each one.

When asked about how many flips he had going at one time Tarek noted that at his peak he was running as many as 74 properties which stressed him to no end. Currently, he runs less than half that amount but his profitability is actually higher.

This is a problem I struggle with all the time. Like everyone else in the FX market, I want -- More! More! More! And yet when I look at my P/L at the end of the week I realize that more strategies actually means more risk.

Did you know that finance academics determined that you can achieve 95% of the benefits of diversification with just 15 stocks? That’s why trading the 30 Dow stocks over the long run pretty much produces the same return as trading 500 stocks in the S&P. - I disagree here because the best trade on the best stock out of 500 stocks in the S&P is likely to be much better than that in the Dow where there are only 30 stocks.

When I look at my basket of algos I realize that just a few medium term swing strategies produce the vast bulk of profits. The rest just keep me glued to the screen and torture me with their seesaw swings in equity. - So why isn't he sensible and just run the 'better' algos, choosing the ones for the current conditions as much as possible.

3. Trading is timing in more ways than one. - Duh! - LOL , who ever said it was anything else?

As Tarek says, instead of ultra-high-cost projects that could tie up his capital for months or years, he likes the “turn and burn projects” in the 300K-700K range. The risk of the market “shifting” in a long term project is really high and the prospect dead money could be detrimental to your “trading” capital. Much like him I find that the 4 hour chart is the perfect “turn and burn” sweet spot for my algos. The risk is very clearly defined so the drawdowns are bearable, and while the rewards are modest they truly add up as you flip those trades.- I agree, focus on what works best for you

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

I don't know who's bright idea it was to start a new course on April 1st - April Fool's day!

Anyhow, at last I have confirmation of Ray's much awaited new course(s).
It consists of a 1 week "Order Flow and Equities" course which can be purchased on its own,
and the full 5 week (or perhaps longer as on previous times) "Institutional Ultimate Trade Program" which includes Order Flow and Equities.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Attached Image (click to enlarge)

Prices:

quite interesting information, but it is hard for me to sumerize it

I have posted this in my other thread in order to help convince any doubters that I really do run a free Self Help Group (for Sharp Edge students) which has been running for nearly 5 years and has around 380 members.
https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=12122785#post12122785

Compass have twisted Ray's arm and persuaded him to do a public live session on Institutional Order flow.
I hope that he does more than just highlight the new Order Flow indicators he has designed for Sierra Chart,
because although they are probably the best available in the retail space, they work best with Futures data.

Here are the details I got in an email:
********************************************************************

The wait is over...LIVE with Ray on Tuesday!
Traders, don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable “Institutional Market Insight” most retail traders are missing...the keys to your trading, regardless what markets you are trading.
Live “Institutional Order Flow” Session Tuesday March 19th at 8:00 PM EASTERN
LOGIN HERE: http://compassfx.webinato.com/sharpedge
(Password: trade or deskpro)
(No Registration Required)
Please forward this invitation to any hardworking trader you know, they’ll thank you for it!
Ray provides key pieces of institutional knowledge and insight to help traders truly understand how the markets operate, the role of the Market Maker, how to identify Commercial Activity, the auction process...get this right to “think” like an institution, it’s vital to your success as a trader.
Market Maker vs Commercial Activity...trading strength against weakness.
We don’t hold new sessions with Ray very often, so clear your schedule, bring your notepad, be prepared to gain valuable information for your trading...all traders welcome!
Make sure to check out the recent posts on “Institutional Order Flow”, the Long Volatility Trades for +124% and the 15 “Repo Trades” this year for $17,258...there is no question, Ray is simply the best.

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

Unlike most educators I know, Ray's public webinars are always different and always with up to date charts - he doesn't just re-hash the same old presentation time after time. Here is where you can see some of the recordings that he will allow non-students to see:

https://www.compassproptraders.com/blog/

Any public session Ray does is worth watching even if you have no interest in his education.
I have been in his room for nearly 5 yrs and still keep learning something new from him!

Retail Trader Ignorance:
Here is a wonderful and accurate schematic created by the well known FF member called 'Hanover' (or David as I call him).

Attached Image (click to enlarge)