The College Trader

Hello All,

I am Nick and I go to RIT in the United States. I have found the best to trade is late nights and early mornings. I use the EUR/USD chart in 15 min intervals and found that from about 11pm to about 5am EST there is usually a steady trend that forms.

I have also been working with an EA that has made almost 5000-6000 dollars a month on a 3000 dollar investment with a demo account so I might use that on a real account instead.

Thanks,
Nick

hey guys....again, im at kent state university in usa. heres my view for the rest of the year. bearish on usd is a no brainer...1st week in january there will be profit taking on equities and commodities...heard this from an inside source at an IB

ppl need to post here more, i as well

does anyone here trade commodities along with fx?

I'm at Bentley right outside of Boston for those around here. Seems we have a good number of us from Mass.

As for positions, I've been playing short usd, long us equities for a while now via long high yield exotics/short dollar and qld equity but I've been lightening up my positions massively. The thing that cautions me medium/longer term is that "everyone knows usd is tanking and there is no other way" as the person above mentioned also. Anyone you ask will say the same, someone not even looking at the markets at all... This cautions me that there should be a leveling off or change of trend. But again, this is just speculation. As far as technicals and what I'm watching now, the trend in my opinion slowed down a bit, this is less so on eur/usd but in equities and some other pairs I see uneasiness hence why I lightened up my positions. Playing the high interest currencies did a nice job with my bottom line though so I'm more than satisfied for now since I followed through with this dollar depreciation in the last few months with a consistent position.

On the side I'm testing a couple systematic quantitative approaches but dont have much time lately with exam session starting and a 180 page business plan that we just finished up (finally).

Glad you guys are still around though, I say we keep this thread going, maybe we can actualize something from this in the future.

Good trading,

Jonas

To answer that, I look at ETFs that have underlying commodities since I find it a little easier, but caution that they don't always correlate as well as they should. If you are interested at all google correlation of UNG to Natural gas and you'll see what I mean. I got a little screwed on that one but majority of them seem viable and easier to trade.

Welcome,

RIT as in Rochester by the lakes? Is it cold up there yet?

It is not as cold as I thought it would be, although it has snowed already so...

Hey guys,

i am a newbie and I am currently a sophomore at ASU I am actually fortunate enough to meet a few traders who make a living doing this and who are college kids. they do pretty good!

I am actually currently in limbo between figure out what trading styles I like best and what will fit me, I plan to start forward testing throughout this entire next semester then launching live for summer is the game plan.

What systems do you guys use. / trading plans?

btw. Me and a Friend of mine are actually starting an investment club that primarily focuses on trading, specifically forex, while utilizing equities for certain global plays that we can see.



sweet thread!

Everyone must be busy these days. Well, welcome!

As far as trading and etc., I think most of the guys here trade mostly based on technicals myself included. I also like to test a lot of new things I hear about though so a lot of arbitrage strategies appeal to be in order to reduce my risk statistical arbitrage etc, I always keep an eye out and test things out when I have the time.

It's great that you're starting an investment club, we have one here that got started years back with a donation of a 100K and how has grown considerably. They also do all equities and have teams research different sectors etc, it's quite interesting. I would suggest getting a mentor/advisor type of person for the club if you have any access that you could ask a few questions now and then when you guys aren't sure. Maybe you met someone around your trader guys or something, it would come in useful I'm sure.

Lowell is a good place. I have was in Engineering for 3 years but ended up switching over to Economics because of my love for FOREX. I do this at least 40 hours a week and go to school full time. Most of the time you can find my posts in the the Auslanco - GBP thread. I have been focused on that because of the great price moves.

Anyone else here do this to pay their monthly bills? I use a combination of S&R with Fib retrace. I also have a proprietary system I use that took me about 18 months to develop.

Looks like we should be entering into the holiday slow time so in another week I don't expect to see much until after new years. Talk with you soon.

oh well, here goes my first post.
i still use a demo account, and still learning.
planning to go real in next 2 months
go to the university at noon, and mainly looking for trade opportunity around 3-4PM, 6-7PM, 8-11PM. my timezone is GMT+7, so i guess i pretty lucky being can focus on trade on my spare time.

It seems there's a lot of people from Mass here, and also a lot of people from Canada. It's funny, I'm originally from Mass, but I live in Canada right now.

By the way, McGill University here.
Undergrad: Math
Grad: Finance

The math has been waaaay more useful than the finance.

28k for forex traders? 320k for anesthesiologists? Are you talking about salaries? Where did you get those numbers?

Yes, anesthesiologists make a ton of money, but 320k... that's like the highest bracket. 28k for traders? It seems like you're overstating the anesthesiologists and understating the traders. Although it's true that some firms pay their traders a very low base salary because the idea is that they make the rest through their trading and the low base salary gives them incentive to trade well.

I've heard that investment bankers make a lot more than 55k. Something in the order of 3 times that. However, I've also heard that they don't last long because they just get burned out. Crazy 80-hour weeks, stuff like that...

At any rate, the goal is to become a profitable independent trader. I mean that's what we're all here for, right? Because if you can make it as a trader, your bank account will (eventually) grow a LOT faster than any anesthesiologist's!

I say you just start trading for yourself and get good at it and you can make what you want. I have a buddy that I met through teaching (I used to teach for a company on how to trade fx) and we have stayed in touch since we left there. He is working with a $250,000 account and we talk every night to analyze trades. He pulled in $50,000 this week alone...so deifnetly do not under estimate trading.

3rd year student at the university of sydney in australia here - spent the past 12 months on and off digging up material, learning new systems while losing equity in the process of experimenting with them (well in hindsight they're experiments, failed ones) and only recently come up with a moderately reliable one. Only problem is I've managed to break away from it as many times as I've stuck to it in terms of trades, so that's only continued to eat away at the equity

For those fellow trigger happy guys out there (or rather impatient guys with systems that don't allow for very frequent entry) don't trade when you're sleep deprived unless you like starting the next day trying to catch up on break even lol

Hey fullperson,

I noticed you go to UMass-Amherst. I graduated in 2008. Obviously you are interested in trading, talk to Tom Schneeweis, he heads the CISDM and is on the 3rd floor in SOM I think. If I recall correctly, he was a former (and possibly current?) hedge fund trader. Definitely pick his brain if you ever get the chance. Kazemi is also a really bright guy, I think he also works in the CISDM.

And just an fyi, assuming you would be interested in trading professionally after school since I'm not sure what year you are in (undergrad?), Schneeweis offered a trading job to our class (alternative investments) at the end of the year through a buddy of his who ran a trading firm in NY. It's something to consider, and something I definitely wish I had known would be possible before I started that class. Obviously it may have been a one-time thing, but he is by far the best resource available if you are really interested in trading.

Hello everyone and to everyone hello! I just came back from UMass after a grueling bio final (where 70% of the material was not in our study guide yippeee!).

So let me begin by saying I'm really sorry for not posting as much, but my classes really ate away at my schedule. So I'm seriously going to amp up my conversation these few weeks while I'm home.

Now for an interesting story: I was on the ride home and this really cute girl asks to sit next to me. Now the bus wasn't full so I was getting some vibes. Unfortunately, I had to bring my pet fish home, which took up the seat next to me. I was just blocked by my fish....fml

to Borduhh (Nick):
ooohhh RIT! I hear that's a great school! I actually went to check out a close relative of RIT: U Rochester. A bit costly though 50k lol. Also, yes, it will get cold as heck haha.

The EUR/USD is one of the most trendy currencies I've come across and so is often easier to read in terms of price action. However, 15 min time frames are still very very dangerous. When you're on demo, EAs seem simple, but when the adrenalin starts pumping, your mind starts to lose discipline. That's why I tend to stay at 4H and above. However, to each his own. I typically force myself to stay on demo 6 months on any particular strategy before I use it in live.

Also, I hope you understand the rationale behind the EA.

And... 5-6k based off of 3k is 2:1 reward/risk ratio at best. I would suggest you start off with the goal of 3:1 (my personal favorite ratio). In addition, you should keep in mind that the key to success is not "how much I can win" but "how much can I lose". Have that mind set along with a great strategy and you're golden
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To bksujal:

I don't tend to focus too much on commodities since they don't always correlate as stated above. Gold and oil seem to be big players, especially with CAD. While I wouldn't purely on correlation, I will look at oil and gold occasionally just to see what's up. For expertise on commodities, hit up someone on this forum with more exp than me lol.

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To BRpippin:

It's great to see such enthusiasm for learning. Most traders just scratch the surface and jump into trading. There are generally two trading styles: technical and fundamental. One is based off of price movements and patterns while the other is based off of international news/figures.

Advantages/disadvantages:
Technical:
+ price is supposed to reflect instantly "what the market thinks". Prices are used by market drivers (like big banks). It's quantitative.
- You are literally blinded to what happens in the global arena. Prone to price manipulation by banks via "stop running" or "pump and dump" (all ways for banks to screw with the real price of a currency pair)

Fundamental:
+ LONG term trends tend to follow global conditions. Figure manipulation doesn't quite trick you since everyone gets similar data.
- The banks really do use technical data and so in the short term, technicals tend to dominate. Your news feed program will likely be too slow, even 20 seconds and the bulk of the move could fly past you since the banks tend to get info much faster than you or I do. Unless of course you pay a substantial fee for professional news feed data like bloomberg.

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To: scrmnegl (hope I spelled this right lol)

Neat! It's great to have an experienced trader on this forum who has the ability to TEACH. While fx can be easy to discuss, teaching concepts is an even greater challenge and for that I commend you

I was also thinking about the engineering route in HS... I had AP physics, stats, chem ect under my belt. Never happened, idk why. Perhaps it was the amount of "intellectual bullies". Yes that's right... you can bully people by being too arrogant and smart lol. I still love engineering though. Made a rail gun last summer

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To ban2noobs (lol nice name)

you should really consider sticking to demo beyond 2 months :/ unless you have had prior fx experience and you're just testing out a side strategy. If you'd like we can discuss how best to tweak your strategy and money manage your account if you're willing to share your ideas. But by all means do what you will. Just remember: no more than 3% of your account should be risked on a trade. Use a good risk reward ratio ect. Have a trading business plan and keep a neat little journal of your trades (if you start getting 3-5 trades wrong in a row something is wrong). You'll know when you're ready if you can place a trade and still be able to sleep peacefully at night. After all money isn't useful if you don't feel safe doing what you do lol.

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to 4x mathematician:

the data I got was disparaging (glassdoor.com). I tend to base my values off of opportunity cost: greatest alternative given up to base unit. (for me this means highest thing I give up v. the minimal gain I get). So definitely lol. You are right about understating trader salaries but I'm warming up to the idea of being a trader now that I got over the whole "oh my life is ruined because the financial sector blows" phase. Remember, I'm still a young college freshman trying to figure stuff out so I'm very prone to freak outs lol. It's great to hear your words of encouragement for our traders here! Love the positive attitude keep it up!

Also, I know a lot of traders (I included) are looking for classes to sign up for. Maybe you could explain why the math is more useful than the finance to set us in a neat direction

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To Nev:

HAHAHAHAH!!! YES! you should never trade w/o enough sleep. Same goes for going to tests. Just a quick suggestion: maybe switch to demo for a while :/ losing equity is never fun and I like your determination Still, you should really think about developing some solid rules for trading, and if you keep a journal of your trades (including why you held onto a position or why you hit the panic button) it'll considerably help your trading as it would for anyone. Discipline is the name of the game. If you want a trigger happy game call me up and we'll play some xbox live!

I tend to follow one main method (price patterns) and then (because I'm such a darned curious kid) check out some other methods along side of it. However, I NEVER trade with the new method unless I pick apart all the similarities/differences between systems. I will run them both at the same time while trading on my main system. That way I know the advantages/disadvantages of my systems. It's pretty interesting. Eventually you get to the point where you can switch up methods effortlessly because you know the market is in such and such condition (expansion, range bound, retrace, big market news appearing, trend ect). As such, you have a batman "tool belt" of methods that you know will work in that particular market situation. When the market is in a quasi state (lets say it's between trend and range bound) I will use two to three methods together to gather a larger perspective. Heck, if all three methods confirm a buy than it's a high probability trade (BUT BUT BUT keep in mind not to have more than 3 methods running at the same time. Anymore and you'll go crazy and lose your "trader's discretion"

btw, how's sydney?

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To jonasalt:

Thank you thank you thank you for keeping this thread alive. I hope that 180 pager didn't do too much damage lol. I'll check out you charts in more detail as this week progresses and keep you updated on what I find as well.

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to mfoste1:

oooohhh yea the USD is tanking. Right on man!

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To smittens4212:

Thanks for the great info! I was told UMass was a school of opportunities and its certainly held up to that reputation I think I've talked to Kazemi at the UMass open house. I mentioned the nuances of currencies and he told my father I'd probably be a millionare. He's definitely a flatterer.

I have yet to meet Schneeweis. I'll probably contact him via e-mail this week and talk to him when I get back on campus. From the looks of his credentials on the UMass website, he's definitely a wealth of knowledge.

btw, UMass got rid of DC trays... now we have to sled using desks and stuff haha.

Hope you stay on the forum, I could really use your UMass advice.



WOAH... that was the longest post ever....

ok so a quick outlook on what I think will happen to the EUR/USD pair. But first some observations:

There's a 2.618 daily retrace from the 1.5142 dbl top from nov 25 to dec 3 (the days leading up to the massive decline of the pair). Possible targets include the 23% retrace at 1.4380 of dec 11 high (I'm being ultra careful here) OR the 23% retrace of dec 3 high (the risky one hmmmm) [BUY]

There's an indecisive daily pin bar, with a possible pattern forming in which the target number is 1.4300. (you know how banks looove their round numbers, this could be a good support number. If broken it could mean continued downwards pressure) [wait for support or confirmation of candle to open and hold 1.4300]

Ok the decision:

I'm thinking its a buy, but the long term trend is down. You'll be able to make quick profits but the long term will pull you down. So for the 4h guys, it looks like a buy and the daily guys should rethink holding onto it for a while until 1.4300 is tested properly and holds.

Major price line: 1.4300 and holds, you're golden if not.. it's going down down down.. the ring of fire.... the ring of fire...

lol, sorry for those looking at my above posts, it seems that the bulk of the short term movements have moved. Expect the pair to go down in the short term on Monday

On the plus side I can show you the 30 min chart of EUR/USD, showing the fun 2.618 retrace

Note that the market follow retraces a lot. Even if the pair is determined to go up or down, traders will gobble up the main retraces (.318, .618 ect ect). This is speculation at its best folks! But hey, keep the fact that this upturn is crazy in the back of your head and buy up some short term speculative dips.

Note that the % retraces work for the time intervals as well! If you ever need more confirmation of a viable retrace, try doing a ratio between the legs.

Remember when I mentioned use of 23% retrace as profit taking point? Well if you look at the chart, the pair stalled at that exact percentage. This method gives great profit taking points.

does anybody trade based on Pivot points solely? Or perhaps use it in their trading?