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  • #961
  • Apr 25, 2012 2:23am Apr 25, 2012 2:23am
Quoting 60minuteman
before anyone asks "who are these traders then?"... have a little search, just not on this forum
I've asked you repeatedly for names, and you cant give them.

The only example you gave was larry williams making 900K in a competition (during which time he simultaneously lost 6 million in his other accounts !)

Some of us do this for a living, and we keep a very close eye on the competition. The returns that you are claiming are complete fantasy. You might achieve them for a few months on a miniscule account, but they are not sustainable, and not scalable.
  • #962
  • Apr 25, 2012 2:25am Apr 25, 2012 2:25am
Quoting pipmutt
lol, at one time that's what they used to say about the best traders in the City, 'barrow boys, not Harrow boys'!

While all the over-educated 'let's make this as complex as possible' were devising convoluted systems, strategies, and methodologies, the barrow boys were simply making deals and cleaning up!
you can also add to the the huge numbers who used to be very successful traders at hedge funds but could never cut it as retail forex traders... I know of 2 personally..

I went to school with all those Ivy-league sorts, sure most have been very successful.... working for Daddy's friend...
tradewith60
  • #963
  • Apr 25, 2012 2:26am Apr 25, 2012 2:26am
Quoting Razzle
I've asked you repeatedly for names, and you cant give them.

The only example you gave was larry williams making 900K in a competition (during which time he simultaneously lost 6 million in his other accounts !)

Some of us do this for a living, and we keep a very close eye on the competition. The returns that you are claiming are complete fantasy. You might achieve them for a few months on a miniscule account, but they are not sustainable, and not scalable.
1. I have never ever mentioned Larry Williams on this or any other forum...

2. You need to attach some bollock bands to your second statement.
tradewith60
  • #964
  • Edited 2:45am Apr 25, 2012 2:42am | Edited 2:45am
I've gotta second 60m, the first thought that comes to mind was a CNBC interview with Borris Schlossberg and Steve Ickow (one of the traders he interviewed for his book with Kath Lien - Millionaire Traders, pardon the plug). Steve was a premed major so he is smart guy, but he went into stock trading later in life, from what you can tell just from the CNBC interview, the guy seems totally like an 'average joe', like he could have been any 0-4 voucher member here on ff. He had 10 losing days in the last year and made he humbly puts it at hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, and he makes upwards of 250 trades a day...in 6 1/2 hours.

Dukascopy's traders of the month and year award winners mostly are also 'average joe/jane' sort of people, some started out as a hobby and crank out 100's% growth a month and year with real accounts, and mostly stick with generic indicators and simple money management setups. Some will say those figures aren't sustainable, so what... keep doing it until you reach some goals, until you reach liquidity problems, that's what the 'flipper' (a Euro dax trader) and Tim Sykes (a penny stock trader) did, and they have 7+ figure bank accounts now.

Even in Market Wizards there are guys that come from regular avenues that make it in this trading game. There doesn't seem to be any correlation with having 'for eg' a degree in quantitative modelling or nuclear physics and making a living out of this.

Some style guys have made it seem that you need highly sophisticated systems to trade and to complete a thesis on black holes to have a remote chance of succeeding when all it comes down to - exiting at a higher price than you bought, and a lower price than you sold, and indicators, FA, TA, SR, MM, are all tools at your disposal to do that. It's like the difference between telling someone to put a 50ma on their chart and look at price action, and saying something like 'apply a low pass filter to your price data and record the volatility ratios of a fading sinusoidal curve of momentum'. Now of course you need an edge whether it's discretionary or nondiscretionary - that's what research is forums like this facilitate, and of course it needs to be tested - and that's what back/forward testing is for. My 2c.
  • #965
  • Apr 25, 2012 3:40am Apr 25, 2012 3:40am
Quoting iDouble
Great post, LP!

You pretty much summed-up what goes on inside forums like this and has been going on for many years in retail forex. Many have (unfortunately) experienced exactly the steps you laid down. You should make a 12 Step Program out of it, LOL. It would be a great case study to keep people from wasting their time.

I'll give you three tips to help move you out of this mode of trading:

- Research, design, engineer/architect and build your own indicators from scratch (raw OHLC data).

This has many benefits, but the key...
You should make a thread about this.
  • #966
  • Apr 25, 2012 3:40am Apr 25, 2012 3:40am
Quoting 60minuteman
1. I have never ever mentioned Larry Williams on this or any other forum...
You are right, and I owe you an apology. Larry Williams was discussed earlier in this thread, and given as an example of someone making large returns. However it was bluesteele who gave Larry as an example. Sorry for the confusion.

The point is there's a lot of anacdotal evidence about large large returns, but not much actual evidence about large returns over sustained periods of time. I know people who where able to make 7 and 8 figures from relatively small accounts, and I've met a couple of people who made more than that in the dot com boom. Some of them where smart enough to know when to quit, and some where not :-)
  • #967
  • Apr 25, 2012 3:56am Apr 25, 2012 3:56am
Quoting Razzle
You are right, and I owe you an apology. Larry Williams was discussed earlier in this thread, and given as an example of someone making large returns. However it was bluesteele who gave Larry as an example. Sorry for the confusion.

The point is there's a lot of anacdotal evidence about large large returns, but not much actual evidence about large returns over sustained periods of time. I know people who where able to make 7 and 8 figures from relatively small accounts, and I've met a couple of people who made more than that in the dot com boom....
Ok, Razzle... thanks.

you risk 2% per trade, your win loss is 60%, your r/r is 2/1, you take 10 trades a week...

average week your account grows 16%...

lets say you have a bad week and win 40%... still up 4% for the week

lets say you have a really bad week and win 30%... -2%

and just for those living in pure fantasy land... 70% win/loss +22% account growth

impossible?
tradewith60
  • #968
  • Apr 25, 2012 4:07am Apr 25, 2012 4:07am
im gonna get slayed for posting past charts here,but here we go .

dont get lost in this sea of confusion,theres anaylists ,quants,traders,and a hundred other types involved in this industry.we are small fry home traders trying to make a buck,theres lots of repeatable market behavours that we can capatalise on,it does not need to be complex,but yes it can if you choose that path,or should i say have that mind capacity.

my two charts posted from today show the simplicity i have found in the market,1st chart are my s/r and channel lines which have remained on my charts for weeks and weeks,they only get added to when the market moves into new territory,which isnt that often,these levels constantly repeat patterns,wether you scalp them or piont to piont trade them.
ive been consistently profitable for some time from these simple observations,cross referencing between time frames,yes it takes time to determine whats relevent now today but simple practice will get results.

my second chart from the ftse are 2 touch trades to levels from market open monday,im not giving you the source but its not rocket science,ive been using that ftse method for over 2 years still works 80 % of the time,and now im using binary options with limited risk there more profitable than previous.i can promise you those touches are not coincidence.

this isnt a me me post,im really trying to let people know that theres many ways to make a buck out of this.and as you can tell im no oxford graduate.
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  • #969
  • Apr 25, 2012 4:13am Apr 25, 2012 4:13am
[quote=skelly;5606098]
Quote
Just try to be good.And remember that mocking and trying to funny at the expense of others is not really that nice.
I do try to be nice, I'm just not as good at it as you are.
You're a pro.
My story was completely true, even the bit about your signature (O.K, except for the cargo net bit being silly... it was awesome)
Sorry you felt the need to infer that I’m bad, unfunny and unnice, I wont take it too personally.
Quote
I do understand that we human beings all strive for attention.
So do I, but the allegation might be misdirected given my timid 4 posts in 17 months.

Quote
Truly, left to my own devices I am no different than you.
I don’t think you really believe that truly left to your own devices you would be, 'no different to me'.
You'd be heaps nicer.
But I do urge you to give it a try, cast off whatever dogma you believe is manipulating you and embrace the world and everything in it including your own beautiful individual 'devices'.
But I digress from an otherwise excellent thread and the point is, it really isn’t the place for value judgements or life advice.


Quote
It is important for me to understand where you are and accept you as you are today.
By pure luck, Paradise.
  • #970
  • Apr 25, 2012 4:40am Apr 25, 2012 4:40am
Quoting 60minuteman
you risk 2% per trade, your win loss is 60%, your r/r is 2/1, you take 10 trades a week...
The maths stacks up, thats not in dispute. There are a few problems though. An average 60% win rate is realistic, and achieving an average 1:2 risk:reward is equally realistic.

When you break these metrics down into those kinds of figures things seam reasonable enough, but achieving both simultaneously is where the problem lies.
  • #971
  • Apr 25, 2012 5:09am Apr 25, 2012 5:09am
Large, infact huge incredible 100% returns per month are possible and are being made by retail traders, just becasue you can't do it, doesn't mean that someone else can't.

You can't compare a retail trader with a few K's to a bank with a few B's % wise, the Bank with the B's still makes more $'s ofcourse.

For 99% of us, which aren't rich in the first place, there is simply no point aiming for 12% per year, it's not worth anything to us.

Yes 99% of the 99% will fail, but that 0.9998% without trying would of never of made it, yes 1 in 100 sucks, but people do the lottery at 14.9Mil to 1 every week.

( okay if you do the lottery, twice a week, with 2 tickets each time for 50years then it's still 1432:1 odds on winning the Millions, at a cost of £10,400 )
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #972
  • Apr 25, 2012 5:24am Apr 25, 2012 5:24am
Support and resistance (and the three levels thereof), can't be argued with. Neat that pro real time plots it for you too. Incidentally, have a look at Dukascopy daily videos on support and resistance, the guy talks through the various scenarios re: r1-r3, s1-s3 and the daily pivot. Makes you think wrt to where their institutional clients hunt. Only five min vids would post a link but I haven't got the time.


Quoting diceman555
im gonna get slayed for posting past charts here,but here we go .

dont get lost in this sea of confusion,theres anaylists ,quants,traders,and a hundred other types involved in this industry.we are small fry home traders trying to make a buck,theres lots of repeatable market behavours that we can capatalise on,it does not need to be complex,but yes it can if you choose that path,or should i say have that mind capacity.

my two charts posted from today show the simplicity i have found in the market,1st chart are my s/r and channel lines which...
"The meek shall inherit the earth.." Yeah right, good luck with that shit..
  • #973
  • Apr 25, 2012 5:37am Apr 25, 2012 5:37am
Quoting Spreadbetter
Support and resistance (and the three levels thereof), can't be argued with. Neat that pro real time plots it for you too. Incidentally, have a look at Dukascopy daily videos on support and resistance, the guy talks through the various scenarios re: r1-r3, s1-s3 and the daily pivot. Makes you think wrt to where their institutional clients hunt. Only five min vids would post a link but I haven't got the time.

S/R isn't strong enough, the odds on a S/R point holding simply aren't enough the majority of the time, your better off viewing them as large 20 - 30 pips area's, it dips into a S for instance, start accumulating and SL under the S area, if you do it with 1 pip S/R lines, it'll dip under and nickel and dime you for no reason.

Daily Pivots, also have no statistical value, used as a S/R!
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #974
  • Apr 25, 2012 5:44am Apr 25, 2012 5:44am
Placing orders at r1 or s1 is just not my thing, however, if I did I'd use the highs or lows of the session as a stop, retail traders account for only circa 8% of the Market, the institutional weight of money that moves the Market by the major players would at best (if at all) only look at s and r in terms of TA. It's no accident how many times for example r1 is hit close to on the button to then retreat. Consider cable this morning pre the GDP (double dip) figures.

Quoting Turveyd
S/R isn't strong enough, the odds on a S/R point holding simply aren't enough the majority of the time, your better off viewing them as large 20 - 30 pips area's, it dips into a S for instance, start accumulating and SL under the S area, if you do it with 1 pip S/R lines, it'll dip under and nickel and dime you for no reason.

Daily Pivots, also have no statistical value, used as a S/R!
"The meek shall inherit the earth.." Yeah right, good luck with that shit..
  • #975
  • Apr 25, 2012 5:45am Apr 25, 2012 5:45am
Quoting Turveyd
... I'm definitely not a guru, most of my trades are posted live as is my progress at beating this game, screw ups, days where I mess around and blow my tiny on purpose account thankfully ...
... ofcourse thats only $10 ish on a $70 account, when ready I'll put her upto 2K just not quite there yet! ...
... The subtle market changes have knocked me from being profitable to not a few times over the years ...
You're proving my point, that trading is not easy at all. You've been doing this for 7 years. You wrote trading systems threads here on ICC. You had people following you and your (mostly) scalping techniques. You changed your system several times blaming the market that keeps changing too. After all these years of "easy/successful" trading you still blow up accounts, and still trade pennies. So let's see ... You're a bright guy (in my opinion at least), you are obviously hard working, you spent 7 years improving your trading skills and searching for better ways to trade the markets, you wrote 7000+ posts on FF, you got 10+ vouchers ... and currently you have NOTHING to show for it. No private island, not even a yacht to visit someone else's island ... hell, not even money to pay for the trip to the island on someone else's yacht. And you still claim that trading is easy and teach others how to do it?

Quoting iDouble
I'll give you three tips to help move you out of this mode of trading:...
Great posts, thanks. It would be interesting to start your own thread and give us more insight into how these things are done, you're obviously knowledgeable on the topic.

Quoting 60minuteman
Does anyone ever get the feeling they're reading posts from computer programmers. Then when you meet a truly successful trader (someone who is consistent) they used to sell ice-creams, or drive taxi's ????
I haven't met those ice-cream sellers yet. If they exist there aren't many of them. Some people have incredible talents, they have the proper genes to develop a certain skill intuitively. You can find a gypsy who cannot read or write but plays some musical instrument almost to perfection. But he's not going to be a Mozart. You can find successful traders with little understanding of economy and fundamentals and no programming skills but who are lucky to have this savant-like narrow skill of "reading" where the price is headed especially in fast moving markets. But if you're not lucky to have that innate ability it's not going to be easy.

Quote
Then you're forever told that you're only going to make 1-2% a day and win 60% of your trades if you're REALLY good... But you know people trading well over 80% of their trades and winning 5-10% a day...(strict rule based systems, with some analysis of trend and s/r)

Really? 5-10% a day? Today? And tomorrow as well? And the day after tomorrow again? And no -10% days in-between? Let's put that into perspective, shall we? If you start with $1000 and make 10% each day it takes 146 days to reach 1 billion. In 1 year you would own the entire planet. It's true that with 5%/day you need almost a year to make your first billion. That sucks ... Who would waste an entire year of their life to make only 1 billion?

Quoting jeanlouie
Some style guys have made it seem that you need highly sophisticated systems to trade and to complete a thesis on black holes to have a remote chance of succeeding when all it comes down to - exiting at a higher price than you bought, and a lower price than you sold, and indicators, FA, TA, SR, MM, are all tools at your disposal to do that.
Yeah, sure. Very easy. The reason so many lose money is because they didn't figure that out. Buy low, sell high, that's the part they were missing. Of course chess is also very easy, you just have to attack a king when it has nowhere to go to. And neurosurgery - piece of cake - you just cut out the brain tumor. Formula 1? Couldn't be easier, just drive faster than the other guy.

You're confusing the goal of the job with the skills required to reach that goal. We all know what a trader is supposed to do to get a profit, just as we know what a soccer player is supposed to do to score a goal. We also know that there are tools for that. But the problem is that using those tools requires skills that very few people have. It's a combination of nature and nurture that few possess.

In a 1950 conversation at Los Alamos, four world-class scientists generally agreed, given the size of the Universe, that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations must be present. Millions of them, including in our galaxy. But one of the four, Enrico Fermi, asked, "If these civilizations do exist, where is everybody?" A famous quote. That has become known as Fermi's paradox.

It seems that we have a similar paradox on FF. The place is teeming with traders claiming that trading is easy, and making gains such as 5% per day (according to some), or 70% per month (according to others) on a constant basis is not difficult. Many of these traders have been here for many years. Any spreadsheet shows that by now they should all be wealthier than Bill Gates. So, to paraphrase Fermi, let me ask a similar question: Where are their private islands?
  • #976
  • Apr 25, 2012 6:01am Apr 25, 2012 6:01am
Quoting Razzle
The maths stacks up, thats not in dispute. There are a few problems though. An average 60% win rate is realistic, and achieving an average 1:2 risk:reward is equally realistic.

When you break these metrics down into those kinds of figures things seam reasonable enough, but achieving both simultaneously is where the problem lies.
The problem lies in the fact that people try simple stuff that's proven to work and either break the rules, taking profit early, not adjusting risk etc etc... or give up after 10 or 20 trades...
tradewith60
  • #977
  • Apr 25, 2012 6:01am Apr 25, 2012 6:01am
Quoting Spreadbetter
Placing orders at r1 or s1 is just not my thing, however, if I did I'd use the highs or lows of the session as a stop, retail traders account for only circa 8% of the Market, the institutional weight of money that moves the Market by the major players would at best (if at all) only look at s and r in terms of TA. It's no accident how many times for example r1 is hit close to on the button to then retreat. Consider cable this morning pre the GDP (double dip) figures.
The main issue is, if you bought at S1 then you'd likely be going long in a downward trend, cause it must been going down to get there, if the longer trend is up then with enough breathing space and buying more ( might not turn enough to be worth it from 1st position ) you've got good odds that it will turn back up.

Double bottom on a S/R will likely create a small bounce, to sucker people in you can profit from that if your quick, but triple bottoms inspire more confidence sucker many more people in which regret wussing the double bottom, and they normally fail and very quickly.
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #978
  • Apr 25, 2012 6:03am Apr 25, 2012 6:03am
Quoting LazyPawn
You're proving my point, that trading is not easy at all. You've been doing this for 7 years. You wrote trading systems threads here on ICC. You had people following you and your (mostly) scalping techniques. You changed your system several times blaming the market that keeps changing too. After all these years of "easy/successful" trading you still blow up accounts, and still trade pennies. So let's see ... You're a bright guy (in my opinion at least), you are obviously hard working, you spent 7 years improving your trading skills and searching...
Because you haven't met any doesn't mean they don't exist...

I haven't made a million, no... but when i'm half way there I wouldn't be posting on FF anyway
tradewith60
  • #979
  • Apr 25, 2012 6:07am Apr 25, 2012 6:07am
Quoting LazyPawn
You're proving my point, that trading is not easy at all. You've been doing this for 7 years. You wrote trading systems threads here on ICC. You had people following you and your (mostly) scalping techniques. You changed your system several times blaming the market that keeps changing too. After all these years of "easy/successful" trading you still blow up accounts, and still trade pennies. So let's see ... You're a bright guy (in my opinion at least), you are obviously hard working, you spent 7 years improving your trading skills and searching...
Haven't got a car which works at the moment to drive to the coast if I could afford the fuel but hey thats a different story.

Not aimed at being scalpy, I'm not a 4 pip merchant I average 40+ I think last time I worked it out.

Others are still using my method, with there own discretion ofcourse and claim to be making good $'s of it, gits, but hey better retail make it than banks

Most of my issues, have been over complicating it, trying to time a m1 turn up with the trend, which turns up goes 2 pips then reverses to the SL arrgghhhh, more of a hands off set some orders check 30mins or so works much better these days.

Hope to have my private island and small airplane by the time I'm 50
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
  • #980
  • Apr 25, 2012 6:14am Apr 25, 2012 6:14am
Also the X say 70% per month, is fine at first starting from say $100 but when your at 20K, your ability to risk $1000 on a trade kinda goes so your % drops off hugely.

My goal is get to 20K USD then make 15 - 20% per month, which is 3K-4K and take out all the profit as a wage each month thats 2K - 2.5K UK.

Making a wage is a completely different ball game to retiring a billionaire, not many people do even close to that.
Nothing to it, but to do it!!! Stick to the plan FOOL!!!!
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