B.S. Trading with Kenneth Lee

Awesome idea!!!

Good luck with going full time again!

That leap is always one of the biggest hurdles a trader makes in their career. I've seen it ruin many of good traders. It really messes with the mental game.

I usually encourage traders who are taking the 'full-time plunge' to pick up a part time job during the weekend or during a trading session they don't usually trade. It doesn't have to be a lot of hours, just enough for beer money and to take your spouse out someplace nice every once in a while. The idea is to help take the pressure off from trading when it comes to maintaining a standard of living (at least for the first few months that is, as you get into the grove of things.)

After all, the worst position to put yourself in is working a tight budget and counting all the little things like eating out.. since that will directly impact your trading (make you feel like you can't afford to lose.)

Cheers,
Jack

I have traded for a living in the past, But had financial obligations that forced me to liquidate. So this time I have prepared better for it. First by lowering my requirements or cost of living. So don't have to make as much , second getting my equity up so the percentage of gains can be less as well.

My weekly goal which I hit almost every week is 20%, But trading for a living requirement is only 20% per month. so a lot of wiggle room. Plus I have come up with a money management scheme that fits my style of trading allow some protection from moron moves.

That is all designed to lower the stress or fear level. Plus now we can pay the bills off the wife's work. So a lot better this go around.

My goal has never been to become grossly rich but just be able to provide a decent income and allow the freedom to move around the globe at will. Still a ways from that but one day. The first goal is to break away from the 9 to 5 or in my case the 2 pm to 10 pm . hehe

Thanks for the encouragement , Ken

Plus I will probably keep working until a 10% monthly gain would pay the bills. Plus my Money management. will have me siphoning away the gains to a protected spot to withdraw as needed and also to add to my over all trading account to use in the future if something terrible goes wrong.

Studying other commercial or so called commercial traders they as well have issues that at times raise their ugly heads the main difference between them and me is the funds available to trade, They are normally diversified or at least trading more than one account. I Also am now trading two accounts and I don't take the same trade in both at once offering a bit of security. I try and not trade the same correlated pairs. Like my last trade Friday I was short the A/j and e/u . A/J was a mover and e/u I barely made anything before it turned up.

Just some thoughts Ken

Having the bills covered (in the worst case) by other family income is going to be a huge plus here.. that will help your mental game immensely. I do something like this by having other streams of revenue outside of just trading (putting my experience from my former career in IT to good use.)

As for the commercial trader's comment.. I'm assuming you mean institutional traders?

My day job is trading for a private capital firm on their equity desk.. so maybe I have a bit of insight here.

All my pay is performance based, so in a way I'm a blend between an independent trader (since I don't eat if I don't earn) and an institutional trader (since I'm working in a team environment, have access to mentors, and have a risk manager breathing down my neck if I start making bonehead trades.)

That being said, my point is that "commercial" / "independent" / "institutional" traders should be measured on things like risk ratios and how long they've survived in the industry... not on their account size.

The success rate is slightly higher on the institutional side, but not by much (while you have mentors and risk managers to help you, they'll also fire well before you impact their bottom line, since they'll identify bad traits and push you out the door before you do damage.)

It's a very big change in environment once you start trading for an institution.. but every company is structured differently. A trader from one company might work well on their own, while another from a different company might fail horribly since the environment they traded in didn't develop the skills they need to work independently (or come up with their own strategies.)

Institutional traders often have trouble going at it alone.. they are usually hired to execute strategies the company already has developed, and have a boss standing over them to make sure they don't screw it up (or that they handle it properly when they do.) So when they go at it alone, all of a sudden they have to deal with a side of the mental game years of experience working for a corporate entity won't prepare them to handle.... they have to be their own risk manager and account for their own mistakes.

Often, the consistency they develop on a trading desk is related to "don't do X because I'll probably get yelled at or fired" or "cut this loser here because if I lose any more my boss will chop my buying power in half and yell at me.." etc... etc.. so even though it would seem simple to just continue doing what you were doing for a company, just on your own, the basis of trading discipline has been shifted and you almost need to re-train yourself to execute well since you'll only be answering to yourself.

(This is just my observation. There are always exceptions to this and I've seen many people with minds just wired for trading / risk and make great transitions to independent traders from the corporate world.)


Lastly, if you just meant the "independent" traders that can be found around ForexFactory... yeah... a lot of them are just new traders who have larger account balances and think they can make a living off it. Not to put them down, but it's just very common for someone to have 1-2 good months, then think they can go at it alone in their first year of trading. I see more "people learning expensive lessons" around these boards than I see true 'independent' traders. Though, don't let that discourage anyone reading this, there are many profitable traders who post here...

Thanks for your insights. No I don't mean forex factory blogs, Though I am sure some are very respected institutional traders as yourself.

Yes i guess my statements were to broad. But i guess I am in agreement with most of what you said. It is always interesting to see these huge organizations like the chase deal take place with any risk management in place and it is seemingly common disaster. Which in the reality of it they are few and far between in relation to the massive amounts of trading taking place. But to let them get the bad out of hand.

I have trading now for almost 4 yrs. and came to realization early on that trading is more a personal battle to do what we know is right verses what we want to. I feel a lot of traders never even come to that understanding always seeking a bullet proof trading system that will remove themselves from the trading.

Trading has had a great side effect on me, leading me on a journey of self measure and then self improvement. It has be very empowering. Why we find it so hard to do what is in our own best interest just amazes me.

Anyway . to for sleep here grabbed a few off a oz short off that .9870 supply level (30 Min) right after work entered late as I just got home. But a small gain in the start of a new week is always a plus.

Cheers Ken

Boy my typing is awful,, Sorry

chart

chart

[ATTACH]966970[/ATTACH

this a daily of the euro,forget the blue lines there for another time frame.The MA'S on there are 89-445 to me they are telling me that this market is going down,it might gap,but don't think so.I took short on smaller TF around 7am PST.I come from an MA based system,and they always said the higher MA'S tell you were it's going.My trouble is determining the direction based on higher time frame.There was a demand level on 60 min chart.but i thought it would plow through there...WRONG...Any ideas... how can i tell were it's going on higher Tf

Chart ..

K, do you use other ways to determine direction.Thanks

no that is pretty much it. it is what is left behind after the price action moves on. if you look at your swings it is also where your supply and demand levels are normally at the apex of your swings .

My journey has always been to find the simplest trading ideas. I don't have a bunch of tools in my tool box that I don't use . bare charts are the best for me But I am confident of my trading and have been looking at charts a long time.

charts

Also, if you zoom out a bit more on the Daily, you'll see why demand broke... there is better demand.

That should be your next target off a 30 minute supply area.

It's not pretty,but i know you have to stick to something eventually and break the cycle,instead of jumping all over the place.

?

here is a good article from Sam ,, about the benefits of S/D trading.

http://lessons.tradingacademy.com/ar...the-great-one/

could have made that a little bigger.Good article

Hi Ken,
Great thread. Exactly where I am at in my trading.
It is a great feeling to finally be free of indicators. I have even stopped using Range Bars.
I have read and watched Sam Seiden for a few years but never really applied his methods. I was caught up in the search for the next "Holy Grail".

I have been trading this way for the last 2 months and my account is finally growing consistantly.

I posted here that I was attending a free workshop from Online Trading Academy. It was what I expected. Nothing given away until you sign up for training. Looks real good but very pricey. Not in my budget.

I did get one key piece of info:
Pay close attention to the "odds enhancer" of Profit Margin.
Never enter a trade if you do not have a minimum of 3 to 1 reward/ risk.

They have a program for taking profit. While they did not get into specifics, I have modified my trade management per what they did reveal.
If there is potential of:
3 to 1 - Start taking profit at 2 to 1
4 to 1 - Start taking profit at 3 to 1
Etc....
They adjust the percent of profit taken per level.

I use a units method.
I take the 2% that I risk per trade and divide it by 4 giving me 4 units.
I take 3 units off at the first TP level giving me 1 unit to manage as a runner.
Example:
If you have a $1000 balance - 2% = $20.
If you have a 25 pip stop that is 0.8 Mini Lots divided by 4 = 0.2 Unit Size.
I would enter the trade with (4) 0.2 mini lots.
In a 3 to 1 setup that would be (3) 0.2 units at 2 to 1 moving the stop on the last to break even. You would then have a free-trade in place with 1.5% ($30) profit locked in.

4 to 1 - Take profit at 3 to 1 = 2.25% ($45) locked in.
Etc......

Anyways, hope this gives food for thought.

P.S. - They also stressed the need to have a Trading Plan.
To the point that they require you to have one before they allow you to take any advanced training.

Thanks for the Thread

I too recently attended one of the OTL free workshops. I got a nice lunch out of it and a 2gb usb thumbdrive with some mostly sales oriented stuff on it promoting OTL. What I learned from the "class" was that I was probably far ahead, knowledge-wise, of the others who were attending and probably ahead of most of those who where presenting. Had I signed up for their least expensive class at about $7000, I suspect that at least half of the class time would have been going over information that they have to provide to new students to get them up to where I probably am. Not to say that I would not benefit, I am sure that I would benefit greatly and probably better than those new to trading. Unfortunately, much of the workshop was spent trying to sell the classes and they pull each invitee aside individually and put a lot of pressure on them to sell the classes. I was pretty put off by this, but I did actually come away with much more confidence and determination. If anyone who is not yet as successful as they want to be and gets a chance to attend one of their workshops, I would recommend attending, but leave your credit cards and checkbooks at home.

Thank you Ken for this forum thread. I have learned a lot and your explanations and discussions regarding your trading journey have been useful. Thanks to all the other contributors as well.

TK