"good traders trade, bad traders teach"

The naivety on FF lately is overwhelming (probably a little too harsh). This post and some previous posts show the lack of knowledge about the markets, the players and you as a trader. There are too many assumptions in this post.

Professional traders are NOT ALL on a fixed salary.

A "gigantic account" is rather relative as well as "living comfortably". You should define it. I will make an assumption of my own. That what you most likely consider a gigantic account is NOT needed to trade for a living.

Finally, don't compare retail or proprietary traders with HF's, CTA's & real money funds in the capacity of returns. You have no idea of the model of either if you attempt to compare in the way your post states.


As someone who believes and does to a certain extent, that you can trade without indicators I completely disagree with this post. Anyone who says that they become useless on a certain timeframe doesn't fully understand the mechanics of the indicator. I will go further and say that if you believe that what happens on a 1 minute chart is just noise also doesn't fully comprehend the structure of the market. I don't understand how you can think that way if you really contemplated what happens in ALL markets at any given point in time. There are very successful traders who think that there is no way to trade below 15 min charts. Just because they are successful does that make them right? No, it does not.

In my opinion when posts like these are written the author has these feelings/beliefs because it makes them feel more secure or rationalizes some failings on the their part. FF has a lot of BS and it's growing more rapidly it seems, but there are nuggets of gold throughout FF as well.

I hope the best to both you.

I don't really know how to answer you because apart from insulting me you bring nothing to the discussion, well, even less because you bring confusion and show that you didn't even read my post properly... I will try to answer anyway.

1st paragraph: Nothing here, just flames.
2nd paragraph: I didn't say professional traders have fixed salary. I said "fixed + variable". Show me proof that a worker of a hedge fund, investment bank or similar doesn't have a fixed salary as part of his compensation please...
3rd paragraph: Don't make assumptions and think with your head. A gigantic account for a confortable living is always relative to the living standard and country where you live. But you will always need a very big account in relationship to your wealth in order to you generate sufficient income (both values are relatives so no need to specify figures, its basic math).
4th paragrah: Of course I can compare , dont be fascist. There is nothing you can have as a retail trader that a Hedge fund or CTA can't have at a level of leverage or commisions, so there is no technical advantage you can have to expect superior returns that all of your competitors. You can just dream, but nothing more. You want proof?, I can give you . Look at all social trading sites (zulu, etoro, myfxbook, ayondo, currensee.... etc), then count all systems with at least two years of trackrecord that have achieved 25%`+ yearly growth with real money and drawdowns of 15% max... you can count them with the fingers of your hands.

If you want to reply. Please drop some facts (verifiable if possible) instead of flaming. We can make FF a better place

Any trader in a prop shop... though ikwym.

You are absolutely correct about coming across as flaming. It obviously caused some heartburn with you. I wonder why that is? No need to answer to me.

Actually you did say fixed salary both in your original post and in the rebuttal, regardless if you added plus a % of benefits they generate. Are professional traders to you only those you listed (HF's, CTA's, "investment funds")? In your rebuttal you state or similar. Well, I am trader on an institutional account for a proprietary trading firm and I don't receive a fixed salary. I trade their money and the monthly goals given to me are much higher than what you referred to.

Sorry, but just by your statement here you are the one that needs to think logically. Do you need a "very big" account in relationship to your wealth, your debt obligations, or your general spending habits? Are wealth, debt obligations and spending habits correlated? It is as you stated basic math if you are talking specifics, which you were not. You were speaking in generalities and I responded as such. You also reinforced my exact statement by stating it is all relative. The size of your account would have absolutely zero relation to your wealth AND the need to receive a sufficient income. This just doesn't make any sense. I may be worth multi millions, but this has no relevance to my spending habits or my debt obligations, which in turn could mean that my livable wage requirement is small. Simply because I may be worth millions, does not mean I spend a lot or have debt. Your statement is very clear and absolute in that you believe that the more wealth you have the larger your account must be.

Oh quite to the contrary! As an individual the flexibility and ability to be nimble is a huge advantage that many of those you have listed don't have. I am sorry if you don't understand the difference between trading and investing or trading capital the likes of those entities you listed versus the capital of an individual. There are so many different variables at play here I don't even care to list. I could literally write a book or numerous work papers on the subject, but of course there are already many freely available from our friend Google and many linked here on FF. A couple off the top of my head:

Trading & Exchanges - Larry Harris
Research Papers - Carol Osler (very Good Papers)
The list I have is long and cumbersome if I listed every single paper/name. NoBrainerTrades (BillyRayValentine) has a resource list on his blog/website that lists many of the ones I would refer to.
There is a paper or article directly related to this issue, but I cannot remember it to quote it. I know it's on FF because I have read it on here. It may even be on BRV's resource list.

Resources on FF: BillyRayValentine, Darkstar, SenecaPilot to name a few. There are many others that I could name here, but these popped in my head now.

Again, you are trying to associate completely different philosophies and models of trading as similar.

I could go on and on, but it is of no interest for me to change your view. If you want to understand better with an open mind and solid foundation great. There are numerous resources available, but you have to filter out the trash. You can tell me I am full of BS and want "verifiable" proof of stuff. This is my only response I will give as there is no point in bickering. It doesn't really matter if you agree with me or not and I quite frankly don't care. Again, I hope nothing but good will to you!

Ah, indicators. They are as popular today as Elvis was in his day. I had a math teacher in college who would have probably said: "indicators are just mathematical transformations of the price, therefore they have no more predictive power than the price itself". In other words, most of the time you are just cluttering your screen with them for nothing, but there are exceptions. For instance, the ATR (Average True Range) can be a useful measure of volatility.
By the way, in your reply you clearly contradicted yourself, twice. You first stated your belief that it is possible to trade without indicators, but then you say that you completely disagree with my post - funny. Later you claim that some "very successful" traders think that you cannot trade bars below 15 min, but of course their success does not give them the right to say this according to you. You might as well toss a coin to decide if you are going long or short than bother "analyzing" 1 minute bars. Good luck to you, pal.

I often hear people say that only 5% of traders are being successful in trading. And you see all these systems, indicators, money management advices being repeated over and over again. Since you now that the majority looses THEN DO THE CONTRARY to what the majority does. They say you have to risk only 1% or 2% of your balance. Don't listen to it ! Do the contrary, risk 100% ! Find a way to win 10 pips a day and enter positions with all your balance.

These are all of your quotes, so let's be very clear...

1) You stated very clearly that Daily, hourly and minute charts are just noise. I am saying that this is completely false. If you understand how the market, any market, works than this is an illogical statement. I am not disputing that higher time frames may be more beneficial for some or most traders & investors. How would I know what your philosophy or theirs is?

2) Let's make sure we do not attribute the position of an individual related to economics/any field (Fed Chair) or their accolades (Nobel prize) to another ability such as being able to trade or invest. One does not correlate to the other.

Let's take an example from outside of trading, such as soccer since it is the most popular sport in the world. Does a great soccer philosopher or coach mean that that individual is or was a great or even successful soccer player? Also, does it mean that a great soccer player will or make a great coach or strategist of the game? The answers are an unequivocal no.

3) Controlling emotions and limiting losses is a good point, but it's the tip of the iceberg. The main point I want to make here is that while many popular traders or investors such as Soros make some very good points and have beneficial "quotes", you have to understand they are typically playing a completely different game and role in the market than you or me as an individual trader. Their motives, risks, philosophies are not typically in line with the majority here. There are good ideas and principles to be gained, but they should be kept in context.


1) I agree regarding probabilities, nothing else to say, unless we are discussing informed vs uninformed traders.

2) I said that I disagree that indicators are useless on any time frame. I am not an expert on every single indicator and don't care to be. There is a general misconception regarding indicators and what they are meant to be used for. Indicators are not useless if you know exactly what you are using it for and the information it is providing. Just because you use an indicator does not mean you are only using it for an entry or exit. I personally don't use indicators for the large part of my trading, but I do utilize 1 or 2 as tools at times. Most of the time I have zero, but just because I don't use them for the majority of my trading does not mean I am contradicting myself. I don't understand how one can confuse this as being contradictory. Simply stated indicators are not useless, even if I am one that typically does not use them. I trade one way with and one way without. This point is continued later.

3) Simply price is price, or the perceived value is the perceived value of any market vehicle/asset on any time frame. I could be wrong , but I think you are looking at the markets from the point of view as it only happens on a chart. There is more information than just the chart. Say you are a position trader using daily charts and I am trading off of a 1M chart doesn't necessarily mean we are not seeking the same opportunity. Anyone can use a 1M chart and see nearly the same thing as you can see on a daily by using indicators if one so chooses. I actually trade intraday and utilize 1M and 5M charts as a part of my analysis for trade entry/exit and I can tell you that it is not just meaningless noise. Does information come faster than an hourly or daily, or maybe stated in a better way more information? Sure, but one way to help with gathering and disseminating the information is through the use of indicators. If I am trading EUR/USD on any given day and I have an indicator showing EUR/USD/JPY crosses to help me understand and process information on where the money is moving does that make it useless? Understanding the market and being able to process information as it happens is critical to my trading. I can do it without indicators, but my brain limits the amount of information I can process if I am trading across multiple pairs. I need an efficient way to do so and an indicator can facilitate this. Are there other ways, sure. Is mine the most efficient? Maybe not, but I know when some traders take say a 100 pip trade off a higher time frame I could have taken more, sometimes many more, than that 100 pips more times than not by just the way the market moves.

Finally, there is one thing that I have noticed as being in a professional trading community. They are very strict in money management, trading plans and understanding yourself. One thing they will not do is tell you that indicators are useless or that you should or should not use them. They actually advocate not going too low on charting, but the reason for it is it is difficult for many as information comes quicker than many are used to, and not that it is noise. It becomes noise in the sense in one's inability to process and disseminate the information.

1) It appears your issue with indicators is your perception of them. The interesting thing is that your perception is limiting yourself in the potential benefits of an individual indicator if used properly, but if it works for you great. Your statement about your professor is true, but I think you are looking at the issue incorrectly. This is the point I was trying to make in that many with closed minds think very strictly about indicators for various reasons. One being what is thrown out at traders from all sources, without really digging into what any indicator should be used for and how it is derived for information.

2) The other issue is your perception that I am contradicting myself. You need to check where you are referencing "my contradiction" from, because it is far from one. Read the statements again and understand what I actually stated in response to your words. You said "When you have the big banks making millions of trades in an hour, your indicators and all technical analysis become useless because in those time frames the big boys can move the market as they see fit." Again, not understanding market structure would lead one to this conclusion, but is a false assumption. The "big boys" as you call them can't just drop money in or out of a currency if there is no liquidity provider. Money coming in and out of a currency happens where orders are there, or come in to facilitate them. Take a look at false breakouts as an example. Is a false breakout just that, or maybe one would view it differently if it were called a liquidity breakout (maybe not a clear example). Again, if you don't understand the concepts of market structure I don't know what else to tell you besides gaining additional knowledge on the subject. An indicator can visually show you information that you can't see on your specific chart you are viewing. It can also visually show you disseminated information from other sources outside what you can view on your price chart on any time frame.

3) Your perceived contradiction #2 is the same. I for one, never said their success does not give them the right. I said just because they are very successful it doesn't mean they are right. This not a contradiction. This is also where many speak in absolutes based upon a limiting belief. It would be the same as me saying that because I am successful on everything below 15 minutes that everything above is impossible. If I am unable to doesn't mean I am right and it's not possible. It simply means I am currently unable to. Human nature is to place limits on our capabilities for various reasons, but unfortunately it hinders what we can achieve by using our mind.

4) Where did I say I analyze 1 min bars, which I take to mean an individual bar. Analyzing 1 minute bars is different than utilizing a 1 minute chart for trading. I don't know what to tell you if you don't get that. How do you know I am not analyzing hourly bars or session bars on a 1 minute chart. Oh wait, did he just say session bars, but there is no such thing as session bars! If one new precisely how I enter/exit/make decisions on price and wanted to get picky I guess one could argue that I do analyze 1 minute bars at certain prices, but that's arguing semantics. Contradiction? Take any 1 hour bar and we obviously know that there are 60 minute bars within it. Now take 2 hourly bars (candlestick) that are visually identical, but in reality they can be quite different regarding the information of money coming into and out of a currency. Contradiction?

There are no contradictions here. I stand by my original statements and if anything maybe placed a little brashly. My final point is this. It seems obvious that the majority of traders advocate a top down approach to reading price on charts and trading. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with this, but the flow of money in or out of any currency is the basics of trading and it doesn't just happen on some charts, but begins with a tick in price movement.

There are traders who make money trading and also make additional income by teaching. Why shouldn't they?

Also with the internet it is easier than ever to reach a broad audience. I personally won't pay anyone because I am stubborn but I am sure their are traders that make money trading and have an education service. Some of them document how much they make trading and also how much they make with their educational services. For example, Rob Booker.

some would argue this. have you ever seen how much tim Sykes makes on his subscriptions compared to his trading? very little of his net worth comes from trading returns....

he makes about 50% a year on a 600,000(he starts with 600,000 a year) account, thats only 300,000 a year. He isn't doing all that stuff he brags about off his 300,000 a year trading profits, he is doing it with all that sub money

for example he keeps his tim inner circle students and he always has about 100 of them. they paid 5,500$ each. Thats 550,000 of that one news letter alone each year(he has 3-4 others too). almost double his actual trading profits.

Education is big business.

if you are looking for the be all end all course to learn how to be a trader, you are never going to find it. Expecting to learn from only one source is like only listening to fox news or NPR to get your news The only way to learn how to trade is to do it while reading as much as you can on the topic and spending as much time in front of the charts as possible.

[quote=endroute;7303832]if you are looking for the be all end all course to learn how to be a trader, you are never going to find it. Expecting to learn from only one source is like only listening to fox news or NPR to get your news The only way to learn how to trade is to do it while reading as much as you can on the topic and spending as much time in front of the charts as possible.[/quote]

that is...unfortunately true....

I haven't read the thread, but just in case this hasn't been said, it has now:

"Good traders think they can teach it."

Doing it well and teaching it are two very different skill sets - and the former quite often doesn't successfully lead to the latter.

good vs evil or good vs bad?
highschool teacher is a trader, trade his knowledge in exchange recieving his monthly salary. he is good trader with a "worse" earning and a "better" risk.
on the contrary, cosmetic saleswoman sells her product with "all efforts she have" to get maximal profit and a bonus from the company. she won't tell to other saleswoman the method and the clients/ selling area.
she is good trader with better earning and worse risk.

the term good and bad from the topic title may come from 50% of the 95% population, where the 10% of the 95% is a teacher and 5 % of the 100% is the non teaching.
in detail:
50%
9.5%
5 %
and the rest is lost in the middle of nowhere like me.

they charge ridiculous prices too... which proves they are not really making money as they claim. it's time people stop paying for these things if they don't see proof that someone is a profitable trader self.

I've tried to teach a friend how to trade ... but I've failed ... He didn't follow my rules ... He made his own rules ...

Yes, but when traders accumulate a ton of wealth they begin to trade less. They also risk less. So, how did he become a millionaire so many years ago with only like $12,000?

I am a big critic as well, but sometimes you can be your own worst enemy when you are too skeptical. Also, he has created two millionaires now and one of them also started with a very modest amount of money. I think like $11,000 or something.

So I would not be too skeptical. Making 60% is not hard to do but when you become a multi-millionaire you don't take the risks that you used to.

im not saying he's a phony or bad or anything. he is very good at what he does.in the past 14 years he has made about 3.5 million in trading profits which is freaking amazing. but I'm willing to bet he's made wayyyy more off his subscriptions. I remember a few months back I saw something where he made 300,000 on new subscribers in one day because of a promo deal he did(they are all recurring subscriptions too so he will collect the same amount from those students over and over.)

All I'm saying is it can be more profitable to teach instead of trade if you know how to market your brands like he does(he started profit.ly, stock twits, etc)

at this point tim could lose every single trading profit and he'd still be a huge multimillionaire because of how profitable his teaching business has been

I think he just changed his focus and his idea of success once he became a millionaire from trading. He even states this. He said that he is like a junkie for new challenges. He has conquered trading and now he wants to help people become millionaires.

I think, Good (or profit) traders will not take pay for this lessons - cause they are profit)))
And "profit traders", who takes money for this lessons - are not real traders, they are or scammers or representatives of brokers or diling centers (if they're uses names of their companies in this lessons),IMHO.

or the opposite?

why would a successful trader teaches for free???

when you do sth for free, you usually attract a bunch of cheap bastards. isn't this observation right???

if someday i were to teach, i'll also charge a fee like $2000 or $5000. why not? doesn't a master teacher need to see if the pupil is pious and eager???

in our long history, we've read so many stories of legendary folks who, when started to learn, suffered and paid all kinds of dues (begging again and again, kneeling down in snow all night, having his arms cut, .......) don't even mention a fxxking $2000!

so this might be one reason: cheap folks wouldn't spend 100$, and you expect them to take pains to learn from you? and to respect you???

no way! that's often the way it is.

on the other hand, don't underestimate a successful trader's internal drive to teach and share. the only issue is that you might not be the ones who deserve to be taught or shared.