So, on to the seminar by Mr. Charts and Naz. Knowing nothing about US stocks or L2, I thought I might get left behind, or find myself out of my depths.... but I wasn't. Both assumed that we were all conversant with basic trading techniques, and asked , just to make sure.
First up, Richard ( Mr. Charts). A very quiet person, almost shy, but came over very sincere about everything he discussed. It was clear, right from the off, that he was not interested in taking ANY sort of loss, beyond a few cents per trade. Robot like, you could say. He did make one exception, and that was on certain short entries, he may allow a few more cents loss to accrue before exiting. He must be good, because one of the things he advocates is something that I also believe strongly in- " Don't take my word for it. Prove it for yourself". Having discussed various entry strategies, he emphasised that we should go away and do our homework and validate for ourselves that the strategies work, or otherwise. He made mention of another interesting point, in that his favourite basket of stocks was continually being updated, in an effort to find stocks that could be traded regularly and profitably. His exit strategy was simplicity itself. No If this, if that, then the other. One simple rule and that's it. Well almost... he closes half of his position and allows the other half to either run, or close on the next bar if his exit criteria continues. He uses various software packages to scan for stocks pre market, looking for gappers, winners, losers %'s and $$. From that he choses stocks that may meet his entry criteria and off he goes, trading 3-5 stocks a day, ranging from 5- 100 $ a share. Below 10$, he trades 5000 lots, above 10$, 1000 lots. Trading more means a harder time offloading when the time comes- makes sense. He sometimes uses L2 to manage a trade and see what's going on, but it is not his main tool.
The afternoon session was spent working through examples from charts that he had traded, elaborating on where and why he took the trade, and where he exited. It seems that the whole time, he was always deep in thought and totally concentrating on what he was doing. Any questions put to him were answered with conviction and without the customary uhmm's and ahh's.
Second up was Alan ( Naz), chomping at the bit.... at the other end of the scale compared to Richard. His first session was taken up by discussing his trading methods, principally using TA and then executing the trade and managing it using L2. He favours Fibonacci retracements to base a lot of his decisions on and showed numerous charts that bounced on 50%....uncanny, but not rocket science.... The second session was a real eye opener. I 'd read some of his postings and I've taken a peek at L2 and just waved it goodbye... far too complex... But not now. His in depth explanation as to what happens at support and resistance and what to look for was amazing. OK, so we didn't get to do this live, but he had slide shows of charts and the accompanying L2 screen to show the moves as they unfolded. When he says you see the move a minute before it happens on ANY chart is absolutely true. He knows what to look for, has his order in place, ready to hit the button as soon as he sees the AXE make its move. This leaves no room for guesswork. Is it going to bounce? OR will it drop? He knows, while we're still guessing or gambling.....
His approach to trading is a lot different to Richard's. He's a scalper at heart, but has to temper his skills to the current climate.He's quite happy to take half, but then "gamble" on the other half for the rest of the day, within certain limits, to exit at the end of the day. He knows that the big $$$ are to be had by holding a position , where justified, for the whole of the day... This means taking some serious pullbacks on the remaining half. A lot was spoken of order routing..... this in itself is an art. He advocates using one particular routing method over another, showing us that it was faster, had a greater capture, and would get fills before smart routing methods. He demonstrated that this could, best case, save you "slippages" of 30 cents+ as the bottom falls out of a market.
So. Overall impression? A great insight into how the other half lives. They both made what they do sound so simple , which of course it isn't. Neither made ANY claims whatsoever as to what you could make. Both emphasised that losses were the key. Clearly, they both know what they are doing, and can pass on that knowledge in a well presented and interesting day. I was asked by Richard if I was bored... I can't think why... I didn't fall asleep... Well, I certainly wasn't. Far from it. These two remind me of the Hare and the Tortoise. You will have to figure out which is who. Whether their trading success can be expressed in the same way , I have no idea.
My closing comments.
Richard showed us the trading record of one of his students from a while back, that traded part time. He is now full time. Over a 3 month period( part time), he traded 44 times, had 1 break even, 4 losers and 39 winners.
Can they teach? Yes. Are they traders? Probably. Was it value for money? Probably. I'll never get to know....