Joe Ross Trading Seminar & Course

Joe Ross Trading Seminar

Hi All

I’ve just attended a seminar run by Joe Ross on Day Trading Futures and Spread Trading Futures

For those of you who haven’t heard of Joe Ross (and I have to say I knew very little) have a look Here
It was great to meet a trader from the US who runs a course for the shear pleasure of it

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Day Trading Futures

The seminar covered everything from good money management to trade exit and entry. What was different though is that this method shows you exactly when to get out and how long it should take price to get to that target. What you’re then looking for is a safe entry.

What was interesting was that you only do one winning trade a day. Yes just one. Now this sounds very strange until you hear Joe explain why, and then all of a sudden things become clear.
What freaked me out was that Joe thinks Market Makers are nice people!!!! and what’s very worrying is the fact that I now agree with him

The best part has to be the relaxed way of trading as everything is planned before the trade is entered. The trading plan is so precise that it leaves very little to be discretionary about, and when you stop the discretionary side of trading, you stop the need to have emotions. Very cleaver that and as with most things in life, it’s so simple

I would recommend going on this course if you are new to futures trading or need a more disciplined trading method and have at least $5000 capital

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Futures Spread Trading

Now this course was a real eye opener. I strongly believe this is the way to trade if you want Low Risk, High Leverage (yes you can have low risk and high leverage), End of day trading and can only look at the markets after 18:30 – oh yes and make very good profits.

What it is, is trading the difference between 2 futures contracts. i.e. Jun Live cattle and Sept Live cattle or Apr Lean Hogs and Apr Feeder Cattle – maybe there not the best examples but you get the idea. What it does is creates a line chart that is tradable with long periods of good trending markets.

Here's a good example



If you want to learn a bit more about it, have a look here http://www.futures-spread-trading.com/

As I say this course /style is great for those who have full-time jobs and can only trade of an evening

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To those who were there, it was great meeting and chatting with you. I wish I could have joined you Saturday night, but the stories were more than my little heart could take

Joe and Markus, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me. It was very much appreciated, and I hope I didn’t keep you up too late last night

Take care,

FB

I has the distinct pleasure of attending one of Joe's seminars in South Africa in the early 90's. I was particularly intrigued with his "Fusions and Optures", which have to do with synthetic futures positions - very interesting but deep stuff.

Joe is a delightful man and a very experienced trader - from the old school. He teaches with outstanding clarity and his knowledge of the markets is intimate.

I'm glad you enjoyed his course and I wholeheartedly echo your recommendation.

Goober

What is the explanation for only doing one trade a day?

Thanks.

Hi Goober

Having seen Joe yourself, you can understand what I'm taking about. It's one of those things that's so hard to put into words.

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Hi JeanM

I hope Joe doesn't mind me sharing this. If you do Joe, please let me know and I'll remove it

It's mainly to do with concentration span. You can only concentrate for 90 minutes at a time, which is why a lot of people start the day profitable, only to give back the gains by the end of the day.
Also if you trade a 3 minute chart, you get 30 bars which is normally enough to place one good trade

HTH

FTSE Beater,

If a lot of people start the day profitably and the lose it later on who are they losing it to ? Is it people with a better concentration span ?

Also by your comments does Joe post on here ?

The link was very interesting and I would be interested to know more because with those sorts of return for profitable trades is the risk just as large if it goes wrong ?


Paul

Hi Paul

Good question. I'm sure their losing their money to market makers who go stop running - Sorry that should read, to market makers who are doing their jobs

I believe Joe is going to be posting soon, which would be superb

The risk for that posted trade would have been less than $250

its normal for learners that make money at the open to give it back during the day - since each trade is sort of 50/50, but learners dont let it run that way and exit winners and hold losers, so skew the balance to 100/0 against, but at the open there is very little chance to figure what is happening and so learners end up for the ride

so learners either lose out of the trap or they win through the high volatility of the open and then give it back over the rest of the day when with less volatility they are better able to cut winners and run losers

and if you are trading 3 min bars - you are in minority and you are gonna miss out on two thirds of the key entry and exit points

stevet ,

that's right .

The trade that was highlighted could easily have gone south shortly after entry . The risk side of the trade was conveniently ignored.

And the math is wrong on the Return on margin , which is should be 48% not 148.

Hi Stevet

Yes, I agree with your explanation of the losing traders.
With regards trading 3 min vs 1 min, it depends what your looking for. If your looking for every entry signal then yes 1 min is great, but if your only looking for 1 good trade a day then 3min charts show very good moves

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Hi MMA

As I said earlier the risk for that trade was $250 maximum.
Return on margin is 148%

If you make the same as the margin requirement then you have made 100% return i.e. you got 100% of it back. If you get half of the margin back then it's 50% return, and if you get $700 on a margin requirement $473 that's 148% return

Hope that helps.

* If you get half of the margin back then it's 50% return, and if you get $700 on a margin requirement $473 that's 148% return *


Yes but this is a misleading statement . the real comparison should be 700 / 250 , winnings over stop loss , which makes the R:R less than 3:1 , which in my book is mediocore at best .

It also says nothing of the TIME frame , which is also very important.

mma,

The risk:reward is a fair way to measure up the trade......... the above ratio certainly is not bad, assuming that u get a 50% success on your trades !!

However, we cannot judge anything on just one trade....... i am sure everyone has a great trade at some point in their ventures- what is much more important is to have that kind of return CONSISTENTLY-

Time frame is 6 days........

FTSE Beater

yep

but remember that the top of the hour, 15, 30, and 45 past the hour - which are also the end of 5 min, 15min and 30 min periods are the only main trading periods which are going to correlate to the ends of some of your 3 min periods and 5 min, 10, 15 and 30 min periods are what everyone else is trading off

its best, if you are wrong when you enter a trade position, to have as many other people with you as possible - so if you spot you are wrong - you have a chance to jump ship

and re your calculation - the margin is just what you have to put up for a trade - but its not like options - you loss liability is not capped - so if the trade goes against you more than the amount in your margin account and the broker did not close out the trade in time - you are still liable for any and all losses

* assuming that u get a 50% success on your trades !! *


That's a HUGE assumption and in 95% of cases would be a wrong one , unless you are willing to take EVEN bigger risks , in which case it is not worth talking about.

more realistic is getting less than 50% of winning trades and having a FAR bigger R:R on your winners.

stevet said:

its best, if you are wrong when you enter a trade position, to have as many other people with you as possible - so if you spot you are wrong - you have a chance to jump ship

and re your calculation - the margin is just what you have to put up for a trade - but its not like options - you loss liability is not capped - so if the trade goes against you more than the amount in your margin account and the broker did not close out the trade in time - you are still liable for any and all losses

Click to expand...

Hi Stevet

Surely it's the other way around
If everyone is wrong in the market and going in your direction, then you will be in a long line of people trying to close their positions or entry new ones to capitalize. Say you and many other people in the market were long, and it started to turn against you, everyone will be selling or shorting and your trying to get out too - the market makers would take youe positions off you for a knocked down price. Does that make sense :?:

Yes you could get hit for more than the margin requirement, but when looking at which markets to trade then the margin requirement comes into play. You want the lowest margin with the highest reward you can get, but I do agree with you that you could get hit for more than the margin.

FTSE Beater

its kind hard to explain - but lets assume no one knows where the market is gonna go - which is a safe bet! -

now lets assume that certain signals cause a bunch of people to think the market is about to take off to the high side - so they go long - now lets assume that other traders who are not so quick off the mark - see their own signals plus the move from the first lot who went long - and they go long - etc

ok - so now we have the begining of a move and maybe we have had a point or two rise - but lets now assume that this was not a sustainable move - so the market starts to falter - but some have seen the start of the move - and the activity - they dont spot the negative signs so they are still going long - so they end up buying the contracts of the first ins and the first outs - and then the market falls back just to whereit was - a few made a tiny bit - most got out at a scratch and a few lost a little bit - but because of arbing etc - there is normally enough contracts sitting there for all to escape cheaply as long as they dont hang around

the fact is that if you trade off signals that the majority of the first in traders also trade off - you have a chance of the momentum of those early trades to take you through the spread and at least - you get to close out for a scratch - even if its only 30 seconds later

much better than seeing something off a 3 min bar that only you and a bloke in alaska are trading off - and then you sit there for 5 or 10 mins without the market moving and you have to close out and lose the spread or take a point or so loss - in other words - you dont have to be right to win - you just need to take trades when enough other people do

of course its all more complex than that -but hopefully my crap description gives you a sense of what i mean

Hi Stevet

A superb explanation on a very tricky subject
I have to say though, it shouldn't make a different because no matter which time-frame you use, you are still trying to interpret the same buying and selling information

stevet:

great reply ... not just the content of your last post above, but it was quite refreshing reading the way yuou put it all together...

FTSE Beater

not quite sure what you meant about the time frame - but you mght have meant that what i was saying could apply to taking a quick scalp or holding a position all the day - which is correct if that is what you meant - they key is to get into any position with the least risk - and one way to minimise risk is to go in with a gang!

Hi Stevet

Yes sorry. That's what I meant

Hi All

For those who want to read more on Spreads trading, have a look Here
It's a reprint of an article Joe Ross did for futures magazine and he's kindly let me use the link - he explains things a lot better than I ever could

Thanks Joe