Guy Cohen - Illuminati Trading System

Dear All,

I've been reading with interest on Guy's Flagtrader and illuminati system. I am new to trading and have a few questions to ask regarding these subscribed services and any response will be greatly appreciated.

First one is, the flag trader system, is it for stocks or options trading?

Second question is a bit blunt and straight to the point and it's about Guy's latest book "Volatility Markets Made Easy". Has anyone read this book?

I've ordered a hardcopy and is waiting for the delivery and from a downloaded online information on its contents including the 2nd chapter, I've noticed the topics covered are flags and straddle which are the main themes of flag trader system and illuminati system respectively. The question is, what's the difference between what's covered in the book and the 2 systems that Guy's promoting?

For those who have read the book, do you feel the book being used by the author to promote flagtrader and illuminati system?

Is the book complete and self contained by itself for the reader to trade confidently using flags and/or straddles & that he has been armed with the knowledge from the book to at least have net profit at the end of each year without subscribing to any of the systems?

I hope as many forum members as possible out there will respond and even if you haven't read the book, just post your views on what I have asked. Thank you.

CSL74
 
Hello everyone,

I just found your BB by accident. I've read this thread from beginning to end, and so I've joined as a newbie.

I'm a Flag Trader / Illuminati Inner Circle member, but not very active. Until now.

I have been taught by Guy twice, firstly when he was a guest speaker, and I was so impressed I attended his 3 in 1 event at Heathrow in Nov 2008.

I had little prior experience in trading, and my first visit to the markets using his methods netted me a tidy US 2k over just a few days back in Feb when the markets were heading down. I rejoined the markets a month ago and promptly lost a couple of hundred, due entirely to not revising what I had forgotten. I'm back on paper trades for the moment whilst I re-learn his principles.

It's nice to see that Guy has been visiting your thread, although that actually didn't surprise me; and I'd idly wondered why there was not a forum on the FT site, assuming that I just hadn't looked hard enough for one. Seems like you have fixed that from here :)

No doubt I'll see some of you at Guy's place in due course, if not here.

Regards

Paul
 
csl1974 said:
Dear All,

I've been reading with interest on Guy's Flagtrader and illuminati system. I am new to trading and have a few questions to ask regarding these subscribed services and any response will be greatly appreciated.

First one is, the flag trader system, is it for stocks or options trading?

Second question is a bit blunt and straight to the point and it's about Guy's latest book "Volatility Markets Made Easy". Has anyone read this book?

I've ordered a hardcopy and is waiting for the delivery and from a downloaded online information on its contents including the 2nd chapter, I've noticed the topics covered are flags and straddle which are the main themes of flag trader system and illuminati system respectively. The question is, what's the difference between what's covered in the book and the 2 systems that Guy's promoting?

For those who have read the book, do you feel the book being used by the author to promote flagtrader and illuminati system?

Is the book complete and self contained by itself for the reader to trade confidently using flags and/or straddles & that he has been armed with the knowledge from the book to at least have net profit at the end of each year without subscribing to any of the systems?

I hope as many forum members as possible out there will respond and even if you haven't read the book, just post your views on what I have asked. Thank you.

CSL74
Click to expand...

Hi,

My understanding of the systems (I have them both) is that Illuminati is for Options, but uses Flags to sniff out likely options trades, and Flag Trader can be used on it's own purely as a stock selector. You need to understand what he defines as a 'Flag' to understand what results it gives you. I expect that your book will reveal that fully. I also think you can register for free access to some of the material on the site, which will give you a taste of what his 'system' is.

I haven't read the book you mention, although I'm struggling through another of Guy's, 'Options Made Easy' (can't agree with that just now) and I'm not really qualified to answer the rest of your question just yet.

Regards

Paul
 
marciaS said:
Paul,

What is a OHLC bar chart?
Click to expand...

Hi Marcia,

:oops: Sorry.

It's an Open, Close, Low, High bar chart. Each trading day is a vertical bar ('stick') on the chart, as opposed to a candlestick. The pointer on the left is the Open Price, top of the stick is High of the day, bottom is Low of the day, and right pointer is Close of the day. If you are using real time charts, or one that you manually update; the High, Low, and Close are the latest values.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Paul
 
RonnieR said:
Hi Marcia,

:oops: Sorry.

It's an Open, Close, Low, High bar chart. Each trading day is a vertical bar ('stick') on the chart, as opposed to a candlestick. The pointer on the left is the Open Price, top of the stick is High of the day, bottom is Low of the day, and right pointer is Close of the day. If you are using real time charts, or one that you manually update; the High, Low, and Close are the latest values.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Paul
Click to expand...


Paul,
Thank you! I'll try that...

Regards,
Marcia S
 
Having read this thread it appears that everyone who has bought into the Flag Trader system thinks that it's a good system, and that Guy is a good fellow. And certainly his posts have been very promising.

But what I am missing is a sense that anyone is actually making good money from this system - lots of talk about paper trading and .01p per point trades, but if I had splashed out near £1,000 I would want to see some return on that - after all the blurb says that a 12 year old child could do it in 20 minutes a day and pull in £7,0000 per month!

And the Flag Traders seem to have gone deathly quiet - have they all gone off to the private forum Keith was trying to set up? I'm not trying to be rude but before I stump up the moolah I would like to hear a few people saying, "yeah, I'm making shed loads from this" so could we have a few answers along the lines of "I have tried it seriously for x months and made / not made a return of y%". And please, no paper trades or pence/point stories. Thanks!

Regards - Brogden
 
Brogden said:
Having read this thread it appears that everyone who has bought into the Flag Trader system thinks that it's a good system, and that Guy is a good fellow. And certainly his posts have been very promising.

But what I am missing is a sense that anyone is actually making good money from this system - lots of talk about paper trading and .01p per point trades, but if I had splashed out near £1,000 I would want to see some return on that - after all the blurb says that a 12 year old child could do it in 20 minutes a day and pull in £7,0000 per month!

And the Flag Traders seem to have gone deathly quiet - have they all gone off to the private forum Keith was trying to set up? I'm not trying to be rude but before I stump up the moolah I would like to hear a few people saying, "yeah, I'm making shed loads from this" so could we have a few answers along the lines of "I have tried it seriously for x months and made / not made a return of y%". And please, no paper trades or pence/point stories. Thanks!

Regards - Brogden
Click to expand...

Hi,

I don't know where evryone is, I just joined a few days ago. Guy's forums aren't up and running yet, although he's been sending out stuff to members.

Can't help with your query I'm afraid, as I'm still in the same situation as my post #142.

Regards
 
Hi Guys,

Don’t want to come across as negative as I have very little knowledge on Guy Cohen or his systems. All I can say is having been stung several times on such systems to me they always look a little too good to be true. I had a brief look at his site and to me it screams con. All this rubbish about a 12 year old could make thousands in just 20 mins just isn’t realistic. IMO you are better off sticking the money into your trading account, especially if you are a newbie as market experience is far more valuable than systems that promise riches. (n)
 
Flag Trader - My Opinion

Hi

I have been doing well using the short term trading methods that I have learnt from the Forex Traders Clubs DVD's so I started to look for a longer term system that I could operate alongside and I to was also impressed with the Flag Trader claims and Guy Cohen seemed to be an OK sort of guy so I brought his Flag Trader system but I did return it after just two weeks as all I did was waste a lot of my time and lose money (on my demo account). I can see that if you follow Guys rules regarding stops and where to set them then you might win a few trades but setting a stop at over 500 pips away from your entry is SUICIDAL in my opinion because if you are triggered into the trade and then it starts to reverse it will take your 500 pip stop and pretty much wipe you out. I think you all know that to become a successful trader you need to keep your losing trades to a minimum and work to a strict stop to profit ratio for every trade you enter or at least use a stop amount you feel comfortable with.

I do also agree that spending £000's on trading courses can be an expensive route to take but FTC only charge £275.00 for the box set and you are getting 3 short term trading methods for that. You would not start driving a car without having some lessons first so WHY do you think you can be a profitable trader without any formal training. I do agree that it is a bit of a minefield to find the right course but if you do find a system that works and does not cost the earth I can almost guarantee you will not lose as much money over time and you will have more fun learning your new trade!

Regards

Paul

P.S I apologise for the lack of punctuation but I am a trader (sounds flash) and not an English teacher.

P.P.S I have spent quite a lot of money to get to where I am and a lot of people have said that all I have paid to learn is available on the internet for FREE. I think we will always question somethings value if is free and how do we know what information we should trust.
 
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My first paper trade did turn a profit and I had spent a lot of time learning the trading system, going over and over it till I was sure how to do it. I think the basic mechanics of flag trading is nothing new and it is probably a trading style as safe as they come.

In saying thay I have not used it for a while and I started using IGIndex to trade and although I never lost anything all the trades I had put wither stalled or turned the other way so at least I never lost anything.

There is a trade off (excuse the pun) with using spread betting (IGIndex) as opposed to normal trading (optionsxpress) in that you usually have to put up a much bigger spread between your back/lay trades than a conventional trade but the flexibility of IGIndex is a good bit better than optionsxpress, which is a pure pain to join and you need a huge starting bank to cover sells.

I am not not using it now because it is bad or anything like that but I am so busy with work and saving for a deposit that I have no real spare cash, or time to put into this just now. I hope for that to change soon though once I get over my threshold for saving up a deposit. I do always keep an eye on things to keep my memory fresh.

Andrew
 
traderpc said:
I can see that if you follow Guys rules regarding stops and where to set them then you might win a few trades but setting a stop at over 500 pips away from your entry is SUICIDAL in my opinion because if you are triggered into the trade and then it starts to reverse it will take your 500 pip stop and pretty much wipe you out. I think you all know that to become a successful trader you need to keep your losing trades to a minimum and work to a strict stop to profit ratio for every trade you enter or at least use a stop amount you feel comfortable with.
Click to expand...

andys280176 said:
There is a trade off (excuse the pun) with using spread betting (IGIndex) as opposed to normal trading (optionsxpress) in that you usually have to put up a much bigger spread between your back/lay trades than a conventional trade
Andrew
Click to expand...

RIGHT ON Paul and Andrew ..(y)

.. and that's THE single biggest disadvantage of using IGIndex as a trading platform for FlagTrader IMHO. I would like to discuss this aspect in more detail privately .. ideally WHEN Guy C eventually gets this promised exclusive forum off-the-ground .. :rolleyes:

I just don't think it's appropriate to elaborate further on this subject openly right here in the public domain.

Cheers

KEITH
 
traderpc said:
Hi
I can see that if you follow Guys rules regarding stops and where to set them then you might win a few trades but setting a stop at over 500 pips away from your entry is SUICIDAL in my opinion because if you are triggered into the trade and then it starts to reverse it will take your 500 pip stop and pretty much wipe you out.
Click to expand...

Hi, I thought it would be a good idea to respond to this as it's not completely reflective of what we do. Of course a stop that is 500 pips away is a long way away, however, you would only do this in specific benign circumstances, ie (a) if the stock is a very high priced US stock; (b) if the markets were trending strongly and (c) if the chart pattern is "neat" as described in the CDs. You'd never have such a large stop for low-mid range priced stocks. There's a bit of discretion required in most trading methods, and while the software does a lot of the legwork, the CDs teach you how to distinguish between good and bad.

No question that the last month was punctuated by the steep retracement in mid-late September which was unhelpful to continuation/trend traders like me. The OVI Index will help with that as it was clear that the market had run out of puff by that time (the 17 Sept bar on the S&P saw a doji type breakout bar while the OVI turned down sharply on the very same day, signifying caution for bull flags. The market promptly formed a bull flag while the OVI slipped into negative territory). The OVI will be released (free for the S&P index) in the next few weeks. It really is a neat indicator that I hope will be very helpful. I'll put some more up soon about it.

Of course trading is all about having an edge. Many of my students feel they have an edge and do very well. That's what I'm here to help with. But you do have to use discipline in knowing when's the right time to go for it, and when it's time to be quiet.

I think it was Smudger on this board who summarized it pretty well when he said that he waits for a plethora of good looking flags to appear and then he gets busy. That's the way to trade with this method and that's the way the most successful students are trading it. It does require a bit of patience at times but it's so worth it when the market makes a good run. Many of the best traders out there are trend traders who follow explosive breakouts. They too understand that you have to pick your moment and not to trade just for the sake of it.

Of course, when evaluating a system you want it to work immediately, I understand that. But staying out of trouble is a key component of Flag-Trader and when you follow the rules you won't get into trouble.

More to follow, but I hope that's been helpful for now. The OVI will certainly help, and like I said, it's free for the S&P, so you'll have a feel for the overall state of the markets, particularly during breakout areas. Right now it's back in the positive zone.

Regards

Guy

PS - regarding an earlier post about our marketing page - I'm not a marketing guy and I know it's "strong" but the headline was simply taken from a testimonial who wrote in to say thanks!
 
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Keith-H said:
RIGHT ON Paul and Andrew ..(y)
I would like to discuss this aspect in more detail privately .. ideally WHEN Guy C eventually gets this promised exclusive forum off-the-ground .. :rolleyes:

I just don't think it's appropriate to elaborate further on this subject openly right here in the public domain.

Cheers

KEITH
Click to expand...

Hi Keith

As we discussed, we do have the Forum scheduled in by the end of this year. A lot of other chunks of urgent programming are first in the queue though - and you know what software can be like! But I have promised it and will deliver (hopefully on time, barring any software glitches!).

Regards

Guy
 
AmateurTradersOnline said:
All I can say is having been stung several times on such systems to me they always look a little too good to be true.
Click to expand...

Hi AmateurTradersOnline,

For the benefit of others reading this thread, would you list the systems you have been stung on and what were the problems with them? You might help stop somebody else making the same mistake. Thanks.

Regards - Brogden
 
Brogden said:
Hi AmateurTradersOnline,

For the benefit of others reading this thread, would you list the systems you have been stung on and what were the problems with them? You might help stop somebody else making the same mistake. Thanks.

Regards - Brogden
Click to expand...

No Probs

I got stitched on a couple of signal systems when I was first starting out. Truefxsignals.com I found to be a load of Bo***cks and all it did was lose pips. I thought I had learnt my lesson however I saw Forexsignal.com and was suckered in by their shinny dashboard thing which had lights on (ooohh how exciting) this to was useless. If I gave you a tip on a horse you wouldn’t back it so I don’t see why these signal services are any different. Most short cuts to riches are scams and I have found that the money back guarantees are pretty useless as well. You are better of spending your hard earned cash on educational sites rather than golden goose systems and even then you need to be careful.

I also had a little punt on some custom built indicators they to proved to be fairly useless. Sorry if that all comes across as a little cynical, there is good stuff out there on the web just for me anything that claims to make you £££ for 39.99 a month is going to be a con no matter how appealing it may seem. Hope this helps :)
 
Brogden said:
Hi AmateurTradersOnline,

Any recommendations on educational sites then?

Regards - Brogden
Click to expand...

Fx street is good. It has lots of useful info and there are live webinars from various guest speakers who give lessons. A lot of that is them advertising to join their pages but least you get to see what they are all about first and get the chance to ask some questions with the massive bonus that its free.. I did join FX bootcamp a while ago however only held my subscription for a month. It’s a fairly good service especially if you are new to trading and it’s nice to have someone online that you can ask real-time questions to but for me I just didn’t get on with their trading style, I got frustrated with it very quickly and its mad expensive.

Babypips.com is also a really good site if you are looking at learning the basics.

I find that I read a lot, I usually check out Amazon for titles but I’ll be honest I end up downloading them for free via torrent or whatever (o well sh*t happens)

I don’t take on board everything that I read but one thing that really has helped me is that every time I do come across a strategy or a tip that I like I re write it and stick it labeled in a folder. Then when things unfold in realtime all I got do is flick to it and I got the guidelines/rules laid out clearly. Saves madly scrolling through books and websites and builds a good arsenal of weapons ready to go at your finger tips. I hope all thats useful. (y)

Happy trading
 
I'm a newbie on here but I’ve been a Flag-Trader subscriber since January. Although I personally haven’t traded much with it as I'm more into FX, I’ve had a good experience of Flag-Trader and can certainly vouch for Guy Cohen being open and amenable.



Something of a wacky coincidence, I happened to be sitting in the seat in front of him at a conference recently and recognised his voice behind me. I introduced myself and we’ve since struck up a good banter (football related of course!) but I’ve also been liberally asking him all sorts of trading questions.



What prompted me to make a post here is that this weekend I asked him specifically what his new indicator, the OVI was saying about the US markets. The OVI isn’t yet released officially but here was his response:



“The OVI is pointing down, so a break of the low for the last few days is a trade, however, be ultra conservative with your first profit target ...”



I have to say I'm impressed that Guy gave me an unambiguous answer, and even more that the answer was right on the money. He also won’t mind me saying that he actually suggested I make the post here too, which I'm very happy to give.



Guy’s methods are completely authentic, no question about that. He’s obsessed with improving his applications and I think the OVI looks like a very promising addition to his impressive stable of applications.
 
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