sick of 'gurus': new trader asking advice from normal traders?

[tradeguy]

hi,

i'm pretty new to the trading game. but already i am becoming sick and tired of the so called 'gurus' who promise the world, but only seem to deliver expensive and dodgy systems, psycho-babble and generic information about cutting losses and running wins blah blah blah.

i would like to ask average traders with some trading time under their belts what your experiences have been in the game? is it worth it?

does anyone actually bring in decent profits on a regular basis or are the good times always wiped out by the bad in the long run?

does the hard work pay off in the end or is trading the equivalent to chasing the golden pot at the end of the rainbow?

'gurus' need not respond.

thanks!

 

[Broketurtle]

Forget about it, like you say it's all just chasing the pot of gold. Anybody that tells you differently is just out to take your money.

 

[Sidekicker]

hi,

i'm pretty new to the trading game. but already i am becoming sick and tired of the so called 'gurus' who promise the world, but only seem to deliver expensive and dodgy systems, psycho-babble and generic information about cutting losses and running wins blah blah blah.

i would like to ask average traders with some trading time under their belts what your experiences have been in the game? is it worth it?

does anyone actually bring in decent profits on a regular basis or are the good times always wiped out by the bad in the long run?

does the hard work pay off in the end or is trading the equivalent to chasing the golden pot at the end of the rainbow?

'gurus' need not respond.

thanks!

Expect 2-3 years of losing money before you work out how to trade.
After that, you become almost immune to the ups and downs of trading with a consistent win rate. Most don't make it past that amount of time...

 

[rsh01]

Expect 2-3 years of losing money before you work out how to trade.
After that, you become almost immune to the ups and downs of trading with a consistent win rate. Most don't make it past that amount of time...

I agree with what you say, and I admire you for possibly having the resolve to ignore parts of the post which grate me. For instance:

Tradeguy: "already i am becoming sick and tired of the so called 'gurus' who promise the world, but only seem to deliver expensive and dodgy systems"

Its easy to jump to the conclusion from the info given that tradeguy isn't 'working out how to trade'...rather as we have seen many a time before, hes paying people to try and 'promise the world' (he's sick and tired of this promise now, but not the first or second time he heard it? How many times did he try? Hmm)....put simply its logical from his statement to infer hes expecting easy money, yet hasn't found it.

However I will give tradeguy the benefit of the doubt and assume his main paragraph related to a short term early days naiveity where he foolishly expected easy money, and I will instead view his brief mention of hard work vs not much reward as the crux of the post.

If my assumptions are correct then I wld have thought a better approach to the post wld have been providing a summary of how much hard work had been done, what the focus was on e.g. What strategy types had been researched, the methods of strategy testing, hours demo'ing, hours live testing, money management techniques etc. Which wld have been v helpful in the continuation of this thread. Again, I will assume he's aware that there's a lot of traders in the world making money (not so many post on forums though), though I have made a lot of assumptions thus far!

As I said, I will give the benefit of the doubt and hopefully tradeguy can provide such info so then he can lay out a path for a constructive discussion to unfold.

Or failing that at least define what he calls expensive systems and reveal what snake oil trader he is spending his fathers honestly (assumption) earnt wealth on.

Happy trading.

 

[Balthazar]

I personnaly lose the money. Don't even say how much. It's sick.

And I'm happy with. Because I have some basic logic and common sense. But greed and fear are overcoming much more often than a coldly decided strategy.
I just consider this lost money as cost of learning. This is a huge step for me. Instead of thinking you gona take "back" your lost bucks, you start thinking it's just the price of your lessons. Now, when I lose 4-5 ticks in a day I say thanks, that was a great lesson. If I'm able to understand what I've learned today, tomorrow will be cheaper. If not, my broker gona call me soon.

The question is: how much do you have to spend in your education? And for how long? Months? Years?

Only my personal advice, don't listen anyone's "strategies" and start trying to understand what happens in the DOM. That's all, the trading is all about the volume. And not about fancy charts full of colored indicators.

Ah, there is a second thing. When you have few wining trades in a row, you must always be aware if it was a luck or wise decisions. The problem comes when you start loosing an you are unable to alow yourself to understand that your wining trades where not more than some good turns at the casino. And instead of breaking down your trading skills and try to understand what happens, you still playing...the casino :cheesy:

 

[rsh01]

Only my personal advice, don't listen anyone's "strategies" and start trying to understand what happens in the DOM. That's all, the trading is all about the volume.

And this is exactly where you're going wrong.

My personal advice is whenever anyone says 'my personal advice is' to completely ignore what they say.

Listening? No? Excellent.

 

[Balthazar]

And this is exactly where you're going wrong.

Listening? No? Excellent.

Sure, mate, keep talking. You do it so sweet. Hope you understand what you say.

 

[rsh01]

Sure, mate, keep talking. You do it so sweet. Hope you understand what you say.

Cheers mate, I will keep talking as you requested...so please tell me & everyone else you are preaching to mate, why, that contrary to what you are preaching i.e. that "the trading is all about the volume"...there are so many traders (trading a multitude of markets) who make a bundle of dough with no regards to volume? Perhaps by magic?

Looking fwd to your answer, mate

Hope you understand what you say

Seriously, you are talking to yourself...no?

 

[DionysusToast]

hi,

i'm pretty new to the trading game. but already i am becoming sick and tired of the so called 'gurus' who promise the world, but only seem to deliver expensive and dodgy systems, psycho-babble and generic information about cutting losses and running wins blah blah blah.

i would like to ask average traders with some trading time under their belts what your experiences have been in the game? is it worth it?

does anyone actually bring in decent profits on a regular basis or are the good times always wiped out by the bad in the long run?

does the hard work pay off in the end or is trading the equivalent to chasing the golden pot at the end of the rainbow?

'gurus' need not respond.

thanks!

The reason most people see lots of gurus offering nonsense is because they gravitate towards "$1000 in 5 minutes a day", "red light/green light", "Forex EA that kills the markets", "Secret system that...." etc. etc. etc. They seek out the nonsense in the first case because they are looking for short cuts.

Trading is tough. As much as you can see someone else trade, it's hard to trade like someone else.

You need the basics, then you need to work at it and you need to stop changing methods every week.

It can be rewarding but it's very hard to sift out useful information.

 

[DionysusToast]

And this is exactly where you're going wrong.

My personal advice is whenever anyone says 'my personal advice is' to completely ignore what they say.

Listening? No? Excellent.

Why give advice if you expect people to ignore it????

Prop shops train the traders they fund. They put them on the path.

I think finding the path yourself is an uphill struggle, especially considering all the BS around...

 

[new_trader]

Expect 2-3 years of losing money before you work out how to trade.
After that, you become almost immune to the ups and downs of trading with a consistent win rate. Most don't make it past that amount of time...

Don't 'expect' anything. Few make it, most never will.

 

[Balthazar]

there are so many traders (trading a multitude of markets) who make a bundle of dough with no regards to volume?

you met them personally? Or that is in your books with funny pics? You could just speak about you own trading results without reading the volume, instead of explaining the commonly described theory. May be upload your weekly statement? And tell me how you make the money?

By the way, try to not to be rude when the people just share they experience, just to avoid some....misunderstanding.

Listening? No? Excellent.

 

[Balthazar]

By the way, DionysusToast, actually I'm doing the webinar with John Grady, absolutely super, opened my eyes on the DOM and presented Jigsaw plug inn, really good stuff, a must have in the ES. Will probably get it later.

 

[Mike Kshemaraja]

you met them personally? Or that is in your books with funny pics? You could just speak about you own trading results vithout reading the volume, instead of explaining the commonly described theory. May be upload your weekly statement? And tell me how you make the money?

By the way, try to not to be rude when the people just share they experience, just to avoid some....misunderstanding.

Listening? No? Excellent.

lol.

 

[ChocolateDigestive]

By the way, DionysusToast, actually I'm doing the webinar with John Grady, absolutely super, opened my eyes on the DOM and presented Jigsaw plug inn, really good stuff, a must have in the ES. Will probably get it later.

Yes but is he profitable? have you asked him? i did. If he is why teach? Tape reading the ES isnt a great plan given the wide variety of non price sensitive participants and spreaders/hedgers. Better to tape read something that is liquid but thinner imo like a mid cap stock. There are numpty vendors and then the tougher smarter breed of vendors who are more difficult to spot. Be careful it's a jungle out there. Find some profitable traders and join them, they are easy to spot they work at prop firms or usually on their own, they trade full time for a living and don't teach.

Tape reading the ES you will see 10000 contracts print and you will not have a clue who or what the buyer/seller is doing. Trade a news stock and you know institutions are going to be buying or selling large positions.

 

[Balthazar]

No, John trades tBonds, not ES, he just brough ES for a couple of days to show the difference with the treasury bills and other markets.

About his profitability, I think he is. It's a quiet hard to teach someone, explain the stuff on the screen, speak about probability and make the calls. Anyhow, his redaing is very good, he knows the scalping very well and to follow him you have to see the same things as he does immediately.

I really like the way he reads the tape and think I will spend some time to learn it. What really surprised me, he knows perfectly when the trade doesn't work and he exit immediately, just scratch or 1 tick down. I would never do that, I would just stay in trade and wait till... I'm 6 ticks down ))))

Any way, for me it worth every penny spent on webinar.

Did I some money during the webinar? Yes I did. I mean I made some good entry decisions, but lost all of them because did not exit at time. And worse, lost some more ticks. That's a good experince for me personnaly, sometimes I see the setups but I don't see when to exit. And that makes difference. Yesterday made 4 entries, ZN, 3-4 ticks plus each time. But you think it gona pop a couple of ticks more and it goes against you. You wait a bit longer and you are bailing out 3 ticks loss.

But as I said, there is a price for each lesson. And this lesson is: when the momentum gone, bail out. So, you have to read the volume very well.

 

[rsh01]

Why give advice if you expect people to ignore it????

Prop shops train the traders they fund. They put them on the path.

I think finding the path yourself is an uphill struggle, especially considering all the BS around...

(It was a play on words) I agree finding the path is an uphill struggle made steeper by ppl like balthazar giving advice.

I disputed ppl on here giving advice when they clearly don't know vm, i.e. Balthazars claim that many traders do very well without caring 2 hoots about volume.

Yes balthazar I have met them. I was talking from a broader experience than you clearly have.

 

[Balthazar]

Just share it. If you have to show or explain something - just do it.

But don't say "I met some traders". When I was kid I was saying the same "my dad said so".
Show your trades, your P/L. Which traders have you met? From what prop firm? Private bank? Name? I know London pretty well, trust me. I've been in the trading rooms of some of them and have a clear view of what the trading is not.

If I share my experience, I say where I'm wrong and what I need to learn, nothing wrong with that. And don't teach anyone. Just say where I should have spend more time in order to save some money.

And by the way, forget me please.

 

[rsh01]

you met them personally? Or that is in your books with funny pics? You could just speak about you own trading results without reading the volume

I trade fx spot - there is no central exchange, and therefore no easily accessible vol data.

Some traders do use fx futures vol data as an indicator when trading spot - but many don't. Some SB firms / chart providers also provide vol data but its not complete.

To add to prev post - I have met a lot of traders trading commodity, FI, equity index futures who do not use vol data, and I have met some who do.

 

[DionysusToast]

By the way, DionysusToast, actually I'm doing the webinar with John Grady, absolutely super, opened my eyes on the DOM and presented Jigsaw plug inn, really good stuff, a must have in the ES. Will probably get it later.

kewl - if you want a free trial - let me know... better to try b4 you buy...