Month: April 2013

  • Man Loses Life Savings on Carnival Game

    There are bad decisions, and then there are worse decisions…..

     

     

     

    By the way, the X-Box Kinect prize that was being played for can be had for around $100 new and less than 1/2 of that used.

     

    I have to wonder….where’s the mom??

     

     

  • Trading Update: 042213 – 042613

    Decent week, but this has been quite an interesting month so since next week is the close out, I’ll save all the details for the month end review.

     

     

  • The Elusive Successful Blogging Retail Trader

     

    In the past I wrote a blog asking where are all the retail trading blogs hiding, as they have proven hard to find.

    The results of my searching have led to some discoveries/assessments:

     

    I’ve found several retail blogging sites but the vast majority of those who are still in the “struggling to learn” stages of trading. They haven’t reached consistent profitability yet. There are many more blogs that have become abandoned ghost towns of someone’s attempt at active trading/investing. The trading ability fails to improve to profitability and eventually no new posts are entered, leaving one to assume that the venture has been discontinued.

    Looking for successful retail traders that blog is a much more difficult search, reflecting the difficulty in becoming proficient in trading. The search for good traders that blog and aren’t “selling” anything is like looking for water in the desert – very few and far between.

     

    However, my extended search has uncovered a few successful traders that blog. Here are two currently active ones:

    1) Jules in Jumbles

    Jules will always have a special place in my memory since she was the first successful “small trade” retail trader I encountered that posted her entries and exits on charts using down to earth methods similar to my own like support/resistance trend lines.

    Her blog stands out since during that time, I was also among the struggling traders trying to get consistency and was quite far from feeling confident enough to start posting performance stats. It was that struggle that prompted my search for other traders. After a while and string of mixed results of trading hits and misses, I started to wonder if it were actually possible to make a living by trading on a smaller scale like I was doing. I knew folks who traded 1000′s of shares daily and earned five and six figure profits on a daily basis, but that wasn’t my trading style. I didn’t want to trade in that frenetic style of catching slight moves using heavy leverage and thought it was possible to make money on bigger moves without needing as much if any leverage. Problem was my short term trading wasn’t going that great and needed improvement. My long term trades (investments) were okay, but I was going to have to get good at shorter term trades if I was going to be able to make a living from trading.

    That little negative voice within started asking me if I should continue and maybe I should just give up since it wasn’t possible. I couldn’t turn that voice off with my own skills at the time, so I thought the next best thing would be to find someone who was trading on my scale and being successful, which would prove the concept of it being possible, and therefore achievable. Searching for other trading blogs turned up lots of folks in my same situation, struggling to be profitable- not very encouraging. I didn’t need to read about another blogger having trouble with trading- I could just read my own for that. laughing

    Then I found Jules’ blog. What struck me is that while she had mixed results of winning/losing trades, the majority of trades were winners. This was when the majority of my short term trades were not. I looked at her older blogs and saw she had completed a positive year of trading gains. That was a big inspiration for me as my returns in short term trading were, um, less than positive for the year.

    That’s all I needed to see to shoo that negative internal voice away and I knew that my methods could be successful with the proper mix of time, effort and perseverance put in. Eventually I made it through the more difficult parts of the learning curve to get more consistent results and built up enough confidence in my methods to go public with stats. Part of the reason for my trading blogs is to also “pay it forward” by showing others that it’s indeed possible to succeed in the retail world of trading despite all the negative press from naysayers.

    Jules’ potential in my opinion is only limited by her mind. She reminds me of Neo from The MATRIX. She’s posted a few blogs where she “claims” she can’t really trade but I know better. There was an incident where she made a bad trade and another trader questioned her ability to recover from it. In response, she traded daily for a month making nothing but positive trades each day. It was very impressive and shut the doubting trader up pretty good. laughing To trade everyday for as month with only winning trades is not an easy thing to do by any means, and even rarer to do it by force of will. 

    She is considering taking down her public blog at the end of the month, so if you care to visit her site, be sure to do it before then just in case. cool

     

    2) Baby Sun’s Future Trading Diary

    I met this blogger on another site of a very successful trader, who was positing four figure winning oil trades on a daily basis. Someone eventually questioned his posts as being suspect even though he wasn’t selling anything. In response, he made his blog private and that was that. 

    Baby Sun told me she doesn’t need to look at a chart to trade real-time which I think is fascinating. I use my charts like GPS roadmaps and definitely need them for my style of trading.

    I have her to thank for motivating me enough to upgrade my trading methods to incorporate hedging and range trading. I always knew I “should” incorporate hedging into my strategies, but never got around to it. She helped “motivate” me when I was stuck in a wrong way trade while she was posting nice profits every week. I said to myself  ..”and why am I not making anything for weeks on end while I wait for my expected move to happen when I could be making money regardless of the market direction?” laughing


    Like Jules, she’s also modest about her trading ability, but the facts speak for themselves. She once posted that she had made some trading errors and was in trouble and worried- only to end the month with record profits. Sounds like a pool shark to me…don’t get tricked into any trading contests with her. laughing

     

    I find it interesting that the two active, successful retail traders I know online who are not selling training or books happen to be women. The stereotypical “trader” is often portrayed as male but this should be a boost to all females who ever considered engaging in active trading/investing. Both have been in the trading zone this year with great performance.

    Similarly, both have occasional considerations of not continuing their blogs, which helps to explain why successful non commercial retail trading blogs are on the rare side. 

     

    It also bears noting that none of us trade the same way. There is no “SECRET” trading method that works for everyone who is successful. There are many ways to make the market work for you, you just have to find/develop one that’s a good fit for your trading preference and risk tolerance.

     

  • Trading Update: 040813 – 041213

    Neutral week for me- in terms of gain/loss, but a good one in hedge management, adjusting long and short positions. The move to pre-program the hedge trades along with directional trades has worked well in solving the problem of trader bias in skipping hedge trades.

    Working both sides of the market simultaneously takes some getting use to, but like everything, gets easier with use. The transition has been a bit of a challenge, but it’s definitely the right way to go to take my trading to the next level. When optimized, market movement in any direction each week will generate profits.

    A good thing about hedging is that it forces you to always consider both market directions, which makes it less likely to get in trouble with trader bias in getting hooked on one direction. Permabears try to short the market no matter how strong the move up is, and Permabulls are constantly bullish. Both wind up losing big when going against an extended trend.

     

     

  • Trading Update 040213 – 040513

    Had a good week, but it should have been a great week. I like trades where I feel I’ve maximized my returns, and while I know I can’t be perfect, if I exit a trade too early based on continued market movement, I feel like I should have done better.

    The main issues this week, or I would say, any week depends on the quality of the trade map. The map is my analyzed chart where I figure out the market’s potential movement for the week ahead. Now the fact that the market movement is variable is what makes it a challenge.

    You’d like to be able to organize it to make a map orderly and precise, like this:

     

    This would be great!

     

    Unfortunately, the market has no fixed landmarks other than past movement, so I have to essentially create maps from scratch based on market stats and support/resistance areas. So oftentimes the map winds up looking like this based on a “best guess”:

     

     

    Meh, not as impressive, and plenty of assumptions that prove to be false….kind of like the “New World” maps of yesteryear. laughing But, you have to start somewhere. The more accurate the map, the better my trade entries and exits will be.

    How accurate was I this week? The video sums it up nicely:

     

     

    I missed a few “key turns” which caused me to enter too early in some trades and too late in others, resulting in reduced profits. I wind up confusing myself with my maps if I draw too many update lines and start losing the bigger picture.

    Since I’m working a hedge by trading both sides, the errors get doubled as well.

    On the positive side, my plan of putting in my hedge trades in advance is working well. Even though my “directional” side is still a bit uncomfortable, I’m getting used to trading ranges now instead of only at the perceived maximum lows and highs. The new methods should clean house over my older direction centered methods once I’m fully adept.

    I also made some good improvements to my mapping to help in making and keeping it accurate, so I can avoid those “off road” ventures.

    The market had great volatility and movement this week. It tanked big time of the weak jobs report on Friday, but recovered nicely. Hopefully market movement will continue to be robust next week. I have some catching up to do to make up for a sub par quarter.

     

     

  • Attack Blogging Rules of the Road

    I was going to post my trading update, but I’ll do that later….

    Blogging rules to live/attack by:

    1. If someone leaves a comment that isn’t intentionally “trollish” that you may not agree with, you can either

    A) Call out the points in the comment that you disagree with and address your counter point. (adult method)

    B) Ignore it. (adult method)

    C) Be condescendingly dismissive. (immature method)

    D) Attempt to squash a person dead by showing vast superiority in knowledge with the intention of trying to embarrass/humiliate them in the process. (aggressive/arrogant immaturity)

     

    Now I’ve seen lead off replies with the A, B , and C variety of responses, but it’s a rare occurrence for someone to go straight to a “Defcon 1″ D level attack, but I’ve experienced one this week.

     

    I’m not typically in “battle mode” so at first I didn’t even recognize the initial response as such an attack. After all you don’t expect responses like that when one thinks they are engaged in friendly conversation. So my reply was based on a face value question rather than regarding it as an assault on my abilities or intelligence.

    However, internally a flag was raised that something didn’t feel “right”, but I had no reason to expect such an attack so it wasn’t registering.

     

    Anyways, I wasn’t sure so I moved on to other things, and then later on this person posts another entry with the sole purpose of discussing highlighting the attack made that supposedly “put me in my place”, and giving themselves a pat on the back in the process.

     

    Of course I see this because I’m subscribed to this person.

     

    So that cleared things up right away and removed all uncertainties about what happened. Now I’m doubly irritated since I find the original attack unwarranted, childish, hella rude, and now to top it off, a “high five” post is created celebrating my supposed “squishing”- with a double shot of arrogance knowing that I’m going to see it as well.
     

    Now if this “mental giant” had taken the time to visit my blog, they would know I’m not a shrinking violet when it comes to internet disagreements/arguments. Which brings us to the next rule:

     

    2) If you post a gloat over your attempt to trash someone and they are a subscriber, it should be obvious that the “trashee” will see it so you should probably EXPECT some type of response.

    If that’s not asking “Bring it!”, I don’t know what is. cool

     

    And that’s exactly what I did- leaving a comment on that “high five” post calling out the rude behavior, expressing disappointment at such a low level response and surprise that it’s being “celebrated” as if their actions were something to be proud of.

    Okay so this “tough” person who has been talking a good game now has me right where they presumably want me, so they can now let me have it with both barrels….

    Instead, this would be “people squisher” turns tail and de-subcribes me rather than attempt to mow me down with their “vaunted” intellect.

    Big talk, no action.  Which brings us the following Rules:

     

    3) If you’re attempting to step on someone,  be sure it’s with your OWN shoes, not those you’re trying to borrow from others who have accomplished more (as if cred and skills transfer by osmosis).

     

    4) If called out on your rude actions and “gloats” by the target of your amusement you can either

    A) Walk your talk and “Bring it!”

    B) Admit your error – hey, we all make mistakes.

    C) Avoid confrontation when you realize the “target” isn’t intimidated and now you’ll have to prove just how “superior” you are.

     

    Seems to me that those who chose option “C” would be better off not trying to show off by making waves in the first place.

     

     

     

    I really have little patience for arrogant folks, especially those who can’t back up their bravado. People like that are better off on “friends lock” so they can control and protect their environment from the harsh world of REALITY.

     

     

  • Why Most Successful Traders Don’t Reveal Details of What Their Methods Are

    An alternate title for this post would be why you should suspect anyone who offers to teach you “easy trading secrets” for big bucks.

    Someone in the twitter stream this week was commenting on the need for traders to get professional help (ie paid training) if they wish to have any success in trading. Of course, you know I had to correct this misinformed individual on the error of his ways by telling him I achieved success with no paid help so he needs to rethink his statements.

    During the ensuing conversation, he asked if I’d be willing to show him my methods and that he’d be willing to pay me if it improves his trading.

    What was my response? It’s the common sense response you would expect from someone who actually knows how to trade – I told him I have no desire to share my methods since I can make my own money with trading, so why would I weaken my edge by making it public?

    You see, trading is an open loop system, where the market reaction is based on the inputs of others for a collective result. This means there are no “fixed” methods that are guaranteed to work independent of market participants knowledge.

    Here’s an example of what I mean – let’s say there a bakery that lowers the price of their goods based on the amount of traffic in their store. Now if someone were to carefully observe store traffic throughout the day, they could arrive at the best time to go there to get the best discounts.  Now, that “answer” isn’t fixed in that it depends on the other shoppers to continue their habits. If the person were to announce to all what the best time of day to shop there was, more people would go at that time and the price would go up, cancelling out that time advantage.

    The same thing applies in trading. In order for the market to make dramatic moves up and down, you need people to drive that market behavior, and make mistakes in the process to help that movement along. Revealing a working method to the masses would mean it would be compromised by overuse.

    So if you do have a method that works in making money, why would you put it at risk by selling it when you could use it yourself to make money instead? That means you have to be suspicious of anyone offering to teach you “sure fire” techniques to make money. After all, if it is that “sure fire” and simple, why isn’t the seller using it themselves instead of trying to sell it?

    So if someone is selling training, you can be sure that if they are legit, there will be no “simple” or “magic” solutions to easy wealth and will require much work/practice for any hope of success. There is a reason why the trading success rate is low, it requires work and effort like any other worthwhile venture. You can also be sure that the trading experts are keeping any “simple solutions” that work to themselves. cool