[chdorry]

Originally Posted by dpaterso

Good (Saturday) evening all!!!


Craig:

What I'm saying is this:

I've watched the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P DAILY (HOURLY) for almost two years now and that, coupled with what I know NOW, is why I'm saying what I'm saying. In other words: I do NOT have the knowledge nor do I have the experience in this business to be able to 'call' the state of the American economy. I DO, however, NOW, have the knowledge and experience to know that selloffs similar to that of Thursday and Friday are 'emotive' and 'overdone' and the indices ALWAYS recover after that. A year ago would I have 'bailed' the moment I saw that selloff coming??? FOR SURE!!! Will I NOW??? Definitely not!!! Maybe they don't recover for LONG but: recover they do and always enough to either BE or make profit.

Dale - I wasn't trying to be negative, but if we are all trading from the same indicators, then the only other real difference(s) possible are that we either process/interpret data differently or use different rules once in a position.

The reason I was asking is that in many mailers I'm involved in, I've seen predictions of DOW under 10k (9800) in next few weeks. While its no guarantee, the DOW and NASDAQ are usually pretty much in line with each other. By that I mean, I can't personally remember a day where the DOW was down and NASDAQ was up by a decent margin. Sure there have been plenty of days where one is up a little and other is off slightly, but they usually seem to trend together for the most part. Also, I can say that I don't think many were expecting the US unemployment to jump to 6.1% (with I believe it was the 8th consecutive reading that was worse than expected). So I'm just looking at the info I'm seeing, and wondering where you're drawing a different conclusion. So to me, I am bearish on the DOW/NASDAQ for the short term (next couple of weeks) but I'm a firm believer that if you go long on one today, and hold it you will most likely break even at some point as things will *eventually* come back. Now that might work well for you, but I'm finding that isn't a fit for my trading personality.

I read something in a blog that actually struck me as interesting - it went ot the effect of "All indicators work, just most of them will not *work* for you". By that I think that b/c of personality traits, etc, you have really find something that fits you, or else condition yourself to fit another item. So I think one major difference is that having gone through the h#!! you endured in this business, while you don't like losses, you've come to real terms that they are part of the game.

Now, to the enron point, I think that is really a wash. For example, if I open my account with 10,000. First month I trade and I close out $1000 in winners, but end up enron'ing $2000 in bad trades. So while my balance at Delta shows $11000, in reality I've still *lost* that money. So while on paper it might show a gain, you really are down $1000 as if you were to liquidate your account at that point you'd only have $9000. So to me, my goal is to see the P+A (account plus open positions) value increase every month, and if it doesn't then in reality I've had a negative month. I could conceivably have an account balance that shows several thousand higher than my initial starting point, but in reality my actual account value (if I had several Enron positions) would be less than my initial deposit. I'm by no means saying this is necessarily happening in your case, but to me if you don't look at the P+A at the beginning of the month and the end of the month, you're not really seeing an actual accounting of what you made that month.

To put it another way, let's say I have $8000 in my checking account, but I owe $2000 for my mortgage. Now the fact of the matter is I can "enron" that by not paying the mortgage until later, but because the mortgage is due I really only have $6k of usable money. To be honest, is there really any major difference in Enron vs closing the position, and then making it back when that pair gives the reverse signal? I could argue that its better to take the loss, save yourself the incremental "increase" in loss as it continues against you, and then have less to make up when the pair reverses. The only difference is the Account value drops when you sell (and doesn't when you enron), but if you don't adjust your lot sizes anyway, its not going to change anything. Regardless of whether you sell it all or enron, the amount of "available" money in your account (P+A) isn't going to differ by much. What I mean by that is if you have a $2k account, and you enron $1k position, in reality you have $1k of trading money left before your account is busted. Now if you sell that $1k loser, you still have $1k of trading money left as well, so other than the fictitious high account balance, you really aren't benefitting by enroning vs selling, with the exception of Enron keeping a "placeholder" where you have to trade that pair again in your direction. To that end, it could be counterproductive as when you have an existing position you're trying to work off, its going to be *much* harder (at least for me) to be as objective and systematic as you would with a new position.

As for why my results don't mirror yours, its pretty simple - I'm not you. Anyone can clone a trading system, but you can't clone the individual. To get the same results as you, I'd have to have similar/same mindset which is why I was asking the question relating to the NASDAQ, to try to get a view into how your mind works on those matters.

Another reason I can say my results aren't stellar, is that I'm far from a seasoned trader, as I've not even been trading live for 2 months. To be honest, one thing I'd personally recommend with new traders is to be conservative in your lot sizes so you can learn without risking too much, and also start to get your emotions in check as things start moving both for and against you.

Let's be honest, just b/c I have the Deltastock indicators you coded doesn't guarantee success. While I think they are a great help, and the systems are very good, etc, it still all boils down to the man/woman behind the keyboard. So at this point, any results (or lack thereof) aren't nearly as much of a reflection on the systems as they are on the trader themself.

One other thing I feel is worth mentioning for new folks considering trading, don't sit on the sidelines, get in the game. Demo trading is *NO* substitute for the real thing. To me demo trading is great to learn the broker's platform, and familiarize yourself with the markets, but until you have some "skin in the game" (ie live money) you aren't TRULY learning. Honestly, trading small will teach you much more than demo trading ever will b/c you have to start considering real ramifications to your account (what if .....?).

I can honestly say Dale has been as helpful as he can (even gone above and beyond in many cases in my opinion), but there is no substitute for time in the markets. To think you'll hit the ground with great gains out of the gate (while it is possible) is probably as likely as getting in the ****pit and flying a plane without any "live training" in the pilot seat with a professional instructor.

So I'm by no means trying to be negative, I'm just hoping to find a little more of the what makes people tick type of thing, as the only way to get similar results is to trade similarly, and I can't do that 100% as I'm not legally allowed to trade CFDs.

Also, J - my bet is that most folks took a beating in stocks/CFDs this week. The saying in the markets is a low tide lowers all boats. By that it means that when the general market is going down, there aren't going to be (many) stocks that are showing a bull run. Even if a stock is making a bullish move, it will be muted considerably during a bearish market, as its "swimming against the current". So hang in there, as the DOW/NASDAQ/etc are going to swing back up, but unfortunately predicting that one is another "your guess is as good as mine" type of bet.