Inner Circle Trader's Pro Traders Club 2012 - 2013 Series

Beginner Questions
1426

Dont chase price, anticipate it!
Dont over trade.
Dont over leverage to try and get back to break even! I know this from experience, it doesn’t work!
2% MAXIMUM RISK. If 1K is 2% of your account, then thats OK, if not, dont over leverage. If you you do take a loss, drop the risk down to 1%, or 0.5%.
Dont revenge trade! If the trade goes against you, no more trading for that day. Take a step back, see why it happened and learn from your mistakes.

Take the time at the weekend to review ICTs reviews and note his key levels, they are very useful. Add these to your own analysis and see how they stack up.

The most important thing to learn is how to trade, not how to make money.

The money will come as a result of careful analysis and following the techniques described in these threads.

To learn this, risk 0.5% per trade. This will give you confidence in placing trades and should they go against you, you’ve lost very little of the account.

After a few months of trading at very low risk, you will have a good indication of how you are getting on with very little draw down should some of your trades go against you.

Once you are happy that you are analysing the markets correctly, increase to 1% and see how you get on…

Its a marathon, dont rush these things. Spend the time now (2-3 months) learning with very low risk (gradually increasing over the next 6 months) and in 3 years time, you will be reaping the benefits and you’ll be so glad you took a time out and a step back to really get a solid grasp on how your preferred markets move.

Another point I picked up right at the start of this iconic thread: 301 Moved Permanently was that you dont need a lot of money to make this work!

Learn with a very small amount of real money (after sufficient demo/paper trading), still only risking 2% or less.

When you start to see solid growth on the account, deposit more funds.

I started trading ICTs methods 2 months ago (with about 3 months before that learning/watching his videos and related material). I started at the start of September with £200, thats all, nothing more. The account is now sitting at £240. 20% in 2 months on the account and that includes so many missed trades and opportunities for massive pip hauls…

Sure, its a long way off £1,000,000 but its teaching me the following:

correct risk management
money management
trade management
giving me confidence to place trades knowing that if it goes against me, there wont be lots of £££ on the line (I still dont want to lose any money, no matter how small it is).
Discipline to perform my own weekly analysis.
PATIENCE! <-- THIS IS KEY!!! Stalk the levels and WAIT. If nothing happens or you miss an opportunity, what have you lost? EXACTLY NOTHING
The markets will always be there tomorrow!

Sorry for the lengthy post, Im probably way off topic LOL

Pretty much all of this is documented by ICT in his video archives. Mostly in the “What Every New & Or Aspiring Forex Trader… Still Wants To Know” thread. I studied the material posted there the most. It gives you everything you need to know, my post above is really just stating how I’ve used them, so its nothing new, just what ICT has been going on about for years now :slight_smile: (as if any more confirmation was needed that the material is good :))

1427

Jonnycab,
you are really man! thanks a lot for sharing your expirience. Many points you highlighted are not new for me. I’m following ICT more than one year. I’m tryign to read and whatch all new ICT materials. My problem is self disciplin and luck of knowladge. Have to go back and review. Another problem is deficit of time, ie i’m under time pressure. I mean I’m too old. Another problem is lenguage, english is not my native. On top of that I’m busy with my main job. And biggest problem is I’m more than 1 year trading live and lost too much from what i saved. Now I’m trapped, on one side I love fx, on another no results. Going dipper and dipper to black hole. Will try to follow your advises and stop trading. Thank you againg and good luck to you jonnycab.

1428

I didn’t take it, and according to the “rules”, it would have been a loss, considering the default sl of 15 pips and the spike to 1.6140 before the tp of 30 pips was reached

1429

Below is the third of 4 updates (this season) to the ICT Kill Zone Table. Current changes are highlighted in yellow.

Note that the return to Standard Time occurring in Europe and the U.K. this weekend will change 2 of the 4 Kill Zones for every trader who uses the ICT methodology.

The next update to the ICT Kill Zone Table will be the final update for this season, and will occur in 1 week (when the U.S. and Canada will return to Standard Time).

836×706

Notes:

1. If you happen to be in one of the 7 time zones listed in the left-hand column, you can read the 4 Kill Zone times directly from this table. The times shown are current in your time zone.

2. If your time zone is not listed in the left-hand column, start with the time zone closest to yours, and add or subtract the appropriate number of hours to the Kill Zone times shown.

Examples:

• if you are in any city in India, subtract 2½ hours from all the times on the line labeled “SINGAPORE time”.

• if you are in any city in Greece, add 1 hour to the times shown on the line labeled “ZURICH time”.

• if you are in Dallas or Chicago, subtract 1 hour from the times on the line labeled “NEW YORK time”.

• if you are in Los Angeles or Vancouver, subtract 3 hours from the times on the line labeled “NEW YORK time”.

3. The Kill Zone periods shown in this table are minimum periods. They can be expanded at your discretion.

For example, you might choose to expand the London Open Kill Zone by 1 hour, by starting a half hour earlier and ending a half hour later than the times shown in the table.

4. For additional time-zone and time-change information, see this thread.

1430

Its nice to see our old friend Clint come and visit from time to time :wink: thank you!

1431

Thank you Clint! :57:

1432

attached is a very simple excel spreadsheet that I use to calculate the times of interest in differing time zones. I have not protected any of the cells. Just remember to only edit the grey areas. Kill zones could be added if desired, although I just prefer to work with the opening and closing times +/- one hour.

Read as one would a distance chart on a roadmap. All pretty much self explanatory.

Trading Times Offsets6.zip (7.17 KB)

1433

Hi peterma,

Where did you get your bonds/notes figures from, especially the Europe and UK bonds?

I could only find the figures for US bonds/Notes from Barchart.com.

Thanks

1434

Bloomberg.

1435

I have the Bloomberg charts. US Generic Govt 10 Year Yield Chart - USGG10YR - Bloomberg

Peterma’s post says “US 5 & 10 tr on down trend - 10 yr may retrace up to 132.19…”. This I can get from Barchart.com.

It’s the part that says “Euro Bund reaching for 140.65…” that I couldn’t find on Barchart.com and Bloomberg.

1436

Are the following confluences enough to say that it’s the right time to enter a position trade ?

-> SMT divergence between fiber and cable.
-> Yield’s divergeing
-> COT Commercial’s extreme net short
-> Price at key resistance level in Cable.
-> William’s %R reaching the overbought area.

P.S - I’m not looking to take a trade, but just want to confirm if the analysis is right or not.

1437

Sorry - I was off the radar yesterday - ICT’s teachings has had the effect on me of thinking outside the box - I’m always wanting to know WHY is price doing what it is doing - hence my interest in what bonds were doing this past few days - I was particularily interested in why the GBP rise.

I use a feed with a uk broker on a live a/c, ETX Capital.

One little hint - if you find a good broker with good charts - many of them will allow a ‘dormant’ a/c where you can have access to all their accessories - provided they have no monthly charges - for ‘free’ - the money in the a/c obviously remains yours.

Now back to more studying these charts (my wife calls them the squigggly lines) :slight_smile:

1438

hi Beginer, with all those mentioned as self discipline, lack of knowledge, age, lack of time and demands of main job the odds are really stacked against fx to quickly become a main occupation for you. Those problems would need to be solved one by one (except age, which i’m not sure how’s that a problem) before you can be confident in trading. If you like trading for the fun on it, stay on demo-demo-demo, if you were in it for the money, then it’s not quick. Demo is really good for lots of learning anyway. good luck and good learning!

1439

Hey PP - you got me on 2 thing - what is Milk Thistle and what is MS?

Hold it - just wikipediad the Thistle stuff - seems good for liver - more interested in the MS.

1440

MS - Market Structure

1441

I am in the midst of trying to catalogue the ICT videos - it’s a mammoth task - there are many topics.

He does mention bonds a number of times and more recently shows the significance of divergence in the yields of German, Uk and US bonds.
He further mentions that in some cases Bonds respond to the fiber rate but in many cases the fx rates follows yield.

It is in these cases that I am spending most research - I have noticed that in news times bonds seem to react first, e.g last first Friday of Month the reaction was a mere 5 mins difference.

I often wonder what do the bank fx traders use as their reference point - on the longer term view - I know about the fundamental reports etc - (you can see examples on Chris Lori web site plus others) - but what forms their actual bias for the week, do they sift through all these reports or do they use a specific reference - eg the bond market ( I imagine a combination of both).

For me the single big thing is getting this bias - thus the research into bonds - who leads who - it seemed on wed and thur this week the uk bonds led cable - from ICT’s teaching you could see exactly where the uk bond price was going to go, from that info I could anticipate the end of the rise in cable and take a little short - there was no guessing - the uk bonds had stopped falling and had bounced, so cable soon followed (in opposite direction of course).

The research continues - it is an interesting area - many thanks to ICT for stimulating such thought.

1442

edit, delete

1443

This is a good question - back to this bias question.

Risk on vs Risk off - the single biggest driver in fx (imo) - the USD is still the safe haven currrency - thus good news for the US economy means all things are all well and good and we can take risks - i.e. buy risky assets such as stocks and the euro.
Obviously if we buy the euro - we sell the usd.

Some anylists will argue that the usd is no longer the safe haven currency that it was - they are not in the real world of business - in my business when I look to price goods from China - it’s priced in … usd.
Just this week a quote from the Czech Republic was in … usd

Even oil coming out of the mid east, UK, and hopefully soon Ireland :slight_smile: is priced in usd.

The age thing … we all have lost money to the banks in the past - the key is to learn from that - see ICT’s story, I am probably older, maybe wiser, but I see time, not against me, but on my side, I have learned that in this business, as in any business, knowledge and experience is king.
DO NOT try to trade your way out from a loss - this means you are focussed on the loss - a loss is a lesson - it is learned and logged, it is not to be traded from - as a trade it is gone- it is not your loss any longer - relegated to the past - in Ireland we say ’ let all bad luck go with it’.

The advice re demo trading is very sound - use this brilliant tool (generally not available 5 yrs ago) - treat it as if it is real money - you are following a good mentor in ICT - it WILL happen.

1444

Pretty sure ICT’s busy battening down the hatches for that hurricane so I suggest we all take it upon ourselves to study price and practice what he preaches.

1445

yep supposed to be a nasty storm up there. Leaves still on trees and this will bring snow. That spells an ugly time. I am sure glad it missed me though not by much. It was close enough to say its not going to be pretty.