Tsunami Trading Educators

http://www.tsunami-trade.com/

Here comes another system--which costs a whopping $6500--that claims to use no indicators whatsoever, only proprietary charts, to day trade the ES. I swear these sites are multiplying faster than roaches in an old soup can. What is so special about trading on price action? It's been done ever since markets existed but lately has become so new and vogue.

I've taken the free trial a couple of times and I'm not impressed. It obviously is targeting the novice trader who has spent a lot of time and money on other trading tools and still is losing money. Who else but the desperate and/or naive would wire $6500 to someone's bank account who, like most others in this con game business, won't even disclose their name, let alone a phone number. In addition to sending your money in a non-recourse fashion, new members are required to sign an unbelievably one sided disclaimer http://www.tsunami-trade.com/disclaimer.html that doesn't even tell you where this company is located. In addition, a search under "who is" reveals an anonymous front hosting company (Tucows).

In fact, the guy who runs this shop (Blade) is so paranoid and secretive that he doesn't even let other members communicate amongst themselves away from the room. He totally forbids any sharing of emails, IM, or Skype and is lightening quick to erase any such posts. On several occasions I witnessed him bleeping out this type of info AND admonishing the person who posted.

What I found particularly interesting was the use of shills in the room to praise and tout the system to the folks who were in for free trial. This is a variation of the three card monte scam in which the people winning money right and left (in this case alleged "members" who expound the virtues of this system ad nauseum) lure the unsuspecting visitors to get on board. Blade himself is the biggest showman when he makes the right call on a trade, making it seem that the magic secret of interpreting price action through this so-called proprietary system is the answer to your dreams. And indeed, the website has all the bait with pictures of folks living their fantasy lives on some tropical island with a Ferrari in the driveway.

In the two weeks I spent in the room, I calculated a win rate of approximately 59% as defined by a trade making one point before hitting a 1.25 stop. No great shakes. Blade claims the system is "robust" in that it gives many signals during the trading session. (I witnessed 10 calls in one day.) When a trade gets stopped before profit Blade has a litany of excuses that are too long to mention in this thread; suffice it to say as any true conman, he knows how to put a spin on the negatives as if it really wasn't all that bad. For example, the market is "acting violently" and the price action, therefore, can't be properly discerned. Blame it on anything but the system. After a couple of quick stopouts in a row, he takes a break as moderator and the room sits in silence.

Although I'm not privy to his secret system, my observations tell me he uses a short term candlestick chart (10 or 15 minute) calling out buys at obvious support and sells at resistance. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of technical analysis and chart reading could easily make the same calls. I also believe he uses a modified pivot point for his early morning calls which I did find funny. (f X price is broken, expect to go to Y and if that is broken, the Z and vice versa for the upside).

The free trial is worth the price of admission for entertainment, but not much else.

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Originally posted by day trading

The last time that I used HotComm (about a year ago) it was possible to click on a person's name in the room and Private Message (PM) that person.

Has the list of other people in the room been hidden or disabled or this feature of PM been disabled to prevent you from communicating with other people in the room?

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The moderator has the option to disable PM.

That's a huge red flag. Unfortunately for you this is too late. Also, the fact that he does not have some sort of open discussion forum such as this is also a big problem.

I believe that all system vendors or trading rooms should have a couple of forums: A locked one for subscribers where they can discuss ideas and problems that they are having and openly talk about the "trade secrets" that they have been taught. An open room where anybody can enquire about the system and comment on the system.

For obvious conflict-of-interest reasons the system owner (in this case Tsunami) should not host the open discussion as they could censor and edit it for their own benefit. The discussion should be on an open forum such as this which has no censorship of legit content from either side.

I certainly hope that others come forward with their experiences as well.

Apart from disabling the PM feature in the room has he also hidden the list of people in the room?

For whatever it's worth, I'll take a bow for being the one who exposed this farce.

Blade does not allow members to talk amongst themselves. He fears the obvious--mutiny. He said on numerous occasions during trial week that he didn't want non-members communicating with members in case any of the members wanted to resell the system for less than Blade charged them. After reading redsioux's posts, I can understand why members might want to do that, to recoup some of their lost investment.

I spoke directly with Josh Kline, a TradeMaven broker, and he was very candid why they have partnered with Tsunami; namely "education for our clients" and more commissions as a result of the scalping nature of the system. Although his firm did a lot of due diligence, their customers, by and large, are not pleased with their investment. He expressed frustration that Blade uses him as a credibility source and a pitchman which is taking much of his time. (TradeMaven does not receive any of the proceeds from the Tsunami fee.)

Redsioux. I said in my first post that John was a friend of Blade and he takes the afternoon session from Blade so Blade can track down the incoming wires from the new lemmings. Or perhaps he's out cruising in that new Ferrari shown on the Website.

I don't think I'm sticking my neck out by forecasting that Tsunami won't be around a year from now. But Blade will be, most likely his poolside villa (also on the Website)in Hawaii where the company is legally registered.

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Originally posted by ahk

I spoke directly with Josh Kline, a TradeMaven broker, and he was very candid why they have partnered with Tsunami; namely "education for our clients" and more commissions as a result of the scalping nature of the system. Although his firm did a lot of due diligence, their customers, by and large, are not pleased with their investment. He expressed frustration that Blade uses him as a credibility source and a pitchman which is taking much of his time. (TradeMaven does not receive any of the proceeds from the Tsunami fee.)

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Just to clarify: Josh Kline is a broker. TradeMaven is a trading platform. Does TradeMaven also have a brokerage arm and is that who Josh Kline works for?

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If you are a 1 lot trader, he currently says hold for 2 points (that has changed several times since I have been in room). If you are a 2 lot trader, take 1 contract off at +1 point, the second off at +2 points. You leave your stop at -1 till you are out of trade. Number of trades vary. If he is having a good day, maybe 10, if not, maybe 4 or 5. Today he called 3 winners, 3 losers, but did not follow his money mgmt on one of the winners so he was about b/e with commissions. He left at 1:00 and turned it over to johng, who has not called a trade in an hour and a half.

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redsioux - thanks for your reply to my question, it clears up in my mind what we are really talking about here. 2 point win, 1 point loss, no break-even stop, with a high daily frequency of trades attempted is basically a scalping strategy. This method of trading is very very difficult to do profitably over the long term unless your win rate is consistently approaching 70% wins, especially when basic mistakes are being made on a regular basis.

You might want to have a look at our probabilities thread as we are covering basic money management concepts such as this.

Here is the thread that pt_emini is talking about: Probabilities

IMO all traders should understand how that spreadsheet works and its implications before they start trading. That will give them the knowledge to know what the win percentage needs to be for any given strategy to at least break-even.

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Originally posted by day trading

quote:

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Originally posted by ahk

I spoke directly with Josh Kline, a TradeMaven broker, and he was very candid why they have partnered with Tsunami; namely "education for our clients" and more commissions as a result of the scalping nature of the system. Although his firm did a lot of due diligence, their customers, by and large, are not pleased with their investment. He expressed frustration that Blade uses him as a credibility source and a pitchman which is taking much of his time. (TradeMaven does not receive any of the proceeds from the Tsunami fee.)

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Just to clarify: Josh Kline is a broker. TradeMaven is a trading platform. Does TradeMaven also have a brokerage arm and is that who Josh Kline works for?

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TradeMaven merged with eLocal this year. http://elocaltrading.com/ eLocal is an IB for RCG and is owned by it's founders Doug Zalesky and Jeff Ganis. This firm has a sterling reputation in the industry, and frankly I am suprized to hear of their associated (even indirectly) with this mess. I am confident once it's brought to Doug's attention he will promptly address it on his end.

edit: fixed link to eLocal

daytrade,

The answer to your question is yes.

Thanks ahk - pt_emini's slightly longer answer clued me in to that as well.

I just followed your link pt_emini and this is what the www.elocaltrading.com web site currently looks like. I assume that this is just temporary and they're probably doing an upgrade or something?

Is blade's name John by the way? From what i ve seen, his latest scam is TsuBot, which he claims has an extremely high win rate in all markets. Watching it trade live, it's obvious that reality is much different. Interesting that he only takes into account the first profit target which is no more than eg 3 ES ticks or 5 GBP/USD pips (which is really 2 after spread which he totally ignores, but that should be expected as he has never placed a real trade himself). The corresponding stop loss is several times larger, a sure recipe for disaster. Avoid them at ALL costs no matter how tempted you feel to waste 6-7k