The Trading Zone

Hello, has anyone tried or had any experience with TheTradingZone? If so, what are your thoughts about them, pro and con?
Thank you,
ican

coops,

I don't have any opinions on TTZ because I have no knowledge of what it does. I accept your enthisiastic endorement at face value, but I must tell you that I think you're overdoing a bit. Constant beating of the TTZ drum will in time undermine your credibility as a happy trader using the method who alledges no other affiliation with Greg and Co.. Do what you wish. The readers know how you feel about TTZ and more praising gets a bit sappy. I'm happy your having success.

ruvan,
Thank you for your concern and well wishes

First off I am not a member of the TTZ but having been in the room and evaluating over the last couple weeks thought I would add my 2 cents to this thread.

From my time in the room I must say I have the utmost respect for Greg, the way he calls and relays information on his trades. I find him to be of high integrity. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of co-moderator Secretariat. So much so that after an incident just over a week ago I now routinely put him on ignore and would recommend newcomers to the room do likewise. In my opinion, he is engaged in smoke and mirrors (aka paper) trading involving at times questionable entries, stops, target fills and math (not to mention hearing his Ninja trader executing but not a word is heard from Sec). If one is attentive enough I feel it becomes quite evident. I can site many instances that have led me to this conclusion but will highlight one that bordered on misrepresentation.

As outlined in the TTZ trade management, secretariat scales out of his postion at various target levels (generally every .5 ES point). On Jan 11, 2008 Secretariat in pre market trading was up 5 pts (not on a per car basis but rather by adding the maximum amounts made on the max scale out of each trade). On his next 3 trades, starting at approximately 7:43am EST he is stopped out for 1.5pts each i.e. 4.5 pts per car on his whole position. Then on his next 3 trades he manages a max scale out of +1, .5 and then -1 stop out. He then later announces to those \"just joining\" the room that he is up +1.

Now since he never announced changing position size, I can see no conventional math that allows him to take a hit on 3 full positions, only get partials off at 5 pts and be up +1 in the end.

I can only guess at Sec\'s motive, but that Greg allows this sort of new math and questionable/suspect trades (e.g. like hard stop levels are printed but magically Secretariat\'s stop is not taken) to take place puzzles me.

I will not bore you all with details of minimum number of cars Secretariat must be trading etc etc and my analysis of his trades/profitability but suffice it to say I suspect some members who take his trades can not be too happy. But I suspect you will never hear from them for fear of being bullied into submission.

In short, by all means visit the room as there is good stuff taking place, great info from Greg and Gator that allows for clear evaluation but put Secretariat on ignore.

I was in the room on the 23rd. I found it funny on such volatility for Sec was getting entry order fills on the highs or lows but his stops were not hit when the market traded to his stops. I noticed that 4 or more times on the 23rd. Now I said before I am not a member nor do I plan on becoming one. I do find what they use is valuable and I picked up some good points from my visits here and there. But yes it was so clear on the 23rd Sec was full of **** on his fills.

Any one trying to just follow him would have gotten smoked as fast as the markets moved even with expanded stops to 2 point or more as he said! I myself have been doing this long enough and know when some one is full of ****. Now I'm not saying it's BS all the time, but give me a break on the 23rd it stunk in the TTZ room. I do find the room very entertaining during the day

Trader

Thank you TrdgObsvsr for the kind words about me and TheTradingZone

A bit of clarification regarding our trade management, we are quite transparent about this, and it is documented on our web site here www.thetradingzone.com/chatroom.html
In addition I have taken the time to explain it in greater detail on this board http://www.mypivots.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1869&whichpage=7
And as you can see we do not scale out for every half point. It is possible that what was said in the chatroom as information ie. The trade is +3.5 was mistakenly taken to mean an exit at that price.
If you read those 2 pages you see, there is always a managed portion of the trade, held until the pattern fails, using trailing stops

Because I trade on a 3 minute basis it can take 6-12 minutes to setup a trade, and that means I will generally get 5-7 trades in a day. Secretariat however trades pure price action and can often take more than 40 trades in a day. When trading at that pace, things happen very fast, and at times it may mean that those attempting to shadow trade will miss an entry, blow a stop etc… (my thoughts on shadow trading are also well documented on this board)

What was not mentioned in the prior posts, is that even though stops may be taken, especially trading at that frequency, they do get offset by large winners. On the 23rd for example the day opened (regular session) with a 17 point winner. And due to the extreme ranges we have had there were numerous 10 point winners as well.

Also, I see no mention of the fact that of the 40+ trades that Sec, may take close to 50% of those are given as LIMIT entries. Either stop limit entry for break outs, breakdowns, or Limits for fades. Anyone who knows how to use their order entry system can enter these LMT orders ahead of time in order to get the same fill

The room serves a demonstration of our methods, our members who are all watching the same charts, and using the same tools, are thus able to correlate an entry called in the room with a trigger on the charts.
The motivation is simple, having a trader with the ability to see almost every trade setup on a time frame that produces 40+ opportunities in a day, and able to stay focused on that, provides that many more occasions for those want to evaluate. Trading on a 3 minute basis means that I would only be able to provide that a few times in a day.
High frequency trading, brings higher risk but also more opportunity for reward.
If however a trader who attempts this does not have the focus watch it all day tick by tick, the discipline to act quickly and often to stop and reverse, then high frequency trading brings only higher risk

If you attended our room, and discovered 1 single thing that can help your trading, gave you 1 extra good trade, or kept you out of just 1 bad trade, then I say it was well worth the visit.

quote:

---

Originally posted by GregW
Because I trade on a 3 minute basis it can take 6-12 minutes to setup a trade, and that means I will generally get 5-7 trades in a day. Secretariat however trades pure price action and can often take more than 40 trades in a day.

---

Greg, if you trade on a 3 minute basis and get 5-7 trades in a day,
then what time/tick/vol frame does Sec trade on to get 40+ trades a day?

And is his style of pure price action trading taught at the Trading Zone?
Or is it just your style that is taught?

Hi Greg,
Unfortunately, I feel you have either missed the point or got sidtracked. I am well aware of your trade management and all the aspects of the TTZ you talked about. I have no issues with your calls and how you personally log your trades etc. My comments were not about whether trades were winners or not. I am not seeking to point out losing trades and ignore winners as your comments seem to suggest. Rather, I am merely bringing to others attention what I consider deceptive or at best misleading behaviour that people ought to be aware of and avoid. As the owner/creator of TTZ may I suggest you read my note with a view to addressing the behaviour that would cause not only myself but other potential clients as well to be turned off or at worst to become disgruntled clients. Take the time to listen to how Secretariat conducts himself and how it would come across to a potential client and clients as well. Not as a owner or co-moderator but as a potential client. There are in fact TTZ members who are not pleased with his behaviour but as I alluded you may not hear about it.

By the way Greg, the percentage of limit or on stop entries called by Secretariat in my experience is no way near 50%. Most of his trades are market orders as in \"I am long\" \"I am short\" followed by the price.

Your closing remark is consistent with my outlook and for that reason I put that co-moderator on ignore and listen to yourself and Gator in particular as it pertains to the squawk.

Regards.

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with TrdgObsvr. I had occasion to visit the TTZ Paltalk room in late 2007 for a few weeks and found both Greg and Gator to be the genuine article. Some observations on the room and the leaders there:

Greg was always clear why/where/when he entered a trade and where/why he took his profits and stops. And yes, Greg is not infallible and stopouts will happen as no system can boast 100% success rates. On the whole, I have no doubt that he is a very profitable trader, using methods he has developed, adjusted and learned from others. He speaks calmly, knowledgeably, and has a reasoned, disciplined and well thought out approach to trading.

Similarly, Gator, who did not call many trades, was superb at interpreting the pit squawk and offered great insight into what the locals and paper were up to.

Secretariat, on the other hand, is another kettle of fish. He is vile, loud, and very demeaning to visitors (aka freeloaders - in a free room no less...lol) and dissenting members alike. His 55-tick chart and regression channel methodology do indeed give him many good price action/momentum trades and many bad ones. I found he always took full credit for his successes, but would very often not report stopouts, and he DOES lie about fills (and yes, one could hear his Ninja signal stops, fills, etc.) with no word from this ...er..numbnuts idiot. It felt as if he was either paper trading or losing a great deal of money on many occasions. However, it seemed that Sec had always made a ton of money pre-market which he could then afford to lose. I have discussed this with several TTZ members and they agree, and they said many members are afraid to speak out for fear of being booted or derided.

Somehow this goofball Sec does not fit in with Greg or Gator, but I figure the room would get pretty bored with Greg's 5-7 trades per day and they need a livewire like Sec to keep up the interest and to be in the market at most times.

A huge negative for the TTZ room are the constant infomercials, with Gator probably having some fundraising experience at some PBS station. These infomercials go from one or two minutes at a time to over 15 minutes, often causing them to miss many viable trades....and they are incessant, day in and day out. Maybe members have an ability to opt out? ha ha.

In conclusion, Greg "YES", Gator "yes", Secretariat-with-the-long-wooden-nose "give me a break, they do shoot horses, don't they?". The TTZ methodology? No big secret, but that's another story. Try it out, it may be your cup of tea.

I felt that there must be others out there that were seeing the same thing that I was. My problem with the TZ is this. I am a paying customer. When I complained in private about the deception that is going on in the chat room and said that I wanted my money back I was banned from the room. The access code to the home study course and other member benifits was blocked. That is why I feel like I have been ripped off and I still have nothing to show for the $1600.00 I paid to the TZ. So, the thought that some of you have expressed that members would be treated poorly if they said anything about the false trades is true. And the way that this company handles problems with customers is to threaten them instead of trying to fix the problem. I am truely amazed that they can stay afloat and out of trouble. At this point I would be more than happy just to have access to the things I have paid for. The things that are advertized on the web site. The "Lifetime membership"

so i guess after 5 yrs of selling courses to many people who attend the room each day, greg suddenly decided to steal $1600 by not giving you access to the material you paid for ???? yea sure. you stated that you attended the webinair in previous posts. you also say that you were told that this was a signal calling service ,that signals were made by greg via yahoo messenger. this has never been the case and is stated at the website quite clearly as well as in the room .no calls are ever made via yahoo messenger!as for gator hyping sales all day long ....nothing could be further than the truth . gator interprets activity in realtime from the pit and will post calls. i only hear a sales pitch during lunch and near the close . it is made quite clear that purpose of the room is to demo the methodology which is for sale. as far as secretariats calls being fictitious,also nonsense . many of the calls are limit buy/ sell orders . members are always posting their positions when asked if they are in the same trade.btw, the guy is a great tape reader.as a paid member i like his zero tolerance attitude towards all the troublemakers and clowns who attempt to disrupt the room and attempt get something for nothing.if you dont like what goes on in the room theres no obligation to buy.but to attend the room for weeks, acknowledge that their stuff is valuable,and say you have no intention of signing up and continue to sneak in the room [as posted previusly] is feeloading . if you dont want to pay for this service move on.

Thanks for your response. Did you ever find anyone or anything to help you be a better trader? They are asking $3000 now. Thanks again.