Does anyone really make money trading futures?

Does anyone really make money trading futures?

I am just wondering.

I know I don't. I have tried all the indicators and the chat room gurus, and none of them make money.

I have a suspicion that a lot of the chat rooms for emini trading are just for hobbyists and market enthusiasts and not for serious traders trying to make a business out of trading.

For any new traders out there please be very cautious of paying anyone to mentor you or signing up for training or a chat room. From what I have seen the only people making money in these deals is the mentor, the chat room owner or the author of the training manual.

I would love to hear from you if you are a successful trader making 20% off your account or better over the past year. I know only 5 to 10 percent of traders are supposed to be successful, but I am beginning to think that zero percent of traders are successful over the long haul. Certainly anyone can have a streak of luck and rack up a few good months where they dramatically increase their account size, but these people are normally big risk takers and eventually they blow out their accounts by taking the exact same risks that help double their accounts in the first place.

Thanks in advance for any response.

Not sure what the "decision" is that you refer to as he said he is no longer teaching and this class was just for his current students to become more familiar with the setups....

seems like a waste of time unless he is going over specifics.

Let us know when you have time..

Thanks

Bruce

quote:

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Originally posted by bakrob99

I am attending all week and will only make any "decision" about the appropriateness of his setups for me based on at least 1 week of trading.

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Bruce M,

Hunter has not mentioned any specific of his set ups, its all very general comments eg. o I trade the 3/15/60/daily charts and combo fib areas etc...no specifics. Also today, imho its not clear were they are getting into trades.

Just one mans opinion

Then there can only be one grand purpose....to charge people ...at some point in time...

quote:

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Originally posted by voodoo1

Bruce M,

Hunter has not mentioned any specific of his set ups, its all very general comments eg. o I trade the 3/15/60/daily charts and combo fib areas etc...no specifics. Also today, imho its not clear were they are getting into trades.

Just one mans opinion

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Well, one thing I did see on his website, for example, on the services page, was this:

"This page is under construction. Check back at the
end of March. This website is going to be turned into a
free traders educational web site.

Please enter suggestions for items you would be
interested in."

That is an odd approach is they are hawking for business. I'll be following along, for sure.

Jim,

It makes sense b/c by March enough punters will have seen the room for free and then start to inquire about learning the great system. It could be called bait and switch

Since I was on Pal for over a year and left 8 months ago...I seem to know all the artists there...well you would to if you were there for a year...trying to learn daytrading.. and losing real good..but they told me I was doing something wrong..more courses..a wizard auto trade maybe.....then I got my own method..but I digress

The es trading room...for me at least was sad..they had no clue where the mkt was going....maybe up maybe down..median line, cyan line...to me it was amateurish..to the extreme. A real great trader knows from the nigh where the mkt is going...the morning only confirms his thoughts..and this prior to open.

But they still had 35 or 40 people or more...I saw the same names I saw back in 2006 july....same old same...looking for that one guru that would solve their problems....it was me in there a while back..but I got an epiphany..which some will never get...oh well.

My point has always been...if I am making a killing trading the market...why would I bother with all those 2 bit losers there on Pal or wherever. If you want to pass on free info..that is fine...but to go on pal to waste your time..and then complain about how hard it is to talk and trade.

Geez, I wish Warren would start a subscription...How abt Simon...who made 2 billion trading last year...there are a few other names..but you get my point. I'm coming after you Simon...and I going to be on Paltalk...care to listen on making good trades Simon...c'mon..you will learn something, I'm sure of it....1 week free. Listen with my help next year you make 2.1 billion.

Hey Bruce M, Voodoo1 or Gio..how come you are not on Pal....lol.

Good Aft

People are free to buy any course they want...from anyone..

I'm just giving my advise or opinion...you can discard it take it...but if you want to make money the easy way there are steps to take first before you start dayttrading, swing trading or position trading. First is NOT to paper trade...but just look at a chart. Start paper trading after 6 months and by 1 year you should be ready to give it a go...if you can control your mind.

Keep your day job and look at a chart...ES, YM, ER..I would stick with ES and YM first. Do this for 6 months everyday make notes...DONT BUY ANY COURSES..

While doing this make predictions or guesses....swing high, swing low...weekly/monthly. There is the best info for a newbie...and free.

You will be amazed after 6 months of doing this ( well I'm guessing you will be over 1000 hours after 6 months of lkg at charts) what you find.

Concentrate on 1 or 2 mkts only doing this...YM and ES Corn & Wheat, Soyabeans & Soyameal...etc....you decide the pair..but make sure there is a positive correlation.

You slowly on your way...without any money lost or put up. Don't be in a hurry to make money....Be in a hurry not to lose any.

Pips2007,

I am not on paltalk b/c I have nothing to sell, most people who are mod's of rooms need to sell a system, pie in the sky to supplement there losses from trading.

From what I have heard sofar from lurking in Hunter;s room is that there is a reason why he cant prove that he trades 21 contracts and avg. $267 per contract a day, there was alot of mumbling on the trade enteries. eg. O was my mic on did anyone get the short I called, o its at the target,,,,lol..but he did say that do the voice room and doing his own trades has not been that hard...wow..I wonder if the guys on the arb desk at ML are on paltalk calling trades...lol ..Theres a reason why Hunter left this thread in a huf, its called burden of proof. Would you buy a business withour looking at the financials?

what happen to the paltalk logs and charts or did all of hunters people run from the results? This is too much.....I agree with you Jim....this gets tiring and oh so boring? What a pathetic way to try and start a business!!!!

One thing which I would do if I was interested in subscribing to a course that hunterone is selling is do a background check on him. (I'm not just referring to him but anybody selling a course.) There's a good topic on here about Tsunami Trading and the infamous Blade who took $400,000 (if I remember correctly) from about 80 punters and had the worst system I've ever heard of. To this day, nobody knows who he is or where to contact him. It was a very slick scam.

I checked who is and it came up with this info:

Domain Name.......... tradingmentor.net

  Creation Date........ 2006-11-06

  Registration Date.... 2006-11-06

  Expiry Date.......... 2008-11-06

  Organisation Name.... Alfred A Delfino

  Organisation Address. P O Box 99800

  Organisation Address. 

  Organisation Address. EmeryVille

  Organisation Address. 94662

  Organisation Address. CA

  Organisation Address. US

So I'm guessing that hunterone is Alfred Defino. Someone should confirm this with him in the room tomorrow and check the name against previous members of the CME and CBOT (which one was he a member of?) and against the CFTC web site.

This is simple due diligence that you should follow for any business and I'm not picking on hunterone here. I'm sure that hunterone would agree to these checks if he's on the up and up.

I consistently profit from futures/futures options, but it took me a long time to figure out the best way for me to do so.

While a set of trading rules is very important, I have found that it is just as, maybe even MORE important, to develop "trading callouses" from getting your butt handed to you repeatedly along the way.

Here's the thing: Any set of rules will only work until they don't. It is normal human psychology that there will come a time (again and again) where you deviate from the rules because A) you have had a string of losses, B) you have had a string of wins and now you have a loss and can't believe you're really supposed to "lose this one," C) you get greedy, D) you get scared for whatever reason, or E) any one of a thousand other things that will cause you to screw up.

I had ups and downs for many years until I thought I had it figured out and had a couple of years of really solid profits. I had my own private island picked out :) (not really, but I did have a condo in mind O/N an island). Then came the financial crisis of 2008 and I learned that while I had a generally good strategy, because times were good I had not developed an appropriate risk control system.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars later... (and that didn't take long at all!) I learned the hard way that my strategy was woefully inadequate when the unexpected happened. It took me a while to brush myself off, but eventually I did.

Since sometime in 2009 my cumulative returns are somewhere around 450%. Over the past 9 years I've found that proper risk control continues to be where I tend to fall short, so I've had some choppiness during this time. About two years ago I tightened things up some more to try to make for a smoother equity curve... this mean that, theoretically, my losing months should NOT be as large as in the past, but my winning months will also not be as large as they were in the past.

That's okay though -- even my cumulative success over the past 9-10 years, when averaged out by month, comes to < 2% a month. I suspect that 2% a month, long term, is about where I'll stay, but the ride should just be smoother along the way.

A return like that may or may not be enough for a particular person--it is for me--but keep in mind if you want to shoot for the stars there's a really good chance you're going to eventually crash land back on earth. It really does come down to being adequately capitalized and having a reasonable return be "enough" for you. By all means, trade even with a small account, because you need that experience to get to the point where you'll know what you're doing when you have the larger account. Just don't expect to turn a tiny account into a massive one along the way or you will probably be disappointed.

-PDG