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.

From what the website said and what I thought was said about the room, he and his partner are doing this together, and his partner is Fred, so I would think this registration is his partner (Alfred).

Good point Jim, it probably is.

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Originally posted by BruceM

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[i]

Maybe decision is the wrong word ... but let's say "gather information for a possible future use"

When I am sitting in on a trading room I am interested in finding out what their entries are and compare to my own system's signals. In this way I may gather some information which would helpo me with [i]my system ... not theirs.

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In the case of Hunter's room I can see that hey were often taking the opposite direction signal at about the time when I would be exiting my position hitting my final target.

Interesting to ponder how I could use the onformation if only to allow me to extend my target further than my existing point tyarget format.

Jim / Bruce / Voodoo1 - by the way, Fred is Hunter's trading partner.

quote:

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Originally posted by voodoo1



From what I have heard sofar from lurking in Hunter's room

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Talking about deception - I find it interesting that you did not log on to Hunter's Paltalk room using your VOODOO1 name

Bakrob99,

Obviously, you don't understand what undercover work is, lol...

yes Rob but then you are counting on someone else to try and extend your profit margin with their "live" calls.....this is a dependence you should stay away from unless you are learning the same analysis...I wouldn't want to count on anyones trades to make me more money....I'm in this game to be independent

quote:

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Originally posted by bakrob99

quote:

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Originally posted by BruceM

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[i]

Maybe decision is the wrong word ... but let's say "gather information for a possible future use"

When I am sitting in on a trading room I am interested in finding out what their entries are and compare to my own system's signals. In this way I may gather some information which would helpo me with [i]my system ... not theirs.

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In the case of Hunter's room I can see that hey were often taking the opposite direction signal at about the time when I would be exiting my position hitting my final target.

Interesting to ponder how I could use the onformation if only to allow me to extend my target further than my existing point tyarget format.

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Bakrob99

Why dont you post your trades in the room?

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Originally posted by voodoo1

Bakrob99

Why dont you post your trades in the room?

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I trade the YM and the room trades ES ... don't want to confuse them

Bruce - I agree with independance - but I'm not relying on their calls - only observing.

R

So, what sort of profitability/trading have we seen over the last 3 days in hunterone's room?

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