Links for beginners

-----------IMPORTANT LINKS FOR BEGINNERS: THIS CAN PROVE TO BE AN EFFORT TOWARDS CREATION OF A HANDY COMPILATION OF GOOD LINKS FOR BEGINNERS AND ALL ALIKE------------

Hello friends

Good morning.I am new to the forum and to trading too.

I have been looking around and finally ur forum looks interesting where u guys are really discussing every movement and I have noticed ur projections r also mostly proving correct.

It seems u guys have some proven system working good if I am not wrong.

I am impressed and like to follow u guys and learn from ur working, thinking, approach and action as it looks it suits my mind set too.

There r too many trading software and charting systems around, and I am confused to select one my self and do not want to fall prey to some thing wrong for which I humbly request for ur guidance and assistance.

I will appreciate if u can please share with me some links for trading platforms, charting services and for exploring knowledge to understand trading in general and be at par to understand ur discussions regarding the market activities.

Regarding my Introduction, I am an auto engineer just cut short from full time job to 20 hrs a week.
To compensate my lost earnings i want to take to day trading.

Every one says and I know it is risky but my gut feeling says money can be made here.
I may be wrong but I want to try it and seek ur help towards making my learning experience easy and direct to the point.

I hope u friends will be kind to my request.I know I am asking too much in my very first message, so pl excuse me.

Thanks

Hi perchya. I am just starting to paper trade too using Strategy Runner. Still learning some basics like EMA 3 & 9 crossover as well as the Slow Stochastic and MACD.

I am a computer integrator. I have a Dual Xeon with 24GB RAM, running VMWare Workstation with 4 guest OSes on board with Ubuntu as the host OS. The trading platform is on XP and sits there by itself. VMWare has recording functions. I record my trades and see where I went wrong. Also discovering the weakeness of EMA 3 & 9 crossover. On friday, I got whipsawed to death using this strategy.

Have a profitable trading week.

Ladies and gentlemen, (sorry in advance for the long post)
I felt compelled to write this post after reading perchya's post and seeing the very warm welcome and good advice he received. Like perchya I am new to trading but have been a silent observer for a few years now. (Always believed the best and only way to create wealth was real estate and have a couple of rental properties) Like perchya I want to narrow it down from 360* to 10-15* so it least I know I am heading in the right direction.

Until recently I was earning a pretty decent 6 figure income as a sales director in media sales... then the company went belly-up. Although dissapointed at being unemployed for the first time in my almost 20 yr career, I looked at it as an opporunity to do what I had been 'considering for a few years' but not forced to do because I was comfortable. Am I going to miss the fancy lunches, the expense account, the camradery, the friendships I have made? Sure, but the true friendships will continue. Am I going to miss the 1 hour commute each way on the 405 (according to some stats, the busiest freeway in the US); the working my nuts off thinking I'm doing a good job, only to be told I am not smoozy or brown-nosy enough; the not only doing a good job, but having to sell it up and down the ladder and LET everyone know what a great job you're doin; the getting smiles to your face and stabbing you in the back; the having to wipe other people's bottoms for them and then have your boss tell you you should have wiped it differently; talking to ex-colleagues and hearing of another couple thousand lay-offs and they are like a deer in headlights wondering when their turn will be???? Hell to nizzay!! Yes, I'm a little jaded by the whole experience but happy to be taking matters into my own hands. Happy at the idea of working for myself, where and when I want and only I & my family need to know I'm doing a good job. I am up and out of bed at 6am PST sharp, and my wife cannot believe how motivated I am. (Also looking for ward to taking a month off in 2 years to go see the World Cup and visit family in South Africa, and if I have this down pat, being able to work from there)

I should add that before the job loss, I had taken out $150k equity out of a real estate property with a view to taking advantage of the RE downturn. I figured as values fall I will get in further and wait for the turn-around. Probably not smart and now I am mortgaged up to the eyeballs with $1.1m in loans to around $1.1m in RE value. (take 7% off that in closing costs if I could sell everything today. Yep, not a great picture)

So over the last couple of months I have spent ENDLESS hours educating myself and yes checking out EVERY snake oil salesman under the sun. Being a student of Tony Robbins and the Landmark Forum, I try to sit though EVERY tedious presentation, reminding myself that if I learn even ONE thing it will be worth it. Unforunately I don't have all the time in the world for 'endless' learning. I basically gave everyone at the Traders World Online forum last week a chance to sell their wares. Here is a snipit of some of things I've looked at with my thoughts:

www.mtpredictor.com I like these guys. No hard sell, typically English. 30 day money back. Tony Beckwith seems like a geeky Cambridge grad, who is more pationate about his system than he is about selling it to you. I think I will give these guys a try unless I uncover anything horrific in the next while or get terrible feedback from any forum.

www.dtitrader.com (Don't like the hard sell. They're a little conservative (will only trade within certain times. I want to trade when there is a great opportunity) I also get impression of old fuddy duddy traders who want to do it as a hobby with accounts of $500-$2000. I am a vibrant, young 40 yr old guy, who wants to make this my career for the next 30 yrs and want to take it seriously with serious returns. To be fair to Tom Busby and his folks, I find them nothing but great people, with a room full of students who love the system, which says a lot, and unlike other 'educators' are happy to bring competing vendors in to give you a taste of a fuller all-round education... which is how I came across these next folks)

www.worldcupadvisor.com What can I say? I still can't believe I am doing this but.. here goes. A few weeks ago, DTI invited one of WCA's advisors, Michael Cook to do a presentation about WCA and their autotrade system.. you pay each advisor a $250-$300pm fee and whatever trade they enter into you automatically do too throught the broker, Robbins Trading. So I figured, I have this $150k just sitting there costing me 5% p.a. interest, at least put it to work, and with WCA's wonderful returns, turn that into a profit while I get educated. In 2 weeks my $100k account has declined to $97k. Don't get me wrong, the 3 advisors I'm following have made me money but that has been swallowed up by the $35/contract turnaround fee that Robbins Trading charges, and these guys are trading 6, 8, 10 contracts at a shot. So Rpbbins is doing very well. Me, not so much. I need to decide how long to keep that going and when to pull the plug. I could have paid that $3k for ANY education/indicator system and would at least have SOMETHING to show for it. As it is, I'm CURRENTLY down $3-4k and have learned nothing from them. (in fact I just tried to log in to get my most up-to-date balance and cannot log in. Concerned? Oy vey!)

www.tsunami-trader.com enought said. After all the negative press everywhere. To be fair, I think Larry, the Forex guy is good. I got a bad vibe from John G right at the outset when I would ask questions and he would be very dismissive and refer me to one of their 'numerous online videos'. Almost like "you should have viewed these first before even coming here and wasting my time *&**wit! I did ask John for emails to current students so I can get their take on the system and to my surprise he furnished those. Stand by and I'll let you know how that goes.

www.trainingfortraders.com underwhelmed

www.fibonacciqueen.com underwhelmed

www.tradersinternational.com enough said. 3 losing trades on the trot, bad reviews online. (I did break my rule and cut out of their sales pitch early)

www.championsriver.com System seems good, 70% win ratio, like the idea of the neurolinguistics, but decidededly underwhelmed by Reuben's presentation style and got a sour taste in my mouth when there was what i saw as a loss and he thought the stop wasn't hit yet or the stop was different, etc. I'm big on integrity!

www.infiniteyield.com for Forex. haven't really delved in so cannot say too much.

www.forexautomoney.com seems too good to be true

www.paintbarfactory.com seems like a good idea, but concerned that you don't know who/what they are.

www.pagetrader.com again, seems too good to be true.


So, my Tradestation forex/futures account is loaded with $25k, and just when I feel I've found a system to follow, I get the wind knocked out of me finding it's a scam or too good to be true!!
I feel like the kid who wants to look over my neigbor's shoulder to copy his work. I partly feel that as a linguist/sales guy by background, I'm going to get eaten alive, since I know very little about the theories etc. I feel I haven't put in the time and don't deserve to get any fastrack system and make money immediately as there are people out there that have been grafting for years and are only now making a living trading. On the other hand I think: 'why re-invent the wheel?'. You're no idiot, and this is just like learning another language. Don't feel guilty. If there is a short cut and ways to use technology to work smarter, not harder, then I'd be a fool NOT to persue it.

So that's my story friends. Any advice, direction, tips, pitfalls, narrowing down of systems etc would be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to making friends in the trading world.

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.. In 2 weeks my $100k account has declined to $97k. ..

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run.

back2thefuture welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story. There are a group of traders that meet everyday in a live echat and voice room. Go to the Online Trading Chat under the E-Mini Day Trading Forum here at MyPivots.

back2thefuture,
I have just started on this forum, even though I started trading in Nov 2007. I found your post very interesting, I should have done more research. I have not been successful this last year attempting to follow a strategy that now I don't think is very good. So I am attempting to figure a strategy on my own that works for me. I have been searching the internet and have found some pretty good suggestions that I am in the process of trying. If I can't get a successfull trading plan going in a few months more I will have to go back to work. Good luck and keep us posted.

Just in reply to the last post I read here...the best way to learn about what works and what doesn't in trading futures, stocks, etc., is to find out who the top performing professional traders are, and try to find out how they trade.

Years ago, I read Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards. Several traders stood out in to me in those books...Richard Dennis and The Turtles, Monroe Trout and William O'Neil. So, I set out to try and learn how they all traded. Obviously, the Turtle System is now well known, and so is the CANSLIM method espoused by O'Neil. Finding out how Trout traded was more difficult, but eventually I learned a little about his style and methodology.

Applying what I learned, I worked on developing what works for me, and came up with a trend following strategy and day trading strategy for stocks. Commodities are a bit more difficult since you are restricted to so few markets. In that regard, a mechanical trading system combined with some discretionary rules seems to be the best way to attack those markets.

Anyhow, beware of the conventional wisdom out there, and the use of the common indicators. None of them are any good. Most of the good CTA programs don't bother with them, but instead apply statistically based systems and pattern recognition.

Just my two cents!

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[i]
So that's my story friends. Any advice, direction, tips, pitfalls, narrowing down of systems etc would be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to making friends in the trading world.

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Hello,

imho...I would drop all the systems and indicators and watch the market watch the bars...are they making higher highs? or lower lows? Is the volume expanding in the breakout? Is the volume drying up in a pullback??? as long as you can watch in just pure price and volume do it. No book you read or course you take will make you money. Even if they teach you the "key" you can still lose your money because its not a natural system to you. Although I would keep reading and get understanding but don't expect it to turn you profitable. What helped me was having a large enough account and trading every day "with price only no indicators" for nine months. Which was probably more like a year and a half because I traded currencies every night after the big guys left the us markets (this was before I had kids....lol).

The key is TIME IN THE MARKET thats the secret.

back2thefuture,

One more thing...I went down the road of market profile and studying volume at key prices it helped things come together for me even better. Also w.d. ganns trend following trend charts and sq of nine work well with our strategy.