Live Trade Video With Desk Cam And Commentary

CLICK HERE FOR HD VIDEO WITH AUDIO COMMENTARY AND LIVE DESK CAM

The new website should be ready later this weekend. I have a lot more to do with it but there is already quite a bit of good content.

I will continue doing posts here occasionally but will be focusing on frequent live videos and video blogging on the new site.

My goal is for reality trading. Good, bad, and ugly. I already have some pretty raw video in the tank from the past few weeks. Everything I do is being recorded.

I will supplement with detailed articles a few times a month on the site as opposed to daily blog post.

Here is an excellent video of a trade I had on Friday. It was a decent wholesale entry with the premise of looking for a squeeze.

I got the squeeze I was looking for then anticipated some follow through. In the video, I talk through exactly what I am seeing and thinking.

I start to get frustrated when the price stalls out and you can hear it in my voice. I was looking for a continued move up but my gut and experience was telling me to cover.

It is tough on the TF to hit moves greater then 20 or 30 ticks if they do not just explode. The ones that stall then blast off in your direction tend to shake you out at the last moment.

Then the ones you stubbornly hold repeatedly take back all the open equity. My best results come from letting the big moves happen naturally.

This makes for some frustrating 15-20 tick scalps off 50 tick moves. I did cover this trade for a scalp and it was the right thing to do.

All Of Today's Trades Video Edited To 3.5 Minutes In HD With Audio

CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S TRADES WITH AUDIO AND POP UP WALK THROUGH

I wanted to see how fast I could produce a video of the entire day's action. This is a beta test for some of the content that will be on the new site.

Good fight today after fumbling an order this morning in a bizarre turn of events. This kind of thing needs to be factored into your production expectations.

My reality trading concept has definitely had some good moments in the past couple days.

Trade Video With Late Day Donation And Pen Launch

CLICK HERE FOR HD LIVE TRADE VIDEO WITH COMMENTARY

I have been having profitable mornings and then giving some back in the afternoons for the past few sessions.

Something that I am certain about in my trading tactics is that the market is often very efficient and even though there are many good setups throughout the day, only a few provide a true inefficiency to exploit.

I have had longs close to the lows each morning and taken 10-20 tick scalps even though I had an expectation of a larger run. This is part of my high probability tactic.

Today I was bullish and hit the initial long. I premise for the market to move up but did not see anything else I had conviction on until very late in the day.

My trading style is one of conviction. I could either hit all setups and play ratios or hit select areas and expect to win. I have found that simply playing ratios offers little edge in my own trading and perform better by hitting singles and doubles with high probability scalps.

Today was an example of seeing a late day trade that is often a winner for me any other time of the day. I usually do not trade after 3:30 PM EST unless I am already carrying positions because the price is prone to late day covering.

Today, I thought there could be a late day squeeze and was wrong. So I made a late day donation that halfed my profits from earlier in the day.

Since my new site under development is focused on reality trading I am posting the executions that went up on the new site today. There is audio from my side of some commentary I was doing throughout the day.

It is a little rough and includes a nice pen throw at the end of the video after I got irritated by my late day donation after stating it could be problematic with late day covering. You do not get this kind of stuff in simulated chat rooms.

Progress Update On The New Site

I have finished coding most of my new site and am working on adding content. I am debating between releasing what I have done so far which is very functional and far beyond most of what I have found online or waiting until I get the site up to par with my original vision.

I have not completed the new layout for the blog yet. I may just continue using this blog for the time being. The site will have streaming videos of real trading, articles, analysis, and also track a live account that is specifically for the blog.

My goal is a place that will be brutally honest about the path to becoming a trader and show what real trading is like through various types of media.

It is a big project and will take time to get right. I will continue to post here until the new site is up.

Live Trade Video With Comments

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OCTOBER 13 2010 TF SCALP IN HD

There was an exact repeat of a nice algorithmic trapping pattern today. The first one I observed was yesterday.

I have uploaded a comparison above. It is the exact same action.

My trading style has 5 major components to it and the most important aspect of how I make a decision is based on the games played by the other traders trying to take my money.

This will over ride structure, direction, bias and premise. It has been the most consistent opportunity to exploit that I have found after thousands of hours of observation and drilling.

Many times, a trader will have an argument for going long or short at a key area. The action is designed to generate a retail loss often in either direction.

Making the same decision every time based on action that is constantly changing is very tough. I use a filtering mechanism (mentally) based on what I think others are doing.

I generally count on most traders making the wrong decision thus will look to take the other (wholesale) side of many scenarios.

The patterns illustrated above are created mathematically in my opinion by market making programs. It is basically sweeping action the naturally happens from these programs being run that results in traders getting whipsawed in both directions.

It is too much a coincidence to be naturally occurring. When I see this sort of thing, I know to stand aside and let others get stopped out. Then engage. This type of action is designed to draw traders in then push against them.

It is a very effective way to make money.

The shape of the pattern is irrelevant and not worth looking for again. This will change up as the action changes.

Even though the market does very similar things day in and day out, it will always unfold differently.

Part of what improved my trading dramatically over the past year has been understanding this and being able to detect traps that are often new patterns to me in advance of them unfolding.

This can be accomplished with proper training and drilling in the live markets.

I have also posted a video of a late day scalp with same commentary. It is a little rough in content and voice as it was at the end of a long trading day for me.

Still worth a view. The exit was the best part. There was not a huge profit but it was very well executed.

Observation On Exits

Here is a quick TF trade of mine from Friday. It says a lot about the importance of exiting.

October 8 2010 TF Trade 1 Click Here

I had the premise and direction exactly correct as has been demonstrated in many of the preps I have posted in the past.

However, I took the same trade as this one on Thursday and produced a losing outcome due to my exit.

I held the trade past the retail exit area Thursday and got pushed out. I exited at the retail exit area on Friday with a scalp profit only to have the price continue up 100 ticks past my profitable exit.

In both cases, for the trade to continue, it required retail traders to come in and make the price continue in my direction. They could not do it Thursday and I lost. They did do it Friday and I appeared to leave a ton on the table.

The fact is that both had a winning wholesale opportunity that could be exploited but I only took advantage of one of them. It was not my entry that caused the outcome, it was my exit.

As for an important observation from me in the past 6 months, my best and most consistent trading outcome has come on the days when my exits are well before the price gets close to the full expectation of movement I have premised.

The vast majority of traders I have encountered are searching for the right tool or strategy to help them identify the correct area and direction to ENTER a trade.

Many resources available to a trader, even those few that are actually worth looking at, are focused on identifying a price to open a position. If action "A" happens then do action "B".

This is often a procedure that is developed by the designer looking at things that have happened in the past and expecting them to repeat.

The problem is that the market is an ongoing auction that is constantly trying to discover a price that everybody can agree on.

Thus, any expectation of an exact repeat of what happened in the past is going to lead a trader into a completely random situation that will often result in their money being taken by the market regardless if they had the correct entry area or not.

Even if a trader is a master at finding the correct areas of support and resistance, the way that the price reacts to that area will be different in each individual situation.

It is true that areas of support and resistance tend to hold upon an initial test. However, the manner in which the price respects the zone will be different each time.

For example, it may come in shallow of your support price and quickly reverse without allowing you to enter based on your strategy today.

Tomorrow, the price may push through your support price just far enough to sell to you at your entry price and then force you to sell back to the other side at a lower price once your strategy says it is not worth the risk.

This outcome of missing your winners and hitting your losers is exactly what the market is designed to do to the retail trader.

A trader should not expect that a fixed strategy such as an entry price based on a pattern, a stop amount and a profit target can overcome the efficiency at which more sophisticated traders can take their money.

The same goes for indicators and oscillators. These are ways of smoothing out the action based on hindsight. Anybody who has attempted to trade a strategy using a live account with these types of tools should be familiar with this concept.

These types of tools work great in theory and in simulated accounts yet completely break down virtually 100% of the time once a trader attempts to execute live.

The reason for this is because the market unfolds in a different way each time. It does repeat similar patterns but this is useless to the intraday trader who is taught to manage risk tightly.

The price is going to go exactly where the stops are. Your risk management is what is often providing liquidity for the market to discover.

I do not understand why so many experience this then move on to the next gimmick or fixed strategy expecting to get a different outcome.

There is a period of time that a strategy based on previous action can work but is inevitable that this will be rendered ineffective once the price starts behaving differently.

The key to successfully navigating the price action and being able to consistently win day in and day out is to be able to interact with the other players property, not to interact with the price and bars displayed on your screen.

You must separate the two. The price and bars are simply the footprint of what is happening, not the occurrence itself. Any strategy based of the footprint itself will require a trader to maintain such a high level of absolute rigid repeatability that few will ever be able to execute properly.

However, this is the preferred method many newer traders are lead to believe is the correct way to trade. This is myth often promoted by others who can not trade themselves.

It is the exit the determines whether you succeed or not. Your entry and even the direction of your entry is completely irrelevant when it comes to trading profitably intraday.

That exit includes the way your exit your losing trades. I believe it is far more relevant to your outcome to exit failed premises properly as opposed to exiting a profitable trade properly.

A trade at any price and in any direction can almost always have a losing or a winning outcome depending on how you exit. Many traders exit a winning trade with a loss.

Intraday trading is about exploiting short term inefficiencies. In order to do this, a trader must have an understanding of what game is being played by others.

Do you the sophisticated players care where the support or resistance is or what an indicator is doing? All they care about is how to trap you. There is no fixed strategy that can beat this.

In fact, many strategies often put a trader on the retail (losing) side of the market in almost every situation. If something can be averaged out or isolated based on previous action, it is a retail entry.

This can not interpreted any other way.

Many traders have struggled in the past couple months as the action has gotten more difficult. The few that have continued to trade well have developed an understanding through experience of how the trader on the other side of their trade behaves.

The market is very efficient and offers little edge. While certain areas can be mathematically verified to have a massive static edge, once you introduce a stop into this equation, the edge is dynamic as the trade unfolds.

For those few who know what to look for, there are constant opportunities to exploit the price. This game can be won with the correct understanding of the trader on the other side and it comes down solely to which party forces the other one out.

99% of retail traders trying to make it are not even playing the right game.