dow


es

12:51 PM 5/23/2017

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24-May
High 2400.25

9:10 AM 5/24/2017
H/L est
2403.50
2392.00
11.50

For those traders who have been successful what were their key characteristics both personally and approach?

Naturally we have to define this question before answering it. There are different levels of trading and success. There are those who have another source of income for day-to-day living - perhaps they have a house and career earn money and save 10% of their salary and build up their savings. They buy a few solid stocks at a market bottom, hold them to a market top and go to cash. Each few years they repeat and by the time they are 60 they have built up a considerable portfolio, say $3m in 2017 dollars and now 10% gives them $300,000 per year. Let's call them save and LT investors - group A.

It is (has been) quite possible to become financially independent with the group A approach. They needed to have:
1. a salary that was large enough that they could save
2. the discipline and vision of building capital to save
3. the discipline and patience to buy at bottoms and sell out at tops. (and or go short at tops)
Success for them was financial independence.

Another group are those who are (or were) in the industry. They built up knowledge while working and then took that knowledge and capital and started funds or hedge funds = group B. Group B required:
1. being in the business
2. seeing a way to start their own company
3. the ability to raise funds for their new firm
4. the ability to earn slightly above the average or be good salesmen.
Success for them was hundreds of millions or more.

Another group is the individual trading with little capital and trying to etither:
A. live on their capital
B. do trading part-time and have something else to pay the bills.
Let's call this group C.

Having given this question a good deal of thought I think to succeed in group C you need:
1. the ability to work very hard long hours with a belief that the work will ultimately pay-off
2. the ability to see/notice things that others don't. (Note1)
3. the ability to be innovative and creative
4. not be afraid to be different (to not conform)
5. the patience to try many things until you ultimately find something that works
6. the ability to recognize when something that was working for you has stopped, stop doing it and change
7. faith and courage
8. enormous persistence and discipline
9. the ability to continue despite huge setbacks and pick yourself up again and again and again
10. optimism, balance and positivity.
11. intelligence
12. good with numbers.
13. the ability to drive yourself

OR
enormous luck at the beginning and the ability to stop and switch modes.
OR
being a trading savant.

So if people of Group C ask:
"What do you think realistically the chances are of succeeding in trading?"
My answer is to refer them to the list of 13 qualities and characteristics and honestly appraise themselves against the list.

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Note 1. A thousand people will read the same book, hear the same talk or see the same thing in the markets and only one will be able to say - "This is important". It can be as little as one sentence. All the rest will rush by it. Why is this? I do not know. But I do know this is so. The famed alluvial diamonds of Botswana lay on a river bed for hundreds of years and only one of the many thousands noticed it. How can one expect do what others are doing, follow a well-trodden path and succeed in group C?

(You only need #1 and #11 to be a MD and make half a million a year with almost zero chance of failure.)

In 2016 for ES RTH ranges:
Count 249 TD
Sum of all days some positive ranges and some negative ranges = -64.50
Total of abs of ranges=4882.75 (sum of HOD or LOD as whichever is the greater on that day)
average per day 19.61

If you could capture 10 of 19.50 pts on average per day that is 50pts /week
(some days more some less but 50pts/contract by weekend)

Assume for the sake of simplicity that 50pts allows you to double your contracts

You start with $5,000 = 1 contract
Week 2 you have 2, week 3 you have 4, etc

How many contracts do you have in week 52?

At $5,000 each how many dollars is this?

If someone wants to be an engineer there are certain steps to follow.

If you ask and engineer,
"What do I need to read, study, know and do to become a successful engineer?"

They should be able to give you a solid answer that, if followed, will lead to you being a successful engineer and earning $130,000/yr.

When asked:
"What do I need to read, study, know and do to become a successful trader?"
a new factor is in the equation, compounding.

So what can they answer?
"Well I follow (brooks, price action, market profile, order flow,....) so you should too - read x on it."
Did they (the guru they follow) make money from trading? (not writing a book etc and investing that as group A.)

The only person (in group C) I know of who truly made great returns and even Gann had income - from being a broker and his courses and books - aside from trading that allowed him to overcome his initial mistakes and find his price-time relationships. Now Gann worked tremendously hard, tried innovate techniques, and read and studied ancient knowledge. He definitely was able to be unconventional. In the cover to one of his books - Gann is the only man I know that works as hard at Thomas Edison.


Due to the compounding of money and the phenomenon of funds even a slight increase in consistent performance (e.g. 11.5% versus 10%) will cause vast amounts of money to flow to that fund.








------Civil Engineer: Salary Details
Civil engineers earned a median salary of $82,220 in 2015, according to the BLS. The highest-paid 10 percent in the profession made $129,850, while the lowest-paid earned $52,900 in 2015. The most highly compensated positions are within the industries of oil and gas extraction, and the highest-paid positions are located in Midland, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; Santa Barbara, California.
75th Percentile $104,730
Median $82,220
25th Percentile $64,750
Civil Engineer Salary Information | US News Best Jobs

aquarian1 

In 2016 for ES RTH ranges: Count 249 TD Sum of all days some positive ranges and some negative ranges = -64.50 Total of abs of ranges=4882.75 (sum of HOD or LOD as whichever is the greater on that day) average per day 19.61 If you could capture 10 of 19.50 pts on average per day that is 50pts /week (some days more some less but 50pts/contract by weekend) Assume for the sake of simplicity that 50pts allows you to double your contracts You start with $5,000 = 1 contract Week 2 you have 2, week 3 you have 4, etc How many contracts do you have in week 52? At $5,000 each how many dollars is this?

Edit: I meant $2,500 not $5,000

IMO if you haven't bothered to warm up your calculator and do this simple question you should trade.

aquarian1 

IMO if you haven't bothered to warm up your calculator and do this simple question you should [b]not[/] trade.

sorry for the edits - I seem to not notice the typing errors

So what I meant to say was if $2,500 = the margin and you make enough to double your contracts each week.

The reason I feel do this calculation is you will find a number that creates a sense of cognitive dissonance. IT is this dissonance that separates money compounding from other fields.

As a side note I read yesterday that Amazon Jeff Boaz made $19Billion last year. I'm not sure of how many trees one could plant with that much money but if $2/tree seedling (that's I number I recall from tree planting conversations) and 1 tree per square meter, that would be 9500 square kilometers

(edit my math was wrong)

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North America: Area 24,709,000 km2 (9,540,000 sq mi)

South American: Area 17,840,000 km2 (6,890,000 sq mi)
Population 410,013,492 (2015, 5th)

Europe Area 10,180,000 km2 (3,930,000 sq mi)[n] (6th)
Population 742,452,000[n] (2013; 3rd)

Africa Area 30,370,000 km2 (11,730,000 sq mi),
Population 1.2 billion[1] (2016, 2nd)

Australia Area 7,692,024 km2

24.7+17.8+10.1+30.4=7.6 =90.6


Asia Area 44,579,000 km2 (17,212,000 sq mi)[1]
Population 4,164,252,000 (1st)[2]
Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 sq mi), about 30% of Earth's total land area
44.57/0.3=148.6
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The United Kingdom consists of a collection of islands which are located off the northwestern coast of Europe between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. Its total area of 244,820 square kilometers (94,525 square miles) is shared by 4 main territories. The largest is England, with an area of 130,373 square kilometers (50,337 square miles). To the west of England is Wales, with 20,767 square kilometers (8,018 square miles), and to England's north is Scotland, with an area of 78,775 square kilometers (30,415 square miles). Northern Ireland occupies 14,120 square kilometers (5,452 square miles) on the island of Ireland. England, Wales, and Scotland are collectively and commonly known as Great Britain. The United Kingdom also includes numerous small islands. These include the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Outer Hebrides, Skye, Mull, Arran, the Isle of Man, the Isles of Scilly, and the Channel Islands. From the southern coast of England to the north of Scotland is a distance of some 1,000 kilometers (622 miles) and the widest part of Great Britain is under 500 kilometers (311 miles). The total boundary length of 8,352 kilometers (5,190 miles) includes a coastline of 7,918 kilometers (4,920 miles) and a land boundary with the Irish Republic of 434 kilometers (270 miles). London is the capital and it is located in southeastern England. London has a population of some 7,000,000, including its suburbs. Birmingham is the United Kingdom's second-largest city, with 934,000 people.

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A measurement of area equal to one kilometer length by one kilometer width.
mi˛ =km˛ * 0.38610

95000000km˛= 3.667971e+7mi˛
36,679,710

At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2)[11] and with over 324 million people, the United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area,[fn 7] third-largest by land area, and the third-most populous.
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Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of its total land area.[2] With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population.[1]

The traders shared customer order-flow information, improperly triggered customer stop-loss orders , and engaged in practices such as spoofing, all meant to destabilize the price of silver ahead of the fix and result in forced selling or buying. It is also what has led on so many occasions to the infamous previous metals "slam", when out of nowhere billions in notional contracts emerge, usually with the intent to sell, to halt any upside moment in the precious metals/

source:
Deutsche Bank Trader Admits To Rigging Precious Metals Markets | Zero Hedge

and the dollars roll in