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Should sim traders who pretend to trade cash be allowed on BMT?
There is also no shame in having losing trades. A lot if not most of the best discretionary intraday traders in the world have win percentages around 50%.
Stop circling "trades". Show your fills. Disclose SIM vs Live. Learn from the mistakes and losses. Lose the ego.
If the post or chart says SIM, then there is no "pretend" or deception with respect to it being a Live (cash) trade verses a simulated trade.
The second issue is with charts showing trades with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Where a chart is presented showing trades that were never taken, SIM or Live. In this case the poster would need to somehow denote this is a signal they would have taken or they recognized after the fact but was a valid trade setup or signal, rather than denoting it as a trade taken when it wasn't. In my thread, we are pretty good at taking time to denote this distinction with a dashed circle or a different colored circle showing the trade setup, but not claiming it was a filled order/trade.
A third issue that has been raised here in this thread is the concept of showing 100% of trades taken: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly I guess the idea here is if your going to post a chart or write a thread posting with one trade on it, you should try to show all of the related trades or setups. The concept being full disclosure, no cherry picking winners. I think this is important for new traders following or trying to learn a new trading style or method being presented in a thread. Full disclosure helps set realistic expectations with respect to system performance, which may be one of the biggest issues / struggles new traders encounter, (The guru wins 80% + of the time and the new trader is lucky to win 50% using the same system).
I think most people here on futures.io (formerly BMT) are honest and simply need to be given clear instruction on how to properly denote these distinctions on their charts or in their postings related to trades they are presenting to the forum readers.
It's reasonable to ask people to make full disclosure of what they are showing. So they could be asked to say clearly whether they are sim or live. Or, if they are highlighting a trade that they identified in hindsight, or saw but didn't take, or are marking on the chart because they are learning a method or are asking for feedback, they should say so when they post it.
All those things are legitimate, if disclosed, but would not be if there is a deliberate impression given of a real trade that was not in fact taken.
The question is, how to enforce it? Initially, it would be a burden on the moderators to post the question where it's not disclosed, but it might also pay in the long run. Hopefully, it would soon become part of the culture on futures.io (formerly BMT) to just be up front about it, and other members might then take up the task.
But if it doesn't somehow become the general expectation that people will make disclosure, then they probably won't.
Perhaps a bulk email from @Big Mike asking all posters to be clear whether their posts are about sim, cash or hypothetical trades could start it off.
I assume most people wouldn't just lie if they were asked to actually say one way or the other....
Just my cent and a half.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
My point of view has been that if someone's journal helps you in solidifying your own trading plan or gaining a better understanding of the markets, I dont care if he trades sim or cash. I dont care if he took profits early or scratched a trade as long as he makes the setup clear repeatedly and consistently. I believe it is the author's job to write whatever he wants to (adhering to nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) rules) and it is my job as a reader to take away what I want from what I read.
So in response to:
I have benefited from @mfbreakout's journal and I still dont care if he trades sim or cash or if he says he took a trade he didnt or if he entered 10 ticks later or earlier. It does not bother me because he points out the same setups every time they occur and that is where the value lies for me. In fact, I have programmed most of his setups into my charts to reduce my "think and react" time. I have other issues that prevent me from seeing consistent success but that is besides the point.
My reasons for closing my journal were personal and I do not understand what you are implying by your comment. Please be clearer so I can respond accordingly.
However, I do agree that if someone pretends to have taken a trade that he did not for the purposes of showing off or making people believe something that isnt, even if it is in sim, then that is pure deception and should not be allowed. I would say, sim or cash, charts with executions plotted on them should be posted to support a trade if one claims to have taken it. It really does not matter to me if it was sim or cash. Although, if this becomes the norm, specifying sim or cash becomes really trivial. This will improve the overall quality of what is being posted here in these forums.
Interesting thread. As always, the devils in the details. How to you demand that all trades be published? Even if the poster agrees to post everything, whos to say they actually follow through. How do you police that?
Sim vs live: I think it makes no difference. Fact is, some can teach but not trade. We know this for a fact. If someone is a great teacher and lousy trader, so what? Let them teach, maybe someone with better trading skills can take what they teach and run with it.
I think the solution would be to just have a single rule: All posted charts must have fills on them. Ninja has a simple way to enable this and I think most other platforms do as well. Everyone can see and it doesn't matter live or sim. This makes it easy for the admin guys to police things. Either the chart has fills or it doesn't. This way you don't have to decide if its sim or cash. Either the person told the truth or they didn't.
I very rarely post charts with fills. I hate those little things on there cluttering up my charts but I am willing to abide by the rule if @Big Mike wants to have something like that if he's really interested in having transparency on this issue.
Personally, I don't really care if its sim or cash. I know the threads that Mike is talking about and to my way of thinking, if you don't trust the posters, don't read the threads. On the other hand, if the thread has some measure of value to some people, why censure it? Let it go, those that want to read it will and those that don't wont.
Another point is this, some people post screenshots of their fills with open trades showing. I do once in a great while. It seems reasonable to me to assume those are real trades either live or sim. In those circumstances, with a live trade showing on the chart or DOM, do we really care if its sim or cash? At the very least, the live trade screenshot is better than nothing.
In the long run, there's no way to enforce something like this without requiring every poster to post his or her live trading account statements at the end of the day. And that is something I think most people would rather not do.
This is a friendly forum about learning. Many people come here for the indicators and stay for the wealth of information contained in the various threads, webinars and journals. Lets not make it about who's live or sim.
My two cents worth.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
If now SIM traders who want to pretend they are real traders or real traders who want to show how good they are, let the kids play in the pool. Nobody will be hurt and all the real traders will quickly know what kind of kids they are.
A good trader any way will never follow or be much interested in such kinds of post. A good trader with self confidence, success and a constant plus in his account does his job in silent, enjoys his profit and will analyzes his losses, but he surely will not care about people he does not know and tell what ever.
Such nonsense people you will find all over the world in any forum and they all earlier or later will vanishing like any rats in any place when hunted down the right way.
So, the hunting season is opened. Good hunt.
Sir Mike, I am very clear about your absolute good/intention to keep this forum clear about such people, but how do you want to do this day by day? Great forums will regulate them selfs through the great members they have.
I do not want to pick on you but I just found your journal and if you look at it you can see that trading is not always winning. If you look at mfbreakout´s ´´journal´´, if you can call it a journal, you see that most of the members posting there are doing 100% winners.
I guess the idea here is if your going to post a chart or write a thread posting with one trade on it, you should try to show all of the related trades or setups. The concept being full disclosure, no cherry picking winners. I think this is important for new traders following or trying to learn a new trading style or method being presented in a thread. Full disclosure helps set realistic expectations with respect to system performance, which may be one of the biggest issues / struggles new traders encounter, (The guru wins 80% + of the time and the new trader is lucky to win 50% using the same system).
