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Should sim traders who pretend to trade cash be allowed on BMT?
@BigMike - if the concern is inexperienced traders following the "rock stars" with real money, then really isn't that in itself a very valuable lesson?
New traders would surely be aware of the importance of testing a method over a large sample base before committing real dollars. Ignore this (like most of us have) and so you learn the hard way - that's trading.
I would just suggest that in welcome email to new members that they receive a couple of general hints on how to best use the forum. This would include some reference to points made above.
Completely agree. I should have been more clear. The reason for my comment re learning comes from the mistakes was to highlight the journals who show little else but a constant stream of winners. That is not learning. That is ego.
Personally when I see a journal where circles are drawn around "trades" instead of showing fills, I am suspicious from the get go and have zero interest in following. Whether the trades are SIM or live is not important as long as the trader is being honest.
In the end a journal should be something you use to develop and progress your trading, not to recruit followers. If someone wants to teach their method, maybe a new category on the forum is needed. Somewhere for traders to show their trading styles executed perfectly for others to learn from,....instead of having them all under the journal category.
Part of @Big Mikes intention is to protect the beginner to save them time / money. But part of the learning curve is deciphering the BS. The only way you will become successful is crunching numbers and doing your own ground work. If your personality is to endlessly aimlessly follow someone who looks good without really getting deep into the numbers then you are doomed to failure anyway. You can't protect everyone.
The other aspect I believe important to @Big Mikes is the perception of the forum. If it has a number of popular BS posters who gather large followings of lemmings it subtracts from the image that he wants to portray. The forum isn't about ego's - its about exchanging ideas and learning.
To balance the above I'd like to see a mandatory requirement to mark all charts with Live - Sim (with fills) or Trade location (if is purely to identify trade locations after the fact). If it's later discovered they have lied they should be banned for dishonesty. 1 offense = banned. No warnings.
Having spent a fair amount of time in mfbreakouts journal I think it should be clear that @BigMike isn't targetting mfbreakout - He is very candid in what he is trading live / sim. I think what is more worrisome is people putting videos up with 10+ orders, and then getting instant fills for everything when it hits the target. I think that is the kind of post that Mike is concerned about. And if someone can't tell that isn't sim trading then they clearly do not have even rudimentary market experience.
Although I voted no i dont think people should be pretending for me I don't really mind too much if someone has a sim video showing 1 car or 100 cars. At the end of the day you realize trades are about tick expectancy and you can look past the BS to see if what a trader is doing can be worthwhile to add to your arsenal
I thought about this a little bit more overnight, actually my subconscious did the work while I was asleep
So a couple of suggestions that may help address some of the concerns being expressed:
1. @PandaWarrior made the suggestion of enabling the trade visualization feature in your trading / charting platform which shows at a minimum the little arrow and marker of where the trade was entered and exited. This directly solves two of the concerns, that being made-up out of thin air 20/20 hindsight "circling" of trades that were never actually taken (either Sim or Live). And it also solves the issue of leaving out losing trade attempts, as all executed orders will show up on the chart, the perfect trades along with the ugly trades will all be there.
2. Any posting that includes a chart showing trades (satisfying criteria 1 above) needs to have a disclaimer attached to the posting either at the top or the bottom of the post. Something along the lines of : "Any trade depicted in this post should be considered hypothetical in nature for the reader." The reason why it is hypothetical for the reader, even if the trades were taken in a live trading account using real money at risk, is because the chart depicts a unique market event which the reader did not participate in at the time. Any trade that happened in the past is hypothetical for the reader because all market events are unique at the time they occur. Also, my risk tolerance in a live trade is unique to my financial and psychological circumstances, meaning I may be able to withstand more risk in a trade (or series of trades) than another forum member reading my post, in which case my results of my live trading may not be within the financial or psychological capacity of the person reading the post. Therefore for that reader my live trading results are purely hypothetical as the individual would be unable to replicate my trades due to our differing risk tolerance.
If a post violates either of these two criteria, it can be flagged for moderation and the poster can receive a warning or a time-out from posting.
Creating a pool of expertise in the forum will involve bringing people along from a basic understanding through their development. I'm quite happy to have new people on the forum whether they're trading sim or not I don't mind so much. I personally see no point in them pretending to be cash traders in the first place, who are they looking to impress? I'm not sure. Looking at the trading technique its relatively quick to see which users are novices anyway. But its never a bad thing to see the different approaches people take whether that's in sim or live, whether novice or veteran.
A fantastic thing about the forum is that members aren't allowed to mention sums or brag, which I think is good enough to root out those who who are not serious about learning/knowledge sharing, for me that's good enough.
A bigger problem for me is vendor self promotion, and masks financial self promotion as education and knowledge sharing. I've seen cases where it is shameless! it should be completely banned as it wastes the time of serious traders, and can mis-educate those beginning in the industry.
Who in this world who do not want to be a rock star ? ... part of human nature, especially in this lonely (and very challenging/difficult) business.
And from my experience, 95% (most of the time) of this behavior is done AFTER the FACT (HOAX ... ) whether it's SIM or Real, so i fail to see a direct problem with newbie trader who want to copy their trades (no one can copy an after the fact "signal"). So, i'm more concerned with "after the fact" problems, rather than SIM/Real.
But, I position myself neutral in this issue because i knew whatever the outcome is, will be the best possible for all member.
So, for the "Rock Star" wannabe (myself-included-), please post your trades in timely manner/ REALTIME don't make any excuse (didn't have time, this or that problem, ... etc), remember transparency/accountability is the key, more transparent/accountable you're, more likely you'll get that rock(solid) star title.
And for newbie trader, remember there is 1001 ways to fool you. so, even though the "rock star" trader has already give/show you all the ultimate proof, still not a guarantee.
Platform: "I trade, therefore, I AM!"; Theme Song: "Atomic Dog!"
Trading: EMD, 6J, ZB
Posts: 796 since Oct 2009
as usual I am more cerebral than coloquial,
in the common mans language,
should a trader post on these open forums, that the world, literally the world (whether they're trader or not; whether they will ever contribute to the mind share or not; whether they are relevant to traders or not) that they had a +$200,000 USD day and here's the proof on the chart and the quantity of contracts and the time and the market traded?. Should same trader post that they had a -$83,246.37 day and here's the proof on the chart and the quantity of contracts and the time and the market traded?. I don't think so, as evidenced by the need for this thread. We know whom we're (all) talking about anyways...
after all, whom are we to demand that from others?, in that we hid behind monikers we choose, with avatars we select, and we participate on our own timeframes, when it suits us, and we respond to pm's and quotes when we have time if we want to?.
Wall Street long ago solved this equation by forming partnerships with legal entities and contracts and geographic physical location around the exchanges, whether in Boston (stock exchange), or the Pacific (stock exchanges in Los Angeles and San Francisco), or Chicago (CBOT, CME, etc.), or Kansas (City stock exchange, now defunct), or similar.
You are a Business Pro, maestro of project management, barron of the buildout, you need a permit to be this awesome, and you rent from National. (queue music)
Ban them or change the background color of their posts to yellow or some other distinguishing color. Trading is about making or losing money. Without that it is just a game.
I like this idea. In the journal section, the default wouild be Sim/Paper, but clicking a box could change to Cash.
The problem with this idea is that it would give a sense of legitimacy for those who choose to lie anyway.
A friend of mine thinks fraud should be legal becuase then people wouldn't get sucked into scams thinking "if this were illegal then it couldn't happen." Knowing that it is possible that someone will take your money makes you more defensive than relying on some "police force" to keep you out of harms way.
On my journal I have mostly paper/sim trades. But I have received personal messages asking about my broker when the title of the post is "Day 18 on Sim". Some people just don't read.
) whether it's SIM or Real, so i fail to see a direct problem with newbie trader who want to copy their trades (no one can copy an after the fact "signal"). So, i'm more concerned with "after the fact" problems, rather than SIM/Real.
), please post your trades in timely manner/ REALTIME don't make any excuse (didn't have time, this or that problem, ... etc), remember transparency/accountability is the key, more transparent/accountable you're, more likely you'll get that rock(solid) star title. 
