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I read Market Wizards over the last couple of weeks in June and it changed my outlook on trading. I've really learnt a lot from it and it's what I really needed. The whole book basically answered my original post which was nice.
Market Wizards will not teach you how to make money, it just for entertainment, you need trading skills. And you get that by proper training. You have to pay for proper training.
How do I know if it is proper training? I'm smart enough to know complete scams, but the guy I'm learning from now has a couple of terrible reviews, but his strategies are similar to that I've heard online, even on this website. He's not one of those millionaire overnight or 100% win rates type of guys, he seems like a person with a lot of integrity. Really emphasises the importance of staying small and disciplined, and given that I've only been in this world a couple of months it's hard to tell the difference between a snake and a lion.
On a seriouse note...if you want REAL advice - here it is:
1. Introduce yourself to Market Profile (you don't need to become an expert)
2. Introduce yourself to Order Flow (you DO need to become an expert)
3. Learn to understand what moves market (hint - this is NOT news)
4. Understand market context and apply your understanding to recognize repeatable setups in the Order Flow (based on the context).
5. CONTROL your losses.
It WILL take time and you WILL need a mentor. But this is the ONLY way to become consistently profitable trader.
How to know if a guy you learning from now is a complete scam?
1. Ask him to see if past 200 trades documentation.
2. Trading 100-200 of his setups with small size.
3. Start a new thread and ask more experienced traders if the guy is scam or not or get this forum opinion on what it is your are learning.
After about 50 to 100 trades, you will know if what he is teaching fits your personality or not.
I am in the same boat as you buddy, learning from Al Brooks. I take his setups and back/forward test them.
Post who you learning from man, let people here with years of experience save you time and money. Do not be secretive about what you are doing. Tell people exactly who you learning from and what you are doing. For example, I am learning from Al Brooks, and so far they guy is all over the damn place, but I am still working my way through the trading course.
I'm learning from an Australian guy called Ray Freeman, aka Iamadaytrader. He's taught everyone to stick to trend following strategies right at the beginning to get familiar with the markets and go from there.
He teaches a bunch of strategies both trend following and reversals, but his favourite is called the 34B. It's where you have 3 charts open at different time frames (short, medium, and long... Renko: 2:1, 4:2, and 8:4). Using an overlapping short and long term stochastic and looking for what looks like slingshots to increase trade probability.
You can only place a trade when there is a bullish/bearish trend (fanning out of EMA's) on 2 or 3 charts and you buy and sell when the price bounces off of the 34 EMA (Retracements/trend following) and you get 3 candles confirming the trade (Getting in on the 3rd, with a 4 candle stop loss).
He has shown backtests, but they could easily be manipulated. I've been using a sim account and it was going pretty well at first but over the past 2 weeks not so much. I could solve this problem by using more trade set-ups to smoothen out my equity curve, and I remember looking at something someone shared in this thread, the guy was talking about diversification of markets and set-ups.
Anyway, that's one. But this is my problem, should I be learning the other strategies if he's not legit.
In my opinion there is a sliding scale to scam severity. I think trading methods like Al Brooks or Mack's PAT are still on the scam spectrum, but towards the less severe side. The other side of the scale would be an upfront cost vendor that for $5000 will make trades for you.
The reason I consider Al Brooks and Mack to be a scam, or at least a method to avoid is because replicating success in their methods require a very high win rate, something that is near impossible. For example Mack's 2nd failed entry setups are advertised in one of his PDFs as a 9/10 times of success. For anyone that has actually attempted this trading method over several months knows that 9/10 is impossible to hit consistently. After several months, consecutive losers will leave the strategy breakeven at best, or a blown up account at worst.
For a method that is marketed as no bs, easy to follow, and increased chances of success, I'd wager that fewer than 1 out of 10 students make it work, probably not even 1 out of 100.
If only 1 out of 100 students in a college program were able to get a job, wouldn't the school be a scam?
I recommend you do exactly like Ray Freeman teach you to do and take your input out of the equation.
Let me tell you something. You paid Ray for a service, now do exactly what he is teaches and nothing different. This way you know if what he is teaching is working or not and you do not have skewed trade metrics. You need to be journaling your trades and getting screen shots per trade, and make sure Ray agree with trades you take or have issue with. DO NOT add your emotion to the trade or your own little this and that. Nope, do what Ray tell you to do for 100 trades and see if you calculate positive expectancy.
Also, losses will come, it called drawdown, just keep on going. Forget about the losses, who cares. Get you 100 to 200 trades, then you can see if what Ray is teaching you is scam or not.
The only way to know if someone is legit or not, is to track your trades over XXX amount of trades, but you have to be disciplined and follow Ray rules and methods, no bullshitting around missing trades, hesitating, not holding trades, little stop losses, and mistakes. Take each trade exactly how Ray tell you to. Mistakes will happen, but if a mistake trade turned to a winner trade, you need to document that winner.
You paid Ray, so he is the boss now, forget all this other bullshit. You have to do what Ray teach you until you see after 100 to 200 trades no money is made. THEN you can say "Well, I tried Ray methods, now I go somewhere else".
That is it. You have to follow Ray teachings now, and no messing around. You follow those trades, document them and ask questions. Stop worrying about the losses, keep going, you need data and stats right now to see if Ray is bullshitting or if what he teaches can make your profitable and you can grow as trader from that.
If you do not follow exactly what Ray tell you to do, do not go around the internet bad mouthing Ray when you losing money not doing what the man tell you to do.
So again, forget all this other bullshit, Ray is the boss now, you follow him.
