Cover most 76.50 area and still hloding shorts. No longs for me till FLUSH down shows up. Picking longs within macro bearsih trend set up BAR is very high. CL can drop another 100 ticks in a NY minute and if she gets stuck in a box- get your scalps from long side and RUN. Serious buying or monetum is tough to hide, for example during Euro session this morning. Till then it's just guessing based upon 2 candles up and one down etc.

My new trading approach made simple.
Any instrument any time of the day

It's hard to believe but the way CL consolidated around 75.50 area and the way she closed- if it was not a weekend, i would have held some longs for a test of 78 and beyond.

it's good we have weekned on hand. Time to clean up the slate and start fresh on Monday.

Pick macro trend from weekly/daily chart. Intraday multiple time frame for execution.

CC found buyers at weekly balance area. Long 2807 and out 2835 .Flat. Will wait for price to come up more to short with high of weekly range as stop loss.

short 2874 area. stop loss above 2900 area.

KC gave a massive rip up to short but i was already short and down $4. Around 4%.

KC been getting roasted since hitting 197.50. Out some 193.60. She will attempts to make new highs, do back and forth till enough longs are lured in or shorts. Don't even think about trading KC, CC, PL etc with cute little stop loss unless you like to get hosed. Instead of worrying about whether 800 ticks chart or some renko bars etc. is best to use, may be it will help to spend some time on " Bayes Theorem".

Good morning,

Any idea why oil just exploded to the downside?

Good morning,

Any idea why oil just exploded to the downside?

Shorts and shorts in CL. This thing is going down- feels like it. We are never sure. We do not count.

In one of his webinars I heard Mark Fisher said that he would routinely go for a walk around the block after putting on a position ( if it was too much to handle etc.. ) I heard this 3 years ago and now i walk around when THIRD FORCE shows up in the market.

Without that there is no way to sit still and not mess up a trade. With prices moving at the SPEED OF LIGHT and a trader going by some target ( who is to say target area will get hit) i find it practically impossible to let the trade work if i just sit at my desk.

Cover most 74.40 area and still holding some shorts. CL will give plenty of time to decide if it makes sense to cover all the shorts. It will move back and forth. Question always is if she is she consoildating to get a bounce or next leg down. Without FLUSH down reversal i always assume NEXT leg down.

No need to rush out of shorts on a whim. She gave plenty of time to decide. Out flat 74.30. Please do not go down anymore without a bounce of 60-90 ticks, so that we can press shorts one more time.

NG has given massive trades over last 2 weeks but without any 1:1 or 1:3 risk rewards trades as far i can see. I am short from 4.27 area with ideal target around 4 area. My stop loss is above 4.60 area It should be above $5 area but 4.60 is all i can handle for this trade. I will not hold all of the cars till $4 area- it's just an area and NG does not have to go there before bouncing all the way to my entry etc.

I am risking more to make less? Weird math to say the least but it works for me. Staying away from noise becomes even more important when markets are slow. When market is active it's little bit easier to define risk in relation to reward.

Thank you CL. Re short Short 74.94. Looks like we will be in a BOX- 74 to 75.50 area till something new comes along. It does not looks like that 74 level will be broken today and if it ges broken with conviction- next leg down.

Short Silver from 16.67 area.

Covered shorts around 74.35 area. Tried longs around 74.25 area into close but no buyers showed up. Scratched and reshort. This has POTENTIAL to get real ugly. Shorting into the hole so relatively small position size and tight stop loss.
I am not sure if API report at 4.30 pm this evening will have impact on CL. CL seems to reacting to different news coming out of upcoming OPEC meeting on Thursday.

Will be looking for shorts in ZS, PL, KC,PA, NG, SI tomorrow and upcoming days. If we get lucky and get rapid fire up moves in any of these instruements it will be easier to short with defined risk. We ONLY need one A+ set up.

Without that it gets tricky and requires more patience and much wider stop loss.

1) short PL around 1224.40 area. Cover some. Will add to shorts if momentum to the down side picks up.

2) Short KC around 194 area.

3) Added to shorts in NG around 4.40.

4) Holding shorts in GC around 1199 area.

5) Holding shorts in SI arouound 16.68 area.

6) Holding shorts in CL around 74.22 area. Small position size.

NG,GC, SI scratch and flat. CL covered around 73.45 area and waiting for DOE report. KC covered around 192 flat.

1) short PL around 1224.40 area. Cover some. Will add to shorts if momentum to the down side picks up.

2) Short KC around 194 area.

3) Added to shorts in NG around 4.40.

4) Holding shorts in GC around 1199 area.

5) Holding shorts in SI arouound 16.68 area.

6) Holding shorts in CL around 74.22 area. Small position size.

Can not short at ORL and can not go long at ORH. CL is stuck within OR. Sitting on hands. Looks like next round of fireworks are not in the cards till OPEC is done with their meeting tomorrow.

If one can not go long at ORH area then next step is to see if shorts makes sense. Short 74.20 but turned out to be a 30 ticks scalp after 2 hours of song and dance. Holding a small short position to see if there is some more juice to the down side.

Also short NG. Wide stop loss. Everytime i tried to be cute with stop loss based off some indicator i downloaded from some wizard or had a special one - the one written exclusively for me- THE ONE- i got hosed. I just try to use stop loss where probabilty of getting stopped out is low. That's all one can do.

NOTE: $4 target for NG is not for today. It's the ideal target to hit at some point. We all know we do not get ideal targets or get ideal anything very seldom.

It was just matter of time. I was surprised when 73 did not break during NY session. Cover some around 72.80 on shorts from 73.70 area.

I will post articles, thoughts, notes, charts, pictures from other traders, coaches whom i respect and have myself
tested whatever idea, trading set up etc. i learned from these wonderful members of trading community.

I will encourage other members of futures.io (formerly BMT) community to post they feel like worth sharing.
To kick off- here is one from Brett Steenbarger " A Visit with World Class Trader".


I follow Brett Steenbarger. He has coached or observed 100's of traders at very high quality prop. firms.

Follwoing write up from him shows many things. One thing which stands out that
in a professional enviornment - making 20% a year return is EXCELLENT.

Traders trying to make a living while trading full time on 30K, 50Ketc, paying retail
comission , having restrictions like overall day wininng of 55% or more, profit target
of $9000 ( on 150k funded account) , max draw down of $4500, 10 day duration etc.
have no chance. As usual there are ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS.

This does not mean TST program does not have merits for traders to check what's
it's like before juming into trading full time. Traders doining combine 5 times, 7 times
and on and on- have no clue. It will make more sense if they do what Marc
Greenspoon does everyday. With technology available now, it's much easier and
cheaper to record ones trading day Vs keep throwing money at TST. I have to
admitt TST guys are good traders- they have set up a system where they have all
the upside and ZERO downside. Now that's an EXCELLENT trade.


" Marc Greenspoon: A Visit With A World-Class Trader" Brett posted this in his blog in 2007.

In past posts, I have tried to describe the qualities that I have observed among very successful traders. I've also attempted to outline specific steps that traders can take to make themselves more successful. In this post, let's make the discussion more concrete by taking you inside one of my visits with a trader I consider to be among the best in the world.

The name Marc Greenspoon won't be familiar to you unless you've read my book Enhancing Trader Performance. He doesn't speak at conference events or advertise himself as a guru. What he does do is trade every day of the week, average between 50 and 100 trades per day in the equity indexes, and make millions of dollars a year. Not just one year or two years, but year after year. He doesn't trade with a mechanical system, and he doesn't trade with quantitative research. Nor does he manage a portfolio. He trades with his mouse and his computer, accounting for several percent of the day's total volume all by himself.

I'm grateful to Marc for giving me permission to write this about him, because it illustrates the sheer level of skill needed to be a great trader. Imagine the commissions of trading so frequently, even given the lower commissions available to a trader at a firm that is an exchange member. Imagine how the slippage adds up over the course of, say, 80 trades in a day. Now realize that Marc's profits are after the costs of paying for his overhead at Kingstree Trading, his trading firm, after all the slippage, and after all the commissions. He would be a fine trader simply by trading that often and breaking even at the end of a year! To make millions of dollars a year, year after year, trading that frequently makes it transparently clear that markets are not random.

Marc called me on Friday and asked, "What are you doing today?" He wanted to set up a meeting. Friday didn't work, but Margie and I had plans to be in Chicago on Saturday, I told him; we could meet then while markets were closed. Sure enough, Marc was up early Saturday morning to greet us.

What did he want to meet about? He wanted to review his first quarter performance and set goals and take specific steps to improve during the second quarter. Not that his first quarter was bad. He made a significant amount of money, certainly in keeping with his past earnings.

But he knows he can do better.

That's one of Marc's defining features. He's not just an expert trader; he's a continually improving trader.

Marc studies himself as diligently as he studies markets. His daily journals, religiously kept, go back years in notebooks that are always at his side. Sometimes he illustrates a point for me by going back to an entry in last year's notebook. He knows the entries--and the markets--that well that he can jump back months and find exactly what he's looking for.

Similarly, Marc keeps a large TV monitor and recording device in his office. He records his trading day by capturing everything on his trading screen, and then he archives each day for reference. The screen shows how the market was trading at the time, where he placed his orders, and where he entered and exited trades. At times Marc will get excited and go back to one of the recordings to show me a specific moment in a specific day's trading. He knows the market so well--and his own trading--that he selects the right day and fast forwards to the right spot in the tape.

Quite simply, he's reviewed so many more of his performances than other traders that he's learned more than others. He is a one-man study in implicit learning. And it's all driven by his desire to improve.

Also by his side are small dictation devices. Marc records his thoughts about his trading and then plays the tapes for review. Many of the tapes focus on what he needs to do to make himself better. He never trades better than when he is thoroughly disgusted with his own performance. Listening to his first tape, my first thought goes to Coach Bob Knight--another professional who hates losing and is driven to win.

Indeed, there is similarity between Marc and Coach Knight. Both are aggressive competitors who wear their emotions on their sleeves. Both are generous to a fault and inspire both admiration and loyalty. And, yes, both can push the envelope too far in frustration and sheer determination. If non-emotionality were a necessary ingredient of trading success, Marc would have gone belly up long ago.

But Marc succeeds for two other reasons:

1) He knows that winning is guaranteed to no one. Look at it this way: let's conservatively say Marc trades 60 times per day with an average of 400 contracts per trade. That's 24,000 contracts per day. It's also about 6,000,000 contracts per year. Do the math: if he makes several million dollars in a year, his edge is far less than a single tick of profit per contract per trade. That razor thin edge, replicated many times, is what makes him a success. It is like the razor thin edge of a NASCAR champion, battling with his pit crew for every fraction of a second. All it takes is a small flip to turn that small positive expectancy into a small negative one and put a trader like Marc into severe drawdown. Marc knows that. That's why he calls me. That's why he keeps recordings and journals. He works as hard on himself as on his trading. Indeed, for Marc, those are one and the same.

2) He has the support of a superior organization. To use one of Marc's phrases, he has "balls" when he trades. But that is, in part, because he has a boss who has the brass ones. Chuck McElveen, also featured in my book, makes it a point to develop large, successful traders. If you don't have a goal of making a very solid six or seven figures a year, Kingstree isn't interested in you. (Of course, if you don't have a track record of success with smaller size, Kingstree isn't going to enable you to trade thousand lots in the ES contract. Indeed, you wouldn't even get hired.) But once a trader is successful at one level, Chuck encourages a raising of size. A trader like Marc can take risks because Chuck can take risks. As a firm owner, he understands that you only learn to take risks by taking risks. You only learn to trade large by growing your size.

Marc is living proof that you don't need a huge edge to be successful, but certain factors are necessary for success. You do need to have an edge; you need the consistency to replicate that edge; you need the drive to continually adapt to changing market conditions; and you need enough capital. I have never met a successful trader who makes money by doubling his or her money every year. The successful traders start with meaningful capital and earn a respectable, but reasonable return upon it. Their success is measured in their consistency, not in their ability to make occasional big scores. The small trader who tries to make millions is forced to take undue risk by trading imprudent size. When the inevitable strings of losing trades occur--as they do for the greats--the account cannot weather such drawdowns.

If you have the drive of a Marc Greenspoon to trade tick by tick every day, review markets in video, keep journals and audio recordings, and sustain a learning curve, just focus on sustaining profitability. Don't try to develop a mad edge. Instead, sustain the edge you have and then seek out those organizations that will bankroll your success. Marc is a constant reminder for me of what can be accomplished with determination and skill. For that I am both grateful and proud.

haha. The one day I don't trade, OIL drops $5. oh well.
Was instead with my GF at the Pandora Jewelry store buying EVERYTHING for her.
haha, so I know what you mean!