Your welcome Vajatin. Thanks for the mention. I should add an update. The optionsincomevideos offer an ok value for
the material. But today I would recommend newcomers to options to try out the "Liz & Jenny" show on tastytrade.com ( https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/LJ ) which is now free to watch with registration and their older shows are all archived and available. They are on every weekday during the lunch hour of the trading session and use ThinkOrSwim for all their trades and examples. They also have a teaching segment of their hour long show where they cycle through for beginners.
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Hi Guys...came across this old thread. Thought of sharing & pitching in....
Rooms:-
Capital3x (Good but they traded FX at that time more than ES, went into more of copier service...was there for a couple of months on for chat)
Emini addict (good, but it was just FIBs. FIBs w/o Harmonics is not my thing)
S5Trading (Good...but do not login...as rooms can be distracting )
Jigsaw Skype (Am there....during off trading....it's a blast)
Books:-
West of Wall Street - George Angell (Sweet)
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Great Read)
Studies in Tape Reading - Wyckoff (The Master)
Tape Reading & Market Analytics (A classic)
The Traders Edge - Grant Noble (kool)
Mindful Trading:- Mastering Your Emotions & The Inner Game (Brilliant Psyco stuff)
Market Wizards (Real Good)
Quants (Educational)
Training:-
OpenTrader (Have learnt many things from Ziad & Awais. Thnx Guys)
NoBstrading- Bought 2 videos on Tape Reading (John is great for an amazing insight into Tape Reading)
Forums:-
futures.io (formerly BMT) (great. found folks the best & most respectful of idea sharing. Thanks Big Mike for such an approachable forum & all other members/elite who are part of this amazing community)
Indicators/Sw i have running:-
Jigsaw (Pretty good...got me into the world of Tape reading & exploration of FP in the process. Pete is superb and is amazing at customer satisfaction)
Emini-Watch (Good...i always have a screen up with the 4500/1500/500 tick charts running. Barry has been pretty responsive)
Zunaa (My insight into the world of Volume. Good stuff. Thnx Ken)
Market Profile s/w (Jared B & English Bob....thnx to whom I have TPO & MP running on Tradestation)
ATAS - (Pretty good....got me inquisitive into the world of further DOM study & FPs. Yearly Subscription)
TradePoint Software (Pretty Good....thnx to Pat who introduced me to HUD which gives overall market context single snapshot & Net New Trades. 2 Year subscription)
thnx
som
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Optiontiger courses over 5k
Renko spectrum bar plus divergence indicator 400,bucks
Topdog trading plus his indicators over 1200 bucks.
Rancho dinero pro over 1400 bucks
Fin algo market profile
Jigsaw Dom and 9gdom
JPJtrading MP training
Profiletrades MP training
over 20 plus TA books
and Various trading DVDs
Well folks, this is my first post... a week ago I did not know this site existed... Am now an Elite Member.... Wish I joined when it was $25. So far, joining futures.io (formerly BMT) is my largest expense.
Have not made a trade so far.... Have traded Stocks, Forex and options (spreads)
Still trying to determine if any of these high dollar training programs are worth it... Leaning towards the "No"
Spending a lot of time here and watching PA youtubes.... Mostly "PATs Price Action Day Trading"
It amazes me how much we spend. This year I made it a mission to reduce my software costs. Still working on it.
This is a great thread.
Anyway...
1. I use realtimestockquote.com sometimes( Free).
2. Learnt a lot from investopedia.com too
3. eSignal(I get it free from Tradier)
4. Tradier.
over a year ago i took some time to share which trading products i have bought and for how much. back then i was still hopeful that the customizedtrading.com products i bought would deliver, thus my review was overly optimistic, i think an update would be warranted now and it could be valuable for those who are considering buying from them.
+ mark david johnson's - multiple time frame price action indicator - is useless. the only way to trade profitably is to get the trend of the day right from the very beginning. that, or to have a nimble indicator that reverses while the loss of your first trade is still small and can be recouped handily. customizedtrading.com's multiple time frame indicator often puts you into a wrong first trade and then doesn't reverse until too late when the trend you went against is actually now over. not only that, it draws with a lag of one bar, so you don't have a value for the bar that is being currently drawn, at the end of the day it might look very nice with all the bars drawn but for live trading it is useless.
+ i also bought their - fully automated multiple time frame price action strategy - and as it is provided it will wipe out your account. the supposedly "turn key" strategy is meant to be run on kase bars but the code doesn't execute correctly on kase bars; all entries and exits execute a bar late so getting even a small winner is actually a fluke. it also takes too many swings, on flat days when price is going nowhere it keeps going long at the high of the day and short at the low. all in all i spent $10,000 which i was expecting to recover in trading profits within months but that just won't happen.
there are magnificent free indicators that work great like the keltner channel and heikin ashi bars. as for automated strategies, i guess the best way to go would be to not buy any product that does not allow for a trial period. there are a lot of superb resources that are freely available on tradestation's channel, on youtube, in public trading forums like bmt, in tradestation's forums, if someone puts in the time to find valuable stuff, they definitely will.
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Just performing some research on Timothy Sykes, after some of my colleagues have heavily recommended him and are profitable trading his penny stock system.
I am curious how was his service? and why you think it was a waste of time? Also how long have you traded his system?
Hi Budfox, Glad to comment. I tried a trial for 60 days. This was maybe three to five years ago. It wasn't a good experience where we just had a few webinars. Also hard to even try out his short list suggestions. Maybe Sykes does know how to trade for himself, but his offer through WIA (wealthinsideralliance) was really a subpar program. Not to mention he was a really young guy with too much of a teen vibe and showing off his girlfriend having her heard in the webinar too while they were goofing off. I had to fight to get the refund to my CC sending them captures of all my sim trades showing them to be losers. (some WIA support email person) I know Sykes does other programs or whatever and is always controversial re: his supposed training of retail students in whatever program he comes up with next. There is far more info and threads about Sykes' current activities on elitetrader.com ; I decided to leave well enough alone and search elsewhere re: swing and stock trading.
If you want to learn how to do Internet marketing to the 20-something male demographic, learn from watching Sykes as Internet marketer. He's one of the best. He says he makes an order of magnitude more money off marketing than trading. The thing you learn from Sykes first and foremost is that to be a trader you can never be cynical enough.
If you nevertheless buy into his contrarian proposition that being a penny stock short seller is an area of trading where it's possible to get an edge, then you can learn a hell of a lot just by watching all of Sykes' free videos on Youtube. And then following his advice to use free resources on the Net such as Yahoo Finance. If you still can't get enough Sykes, then you can get all of his videos dirt cheap off Ebay.
As for pennyland itself, I admire Michael Goode, who is one of Tim's touted "millionaire students." Goode is the one who was at first a Sykes hater, then was convinced to come over to the dark side. He operates as a blogger with a site that does a lot of DD into SEC filings and other nitty gritty of the pennyland underbelly. Very worth drilling down. It's really fascinating stuff, and it's the true essence of being a short seller, all free. Goode Trades
That being said, I prefer to admire pennyland from a distance.
Marty Zweig's lousy newsletter. I don't think he bought that fancy Manhattan penthouse by trading his recommendations.
Louis Rukeyser's lousy newsletter. I thought the Wall$treet Week with Louis Rukeyser had to be good since it was so painfully boring. Thanks Lou for the PMC Sierra and Enron rec's !!! And the Intel Microsoft recs in October 2001
Essex Trading Software, which was a total waste.
Then there was this cheap program that magically called out support and resitence in t bonds. Total waste.
Bought tons of books from Windsor Publishing.
Subscribed to Investors Business Daily. Which was great if you only read the Monday's edition.
Optionetics Newsletter, they did ratio spreads. The spreads never made a dime!!
Lotus 123 Spreadsheet for programming the algorithms from the Windsor's Books. The spreadsheet knowledge came in handy for my job. I duplicated/rediscovered/invented RSI, %R, and stochastics all on my own.
Then there was the "Gartman Letter". Made some good calls, made some not.
And that guy that advertised late night, basically calendar trades, I copied his stuff from a co worker.
Welles Wilder's dull boring video and book on how phases of the moon affect commodity prices. Man, that guy can talk out of both sides of his mouth. "Phase with in a phase" "Skipped phase" "Inversion phase"...Biggest bunch of bullshit. His nondisclosure agreement is a service to the investing public.
From reading the responses here, now I don't feel that I missed all the great opportunities touted by these program vendors, and trading system vendors.
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Really liked Marc Faber's commentary for his contrarian style and funny side but not helpful to pick stocks. He get's it right but by the time he talks about it (monthly letter) often big move had already happened.
MoneyandMarkets - Larry Edelson was next - as I was and still to some extent gold bug. His flip flop eventually became too confusing to follow.
Next moved to Alexander Elder and liked his simplistic approach to trading and made me think about Technical.
Liked his colour coding and apparent easy entry/exit points. Lost 2k after getting impressed with his Divergence indicator and dreaming about holygrail. Indicator is fine but I was NOT thinking about context. I also tried his spiketrade.com which taught me about the importance of journaling but realised that stock trading wasn't for me and I was jumping from pillar to post and chasing hot stocks. Decided to focus on ES futures only.
Then got fascinated about Fib levels and tried Dynamic Trading but quickly realised that it's too complicated for me and got my refund back.
Then tried Barry Taylor from emini-watch.com. Great guy with lots of free videos and good explanation of his trade setups. Learnt for the first time about the importance of volume driving the price and Amateur vs Professional activity. Highly recommended but you can get similar indicators here in futures.io (formerly BMT) elite.
Then I had a look at Mack'sPrice action Manual which is probably worth the small amount of money but if you have the patience to go through this forum PAT thread, it's probably there for free. No consideration for volume though.
Eventually my Volume interest led me to Jigsaw trading tools a month ago and last week I added Rancho's Market Profile indicators (similar to free GOMI indicators here). Both are highly recommended for serious traders who wants to know why the market moves the way it does and I feel comfortable using them but still learning. I don't think I can ever take a set up again without volume & price flow analysis.
oh, I almost forgot.
BIGMIKETRADING - AWESOME AND PRICELESS
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I have bought a lot of books but those I really like
Price Action Trading: Mack, Brooks, Volmer, Scheier, One Way Formula for Trading by Dunnigan (Oldie but goodie), Joe Ross
Stock Strategy: Dreman, Tortoriello, Kirkpatrick, O'Shaughnessy, Israel, Antonacci, Willain, Jihaljevic
Systems Development: Murray Ruggiero, Kaufman
Technical Analysis: Tons of stuff
Systems I use
Tradestation, Stock Investor Pro (AAII), Sector Surfer, futures.io (formerly BMT) (great deal)
Brought trade miner and I am looking to develop a swing trading system using that tool
Subscribe to IBD
Profitable using Stock Strategies with Sector Surfer
Still working on crossing the threshold on emini daytrading but getting close. The simulator on tradestation is too easy and doesn't simulate the fill very well.
After reading through this post, I don't feel so bad! LoL
Lets see....
Yellow Brick Trading group $399
Octave System $500 yr
Slick Trade $90 a month I think
a facebook gurus strategy $100
5 Star Signals (can't remember price but it was monthly)
That's about it. Thank GOD!
I've blown a forex account of $1500 and a Binary option account of $800 also.
On the right track now with Supply and Demand and naked charts.
Also following major banks trades that match up with S&D zones.
Hightower! another newsletter that could talk out of both sides of their mouth, never make a conclusion.
NASS....it was the thing that reported on commercial, speculator, and small accounts open positions. Great theory, but I never could make heads or tails out of it!!
Moore Research, it was gave seasonal trades and seasonal spreads with all kinds of statistics which was generated by computer. "Their computer" and my manual looking up historical prices sometimes didn't agree. I think it was the best of a bad breed. Problem was that I always managed to choose the losing trades.
Fortucast.....it was a program offered by Lind Waldock that did calendar studies. E.g. suppose you wanted to look at buying Crude Oil June on November 13th, and selling on December 1st. It would give you the prices, and results for like 20 years. Problem was that the prices didn't always agree to other sources. I'e. multiple independent sources that did agree. Lind Waldock and the idiot at the end of Fortucast's phone didn't give a $%^&!!
This was an excellent omen for Lind Waldock's demise.
Yes, me too on the issue of trying to find a program that worked. Funny how many of those outfits sell their wares and yet do not really trade themselves. Definitely, Al Brooks is one who really trades. And Price Action does indeed work. Al's course is a good one; I review the modules often.
Customer service is a rare commodity with most of the 'marketeers' of various programs. My latest mistake has been Blood Hound. Here again, I wonder if any of their employees really trade successfully. I am not a programmer but was told, "Oh, this is easy to learn; you'll be programming soon. Listen to 'all' of our videos and in no time you'll be as successful as me . . . I paid off my son's student loans by trading the signals I programmed!!"
Beware again!!
bopwillie
The following user says Thank You to bopwillie for this post:
My first course on futures trading was with Trader’s Help Desk (THD), back when Gail held seminars in Florida and before she was doing much with volume indicators. Useful concepts; I still use some of the indicators and setups. Not sure, but I think I spent about $2500 on the seminar and indicators (plus travel expenses). TradeStation was her primary platform, but the indicators are available for NinjaTrader and MultiCharts too.
Shadow Traders – Spent about $1700 for the course and indicators, and still use some of them.
Weis Wave -- $500 for the indicator; it is a ‘must-have’ on my charts. I feel blind without it.
Ninjacators – I signed up for the free indicator-of-the-month; I also purchased a few others from them, but like the free ones just as well. The free Fibonacci Confluence and RSD (resistance/support) indicators are pretty useful.
Pro9Trader from Academy Day Trading – participated in a two-day free trial of the software last week. I really liked the clean chart and indicators so I cobbled together my own approximation and am looking forward to using it in demo next week. The software (NinjaTrader template with indicators and a strategy) costs $1997 if you decide to buy it.
Some of the books I have invested in (but not entirely read):
Explosive Stock Trading Strategies, Samir Elias
Forex Price Action Scalping, Bob Volman (good info on price action, much more accessible than Brooks)
Generate Thousands in Cash on Your Stocks Before Buying or Selling Them, Samir Elias
Hot Commodities, Jim Rogers
How I made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, Nicolas Darvas
How to Make the Stock Market Make Money for You, Ted Warren
How to Trade in Stocks, Jesse Livermore
Insider Buy Superstocks, Jesse Stine
Market Wizards, Jack Schwager
Micro-trend Trading for Daily Income, Thomas Carr Point and Figure Charting, Thomas Dorsey
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin LeFevre Tape Reading and Market Tactics, Humphrey Neill
The Compleat Day Trader, Jake Bernstein
Tools and Tactics for the Master Day Trader, Velez and Capra
Traders at Work, Bourquin and Mango
Trades About to Happen, David Weis
Trading Price Action Trends, Al Brooks (couldn’t get through it)
Last but certainly not least is my investment to become an Elite member of futures.io (BMT).
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Best book on investing ever. Well, best of a bad breed. Marty Zweig's book on technical analysis was good, but not as good as the Canslim book.
The most useful parts of the CANSLIM method are look for stocks with low p/e, debt to equity, good liquidity, and good market cap. And increasing year over year revenues and earnings. Seems pretty obvious, except to the talking heads on Smart Money, CNBC, CNN, Mad Money, Street Smart.....and all those financial mags.
Platforms : Multicharts Lifetime license
Amibroker
Motivewave lifetime
Jigsaw
Auction Dashboard
monthly lease TC2000
Yearly Lease Sierra Chart
Monthly Lease CTS T4 (free with feed basically)
Ninja free version (to run other stuff)
Worth noting that both platforms that I purchased outright (Motivewave and MC) sit unused for the most part and I use leased/free platforms for my trading. meh
You must learn the basics and fundamentals of trading before using these tools. If you have no experience, invest in some trading course like Tim Sykes or Investors Underground before trading live. These are not green light red light programs.
If you do research on the website owner, you'll find discrepancies. It appears this guy had issues with the law in the past and is disgruntled. The guy failed in his trading career and paid the price for breaking the law. He's most likely using an alias if you look at website records carefully.
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I found his research excellent, for example he exposed the broker who didn't even provide connectivity to the exchange only sim while clients thought its real and of course took their money.
Hi guys,
Confession time. Like sitting in the circle at AA. My name is D, and I am an addict.
I have actually been keeping an Excel spread sheet for the past couple years totaling my total 'cost' in trading. This post might possibly be better served in the 'Time to give up' thread.
thank you, i deleted my post after i realized the thread itself is about when to stop trading.
but i am happy now it lives on at least as a quote because it took quite some time to write :)
as for your initial post, yes, not sticking to the rules …
Anyways, here's a list of things I have spent money on directly related to trading:
1.) The Short Report from Stansberry Research (total scam, nothing but losing trades) $3,000 for 3 months and then I got all but $300 back. So total cost of $300
2.) ThinkSwim (not ThinkorSwim) indicator package $1,300, they are not even in business any more. I think there might be a reference on futures.io about them, but I never had any success with them.
3.) New Computer $1,100
4.)3- 24" monitors with stand and cables $560
5.) 4 years of upgraded internet (satellite because I live in the country) $3,850
6.) 'Trade with Mojo' trading room for two months $550
7.) 'Wolf on Wallstreet' Brandt Hackney trading service $750
8.) Matt Davio market profile trading service $550
9.) Evilspeculator.com subscriptions $250
10.) Thinkswim indicators trading room $300
11.) Ninjatrader lifetime license $895
12.) Mentorship with Ivan Krastins Profit From Patterns - $9,500 (yes you read that right)
Being this honest is brutal, but good for me. All totaled, comes to a little shy of 20k, and this does not include my trading losses, which over the same time comes to about 32k in losses, so I have finally hit the +$50,000 in this endeavor.
Yikes! putting it on paper is an eye opener!
-D
“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”
-Arthur Ashe
The following 9 users say Thank You to DropD for this post:
"...Confession time. Like sitting in the circle at AA. My name is D, and I am an addict...."
Never met a trading system I didn't want to buy. I recognize a lot of those. My poison is trading algorithms.
Right now Bill Williams' Alligator looks promising: two minute bars, healthy active alligator with a 5 period SMA cross over for the trigger. That awesome oscillator, bullish reversal candle sticks, and sleeping alligator and breaks a fractal are all bullshit. (Enter the Dojo)
"Looks promising", how many times have I felt that?
The following 3 users say Thank You to thailerdurden for this post:
Exactly. Investimonials.com was also created and started by Sykes. Mostly stuffed with plants that it doesn't make any statistical sense and where more people get suckered in droves by believing the "reviews". If that's what's referred to by seeking "other review sites" than Emmett's whose site, while not perfect is the best one at warning retailers from all the tricks of the dubious side of the industry. It's not as tightly filtered and moderated as here on futures.io, but if a poster is traced as a vendor email or ip, the id is highlighted as blue linked at least.
Was it any good? Looks like some kind of price action method?
The following user says Thank You to Cloudy for this post:
It's totally price and no indicators. It's like anything, it's all about consistency. He works with you one on one for a year or so, he'll teach you the setups and money/trade management concepts. It's up to you to build a system that works for you and fits into your lifestyle. My biggest downfall with the approach was trading through draw downs, which you will have with any system or method. I have definitely grown in the last couple years and I feel I am closer to becoming a professional. I know that he has had some students who have done incredibly well, and others who haven't been able to make the approach work and went on to something else. As for me, it's not really been a failure on anyone else but myself. He definitely does not sell a system or a package, simply just a method that you can apply to your own chosen markets and time frames.
“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”
-Arthur Ashe
The following user says Thank You to DropD for this post:
Nice brutal honesty! But to aid in further loss of money by buying books, systems, trading rooms ect..., ask yourself just one question-- Has any one at any time ever given the exact location to their hidden treasure??
“A teacher is never a giver of truth; he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself.”
Quote Bruce Lee
Quite applicable though. Discovery has been a part of each day that I have traded my own account. As there is not ONE way to trading success, I believe now I use a very blended approach to the markets I trade, recently adding currency pairs to futures. I say without reservation that Al Brooks and price action have been the foundations for my day-trading activities.
Best to all!!!
The following user says Thank You to bopwillie for this post:
so it's my turn,
1st.leadingtrader.com (waste of time)
a copy of the ttm squeeze called the pulse being sold for 300-400$ wich really made me mad after checking the indicator list in futures.io ....
do a review on a weekly basis where he talks about the next possible move by using a software of the elliot wave from the esignal...(that were he lost me)and there are often occasion where a new indicator is being released to buy and make "profit" and strangely i've seen some of them in the download section...just saying
2nd YTC trader and scalper course by Lance beggs (must read)
personally the best book you can buy it's based on price action and S/R levels,even if you don't trade or end up trading his set up,he talks about everything or almost everything you need to trade. money management,trading journal,building check up pre session routine,after session routine and review of the trade,
the psychology.
that's about it
The following 2 users say Thank You to moriarty for this post:
Sure have probably forgotten more but this goes back to early 2000s.
Lifetime MultiCharts Don't use but it was the LT $895 or $1000 and I use them for order entry although I trade ninja
Lifetime Fib Trade still use. $1495 and $29 a year still use. Use every day. #1 Purchase for me because I don't have to do the calcs for my system.
TickStrike Still use. I use it to read persistent trend to stay in trade. I filter out the low settings.
Scalper Software- I still use like some use other Indicators as a screen. Better than most, probably something on here similar but I bought it in 2004 and still use.
KC Keltner would still would use but not adapted to Ninja. It was the only non-price type indicator I ever had any luck with.
S09. $50 dollar indicator/still use. Sure free ones the same. Same as some pivot plus that mimic Fat Tails but I like the layout. I trade Camarilla Pivots so I like not having to entry and worry about Monday and certain other things that a Non-te
Murrey Math Pro. Still use. Most use too short of time frame- think.
TTT(taylor trading) use a few months was not that expensive. Just not my thing. Prefer Jackson Zone Proabilities.
DayTrading Bias membership been ok. Got in at ground floor. Ground work into seasonal trades outside of Eminis/Jay on the Market Etc..
Trial one of those bar/fat bar Market Profile for 1 month. Used 2 days as I was not smart enough.
Trading View Yearly. use everyday.
APEX free standard deviation if people spend time how to learn the pockets when to trade (Near option expiration weeks is my fave)
Not quite as reliable as Kevin Haggerty levels but come into play more often meaning more daily instead of weekly.
Naturus weekly report for some swing type setups.
Just as good as these:
Cory's indicator on here. And I also like ANA Heiken Ashi bars on the right setting. NVI and Pace of Tape if one spends some time with the screen.
2013-14 Penny stock era (cringe). This was the time I had so much enthusiasm and I naively thought trading was about knowing what price will do next. Trading without stops and getting frustrated when my hunches were wrong lol.
Platform licence for DAS trader
3 Months in Tim Sykes trading room
2 Months in Investors Live
Investors Live Textbook Trading DVD ($500 at the time, now $1000)
Reminisces of a stock operator
Ł3000 in a blown up account
2014-15 Spread Betting Forex era. Now I'm starting to learn. I understand trading is a game of probabilities, cutting losses quick and maximising profits gains but actually putting it into practice was impossible.
TC2000 charting software
Online Trading Academy Forex course (a whopping Ł9000)
Every popular trading book you can think of (Market Wizards series, Trend Following by Michael Coval, Van Tharps books etc. Probably cost me somewhere around Ł300 to Ł400). I must say these purchases I don't regret. I learn't at least one valuable thing from all of them.
Ł2500 in trading losses
Anyone here heard about market makers from indicator store? its an indicator that triggers an entry on your preset signals. let me know your thoughts before i spend $500
I purchased a fully-automated strategy from NanoScalper for $1,995. Their customer service is very helpful/responsive but the backtesting has been an issue. It acts as if there's a memory leak which I am told is a fatal flaw. I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with this algo!
Just for curiosity, I looked at the their hypothetical backtest results for CL over the entire year of 2016. They are showing a total of $59,690 of profit on one contract. I also noticed they did not show any commission or slippage. So totaling up the number of trades for the whole year it comes to 8,845 trades. If we use $3.44 commission on each trade, we should deduct $30,427 to account for the discount broker fees (e.g. NinjaBroker). Also with CL, there is going to be some slippage. Assuming a generous scenario (even with limit orders on one side), there would probably be at least one tick or two ticks lost on the target for each trade. I'll give the benefit of the doubt and call it 1.5 ticks per trade. It should be noted that if this is running 24 hours per day, the overnight slippage can end up with even more ticks against you. In any case, 1.5 ticks lost on each trade, would come to another $13,268. Combine these two amounts would be a deduction of about $43,695. So trading 24 hours per day in a perfect running system would be ($50,690-$43,695=)$6,995 on 8845 trades - or about $0.80 per trade.
Not sure if this is what you're experiencing, but I might take pause looking at these statistics.
With regards to the backtesting, if 1 minute bars are being tested as it seems to be, keep in mind that about 43,800 bars are loaded for each month, and 525,600 per year. That's a fair amount of OHLC data to be running a backtest. Not knowing the proprietary code of the company, only makes it more difficult to know for sure what's going on.
The vendor should have provided you with complete backtest statistics (Profit Factor, Win%, Sharpe Ratio, etc.). The vendor should have included commissions in these tests to show you. Not only that, the vendor should also have provided you with LIVE test results for at least 6 months. As we all system traders know that there is a huge difference between backtest and live results (mainly when including commissions).
As I'm sure the vendor didn't do that, and we all, in this forum have been around for a while, know that is very unlikely a vendor would sell a strategy with a Profit Factor of 2.5 or more (I wouldn't!). I've built systems with PF 2.5 or more that failed terribly to produce results Live. If the vendor was able to do that, which is a incredibly hard endeavor, why would he put the system for sale, when you (and all the other buyers) would be entering at the exact same tick and competing for the same fill? That may not be a problem on ES, but would be on several other instruments (and in some cases even on ES!). Also, even an algo needs constant optimization, improvements, settings tailoring, etc... I don't know how someone could sell a 'static algo' that would work in all markets and for a long time... I really wish life was that easy .
So, if I were you, and I hope the vendor gave you some type of money back guarantee, you should run to get your money back. Otherwise, I guess you can write off $2K as a lessons learned.
All the best.
PS: I understand we discussed some of the issues above in private, but I just don't want more people to get involved in these situations before they have complete proof that a system really performs as promised.
PS2: if you want to follow the system trading path, there are some good webinars here on f.io. Look for Kevin Davey webinars and few others.
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AL Brooks Videos and Book
Brian Hoffman Trading
James 16
NoBS Basic
PATS Tape Reading Mark
Emini Addict
Emini Mind
YourTradingCouch
LandShark Analytics
This is quite common, with advertised products/services, and surprisingly often it can make the difference between overall profit and overall loss, but one suspects a substantial proportion of the "target market" don't quite appreciate this.
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Big Mike, what a great forum you've supported now for many a year. In the last 15 years, the number for me is over 20k. In the last 12 months, I made one mistake for a Reddy-indicator that I no longer use. I paid only 100 bucks for it anyways. I use it no longer and like most indicators, it is slow.
Grey Feather
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Last money I spent was the $100 for Elite membership due to indicator access, when I first got into futures I was VERY VERY indicator bias and the big pot of indicators available here was a big draw for me. But it ended up being the best 100 spent so far.
Day 1 - Now
Penny stock system - $2500
MT4 robots/system's close to $500
Swing trading room/course - $500( well worth it still use this info to this day) FIO membership - $100
That's really the bulk of my trading program expenses not including all the books( buy used it's A LOT cheaper ).
-P
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As someone who is still in the beginning stages of this journey, I appreciate all the examples that people set here, especially the honest "not using any more". It is good to learn from others.
A follow-up question to all of you, if you do not learn from all those systems, seminars, etc., where from do you learn? What does your learning process look like?
Some of you have mentioned learning from this forum. There is so much posting going on here. How do you locate what is worthy of learning? What's your selection process look like?
There are a handful of people on this forum who are extremely helpful the majority of them have there name in red. I would focus on technique then try to immerse your self in all the info you can find about it.
There are lots of forums and websites that have great basic info but I've always wanted to see 2 sources for the same info as if there are any major different then I'd look in the difference.
I would also start grabbing all the books you can get you hands on... if you have problems with emotions read a few of those books. If your a volume guy get some volume books.
I don't think there is one source for all the info you will need unless you can get your hands on a prop shop course or something similar then this "might" have a great deal of info an save some time.
Like i said before i bought a great price action swing fx course and have used that for almost all the markets. I found that from searching an searching online then taking a free week of Info then ran with it.
If you gonna buy any course/trading system I'd ask for a free demo or make sure there is enough proof of it working so you won't get screwed over.
I think that the original question "How much money have you spent on trading related tools, indicators and systems in the last 12 months?" had more to do with get-rich-quick systems than with less-expensive (and not predatory) sources of real information.
No doubt there are books, webinars, even courses that are of value; the warning flag for me would be price and how much they promise. Too much of either (price or promised results) probably means they are not going to help you, and probably are scams. (It just takes some judgment and skepticism to tell.)
This forum is a good place to learn stuff, and the FIO webinars are a good information resource as a rule. You are going to get a bewildering range of different and sometimes opposite advice no matter where you look, so there is a limit to what you can get from any external source, once you have a few basic ideas down.
Getting your feet wet by actually trading, and getting feedback through a journal, if you would like to, are basically the best ways to go....
Bob.
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Edit: Also, read other people's journals and the comments/feedback they get. They have all the same problems that you do, and that we all do. Seeing how others deal with them is a very good way to improve.
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To add another important thing: you can use the recommendations here on the forum, as well as the warnings of other members of the bad ones.
Many of the major vendors have gotten their very own reviews in the reviews section. They haven't always had reason to be happy about it though....
As you read more posts, you will find the sources of information that are well thought-of, usually with a discussion of pros and cons that will let you see both sides and judge for yourself.
Bob.
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It's a fx based course . https://www.theforexguy.com/
He's up front about a lot of things and there's 20 chapters of info (I think)
He's also always making new tools for mt4/5 an the chat room use to be decent I haven't logged in , in close to two years so it could be slightly different.
It's very beginner based, honestly all the info is online but he does a good job putting it in one spot and he actually responds and helps a lot through the chat room and all the video he does. He's very up front about telling you he's not here to help you pick trades
I use to keep his course printed out next to my computer.
Calming, I can tell you have given much thought to what you have written. After all of the dust settled for me, one thing about trading stood as 'king of the hill'. That thing is "price action", pure and simple. Al Brooks would tell us "Pick up a chart twenty years ago and compare to movement today". That movement expresses human nature at work. Learning to read the way human nature moves the market to me at least is of paramount importance. And it works 'most' of the time. Still I question some of my entries and exits. You will do the same ten years from now. I encourage you to check out some of Al Brooks recordings. Do not let his monotone voice sway you from the truth of what he is trying to convey - price action is a key to trading.
Best wishes on your journey.
The Grey Feather
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These are over the course of my trading career (if I can call it that as I'm still developing). I don't plan on buying any more.
1. Tradestalker. I don't recall how much this was but I'm sure it was < $100.00. Pretty much worthless IMO.
2. YTC Price Action Trader. I bought this during a 50% off sale around Christmas several years ago. I was very impressed with the amount of material and the depth of the material. I think there's a lot of value there, especially at 50% off. Lance has always been good with email communication and answering questions too. I don't bother him much now but I know that if I did he'd still answer.
3. 2nd Sky Forex Course. This was either late 2017 or early 2018. I don't recall what I paid, maybe $200. It's good and bad. The course itself is pretty good and covers PA concepts in a way that YTC/Lance Beggs does not. All of the course material are videos and there's a forum where you can ask questions and get clarification. There is also a Trading Psychology course that I did not buy. I think the course itself is a good complement to the YTC stuff. Chris (who owns the stuff) makes fun of Lance indirectly which is very unprofessional. I got mixed vibes from Chris early on. He really controls the content on the forum, which is good as this keeps topics on point and questions geared toward the specific material he teaches. Chris also claims to be a Buddhist but some of his behaviors are not consistent with those values and beliefs. Late last year Chris was pushing some sort of program where you paid a lot of money to be hooked up to wires to measure your pulse and other stuff and he and some English guy would look at it. Then you could join his hedge fund or something if you did "well". I got really turned off by all of this as it seemed like a blatant money grab to me. Maybe I'm too sensitive or maybe I'm right. I do think the PA course is pretty good. If you're a sucker for used car type sales pitches maybe stay away because it seems like things have headed that direction.
4. I had started and stopped Adam H Grimes' course a few times over the years but I did actually do it from start to finish in 2018. Adam plugs his other services here and there but it's not over the top or anything. His course might be the best one I've gone through and it includes videos and coursework that you do on your own. And it costs no money, only the investment of your time. Considering it's free, this might be the best value out there. It really changed the way I see markets and price action. Anyone who is not consistently trading profitably should really go through this. It's definitely not a weekend course; if done right it will take months.
Hope this helps someone in the future :-)
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Kevin, my apologies for not seeing your question until now. I use it to identify weakness in price action. I've annotated and attached a chart to give you a better idea:
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Having viewed the website and u-tube videos, I'd also be very curious on any user feedback. Seems to be a very clear set of indies, especially the filters which keep you out of chop, but it seems a little bit too good to be true (i may be wrong). Wondering if vendor requires one to tweak the settings in NT, or if s/he uses the indies out of the box. If settings need to be tweaked then that goes into the land of curve-fitting or long periods of testing, for each instrument.
Barberman
Would you be interested in starting a new thread, around your testing of this software package? Prevents current thread being diverted from its original intent.
best
Siennna
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On FIO main page, click "Trading Reviews and Vendors", just below the chat box:
Then "New Thread""
Then just start it with a Title and a first post:
Ta-da!
Bob.
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Edit: a note on the name of the system: These guys apparently us "PATS" for their system, which makes sense based on the name. You should know that there is also a totally different trading site/system, based on Al Brooks-style price action, called "PATs" (Price Action Trading System, or something like that) by a guy named Mack, that is well-known and often commented on in FIO. So probably it would be best not to use the PATS name for the thread -- it would definitely confuse many who see it.
Good luck with your eval.
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That didn't take long. I was starting to get nervous about the too-perfect "trading" results at about the time Sam pulled the plug. If it looks too good, it is too good.
It's funny that this thread was meant to be a sort of confessional thread about all the bogus trading programs people have bought, and it looks like it just got spammed by one.
Massive l
At the risk of sounding naive and please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't agree with this part of your statement, as it seems that it can just discredit any system or approach in a blanket fashion "Why would someone sell their successful system/indicators if it is in fact profitable?"
Isn't there another set of factors: Personal psychology, consistency in entering and monitoring and exiting a trade....to mention just some major well known factors. So a vendor could offer an above average quality system (absolutely NO endorsement of this vendor here as I have not tried their stuff)...a vendor could offer a system that will make money if used consistently as intended, or intended at least in current market conditions. However as we all know, via the famous Turtle mythology, the rules can be made very clear and openly distributed, but only very few will be able to follow it and use it to make profits. (Sure, maybe the market conditions have changed....maybe....that would make the Turtle system less effective. I could not comment)
The one thing about this vendor that DOES worry me is the fact that at least one of two things are missing: 1) A free trial and/or 2) a series of live webinars where trades are taken in real time, on a live account.
As a work around of sorts, it would be interesting if Barberman was prepared to run a Journal, over some months, using this system with SIM and then Live.
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Did you see the question marks? He was asking a question, not making a statement. You’ve read into that way too much and you have injected your own emotional bias into the actual words and grammar. This is exactly how texts and emails get misconstrued.
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To make sure we are all up to date, Barberman has been banned and his posts have been deleted, as has the new thread he started. The reason, stated by @sam028, a FIO admin, in his notes where he deleted the posts, is "Advertising/self promotion."
The posts Barberman was making in the other thread were all amazingly profitable, and showed nearly 100% success rate. (Mostly screenshots of the P/L screen, just a couple of charts with trades.) I recall what I think was his last post, which showed $1,000 profit so far that day. This all made me extremely uncomfortable, because real trading by actual profitable traders is never this perfect.
About the time I saw that last post, Sam pulled the plug. He obviously thought Barberman was connected to the vendor and was plugging the system with bogus results, not trading it. Having seen a lot of such attempts in FIO over the years, I think I agree.
Which means that the system is likely not going to work out too well for traders who try it.
I am not in favor of cynicism, but I do think skepticism is generally warranted, which means that someone who makes claims has to prove it. Vendors that give a lot of info and who are above-board, and whose stuff works out when traders use it, do deserve the business they get, and they definitely do get it. There are a lot more that fall short, unfortunately.
This thread is basically a thread that reflects a great amount of skepticism toward programs/systems being sold to traders, and in fact the experiences that are recounted in it generally support that skepticism. It's important to be fair, but it's also important to know about all the junk that is out there, and about the amount of fakery that is routine in this market.
Bob.
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All I know is I've been trading for over 10 years, 4 full time and I can't imagine wasting so much time pumping out content/emails when the core of my business is actually trading. I also have some great one-of-kind indicators that I've designed and still use to this day. I've never sold any of them to anyone. I've given them away to less than 5 people over the 10 years I've been trading. I don't even care to waste time putting up a website, listing the indicators, shopping cart, etc. Why waste time and money on that when I trade markets to make money. That's what I'm good at. Other guys/girls are much better at pumping out content/emails about trading so they do a lot of that. That's great but they are not traders. They are content creators/bloggers.
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This is, in my opinion, the best way to look at and evaluate offers of trading systems. The question is, what is the motivation, if the system is such a good one?
I will just add these things:
1) Who knows, someone might enjoy trading plus selling their system. It doesn't seem like the obvious thing in terms of self-interest, though, but maybe they would. Power to them then. I connection with this, I would not likely believe someone who says they just "want to give back to the community," a line we see sometimes. Maybe, but that's stretching the motivation question a lot, when they want to give back but it will cost you to get it. I'm going to just assume self-interest in that case, not helping out.
2) There are people, right here on FIO, who have put in a lot of time and effort providing trading tools and a lot of other help and shared knowledge for free to "the community." But they aren't selling anything when they give back, they are really just contributing. The same goes for people who post their trades and explain what they are doing. A person may or may not have that motivation, but it's easy to see the difference. (There's no money.)
3) There also are a number of vendors (and book writers) who do sell stuff that has tested out well and is liked by its users. They of course charge for it, as they should. I don't know if they trade or not, nor if they are any good at it, but they obviously added things up and decided it was worth their while in a business sense to put time and attention into their product, which has to limit any time spent trading. I guess they figure they are better off selling plus trading (if they trade) or just selling. Power to them too. Of course, this means their system/course/book may be useful but it's not going to make you rich, or you couldn't buy it from them.
The way the motivation question works out makes it important to believe very, very little of what is pitched to you as a trader, because you do have to ask that question, "Why is this offer being made, if the product is going to make me so rich?" We also need to be aware of our natural desire to get the secret that will unlock this trading puzzle. This is what makes it possible for others to make some easy money by selling their stuff, whether it's any good or not.
So we hope to find the good stuff, but there is always going to be more out there that is worthless. It's a let the buyer beware situation. Take due care and don't let go of your money easily.
Bob.
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@bobwest great post and agree with you on fio members that have created amazing tools to help traders in their endeavor. I'm not skeptical of those guys. If I had their talent in programming and was able to create those types of products you bet I would have a website with said products for sale. They sell tools to help traders create a system...not selling the system itself. Basically everything else besides those types of products makes me cringe.
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