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Good to have you back in the game Mark, as a lurker on many of the sites you haunt, I always enjoyed your material. I would say this is inevitable right? Systematic trading means that it becomes more likely for someone to identify intent by reverse engineering the actions of said system...

Liquidity is a major problem once you hit a certain size, I haven't gotten there yet (not even close) but we know it is out there. Another major, major problem is taxes. It is a major issue for those of us who are U.S. citizens (or North Koreans, Cubans, or Belarussians). Look at what...

Of course this is all hypothetical, but I agree this individual is using too much leverage for my taste, and I can almost certainly assure you he/she is trading futures. The returns are plausible in futures and I bet the max drawdown is probably 50-80% for those types of returns. Nerves of...

The first thing I look at after statistical significance is % average profit. If it isn't really good, the system gets tossed into the archives. Of course the exact number will be up to the developer as to what constitutes "really good". This was one of the most valuable pieces of advice that...

That could very well be the annual return profile of a futures trader, even a trend follower perhaps. In fact I think I know one or two traders who have similar results although I don't believe quite as high in 2008 but definitely like 200%+ in 2008. I'm not commenting on the quality of the...

It was a good year, happy new year to all. Unleveraged Results: Return ~65% Max DD ~19%

Ah Cutten, I say this in an endearing manner, that you sir, like all clever scoundrels, have adapted to our new and ridiculous "American Capitalism" with ease. I don't mean to overcomplicate your strategy, but perhaps this would be a gentlemanly approach: 1. Deposit said funds in HoboCorp...

What is annoying is not whether or not you can get rich quickly daytrading (it happens a lot, and then they mostly go back to poor even faster). What is annoying is the everyday person who walks in off the street and thinks they can just come into our arena and blow us all out of the water...

If we are speaking of being a professional trader, then yes, it isn't fair, and access to capital is the main reason unless you are already independently financed. Other than that, unless you a choosing a strategy that requires massive infrastructure, I don't really see a one-sided argument...

Discipline is very, very important, but unfortunately not the only thing. As has been alluded, you need a working approach. Short term trading is full of randomness. The only thing that really works over the long haul on a universal level is to identify situations where someone is trying...

When oil hits $150/barrel again and (real) unemployment in the U.S. is still 15-20% you will see the "buck stop there" if you will. As long as there is no wage->price spiral, which seems quite unlikely in our current climate, you will have a damping effect from commodity inflation (particularly...

LME was one of the later hold-outs. Now LME Select has blown that out of the water. Frankly you're probably better off fighting the robots than the LME locals... I think what sums it up nicely is that, you know when the Cambodian Mercantile Exchange has an electronic trading platform, you're...

I wish there was a viable alternative, but there really isn't, is there? Would we be having this discussion if there was? Of course not! The U.S. Government wouldn't get away with a 1/10th of the nonsense they get away with if there were a viable alternative, and we would have never gotten to...

I see you trying to light a fire, but I don't think this will yield much controversy because there is a logical answer. Then again, I'm not sure logical answers have stopped controversy on ET before... At any rate, if you are not delta neutral, then the answer to your question must be fact...

You're so wrong it is almost not worth replying to this crazy assertion that currency pairs are a valid comparison of a countries wealth. Circle back to trading 101: Supply and Demand. Float (amount in circulation, of which there is A LOT of dollars/reserves) doesn't matter, supply and...

Don't get hung up on people's assumptions that you are trading off indicators (or arbitrary price points, i.e. pivots) given your ambiguous "x crosses y" trading logic. That's not a big deal. Get hung up on people wondering what the hell you are doing trading the ES short term with only a...

I think you have gotten some good hints on here. To summarize: Why trade ES on 30 min or less bars? I'm not saying it can't be done well (Buzzy comes to mind...), but gee you are really going for the gold medal with that choice. I certainly would not want to attempt it short of being in...

I have to agree with many here who initially commented on this thread. This is a disaster of a set of advice. Not only is it incomplete but it is sufficiently dangerous in a black-swan sort of way should it be heeded by someone still lost in the trading sea. If you sit back and think...

Absolutely. Even after 10,000 hours there is a lot of variation of quality of practitioners in other professions. Trading can be worse because it is one of the most competitive and dynamic endeavors I know of. There is always someone looking to knock you off. One thing you tend to learn if...

I would not use market orders at all. There is just too much risk in using them. If I had to use them, I would only want to use MOOs on NYSE routing. MOCs are bad (I should say worse, I've never met a good market order) because in many cases you are not even guaranteed execution by close (read...