Al brooks says breakouts provide the largest edge for a trader yet...

[failed_trad3r]

Some people deserve to lose their money. Robert Hoffman has been trading live with real money for years now. He sells this room for $100's a month. 100 people in room he makes 30.000 a month easy. It's not illegal. You can see his real P & L and position size, just not his account value.

REAL TIME

 

[Wulfrede]

Quote from ChkitOut:

lol, name one.

ok, good point.

one of als most preached setups is to buy a "high 2" at the moving average in a "bull" or sell a "low 2" at the moving average in a "bear"

so, i did backtest just that.

i defined bull and bear using strong breakout (series of large trend bars) as my definition, then i took a look at all the second entries at the moving average, i set a stop = to my target and guess what?

COIN FLIP! Results were 50/50! no joke!

so if that is one of his most talked about setups, then holy cow, the rest must also be totally random nonsense.

Good of you to put in the work in this. Problem is, you can't take a simple setup out of context. Low2/High2/Whatever2 doesn't offer any edge on its own. That simply can't be.

If you are trying to take a setup "as is" and hope it makes you money, you are really missing the point of what Al, or anyone else who is experienced, will tell you: Context, Context, Context. In fact, in one of his books Al tells you that there has to be several reasons to take a trade. In my experience, I would wholeheartedly agree.

And context is very hard to quantify and backtest.

/Wulfrede

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Wulfrede:

I would only add that the maturity and market experience of his students needs to be a factor.

I don't see why that should be the case. Unless Al says so. Does he says: please, only buy my videos and books after spending a few years wasting your money in the markets? I don't think so.

Basicly you are saying, Al is the college of trading, but one needs at least a high school degree in the markets first to understand Al. If true, every educational material from Al should come with a huge special disclaimer, "Only for advanced losers!"

THAT is a lots of baloney....

 

[ChkitOut]

Quote from Wulfrede:



And context is very hard to quantify and backtest.

/Wulfrede

yes, im fully aware of context, and therein lies the problem. impossible to quantify. so if its all totally subjective, then what good is it?

Al is really good at telling you why a trade may work and why it may fail. guess what? anyone can do that. that tells me nothing about when i should be placing trades.

he completely hedges everything he says. its one big giant coin flip. thats what this stuff is.

 

[R. Raskolnikov]

Nope, incorrect my friend. Neither of these friends was poor but neither came from wealth prior to trading. One guy is single; no spouse or kids. The other is married and has one kid (~8 years old).

I know different people than you, why is this so strange to you?

Quote from marketsurfer:

So you admit that these 100k plus at home retail traders were wealthy to begin with from a biz, good job, family, or spouse prior to making the consistent 100k per year.

surf

 

[Wulfrede]

Quote from Pekelo:

I don't see why that should be the case. Unless Al says so. Does he says: please, only buy my videos and books after spending a few years wasting your money in the markets? I don't think so.

Basicly you are saying, Al is the college of trading, but one needs at least a high school degree in the markets first to understand Al.

THAT is a lots of baloney....

My entire point is that Al's methods will be valuable to a trader. A trader with experience will click with Al's methods faster - mostly because Al is simply framing known market dynamics and pointing out how these dynamics function. While a novice struggles with that, an experienced trader will go "aha".

So, if you want to view this in your terms, I certainly wouldn't put Al's methods on a high school level.

Now, why do you say this is this baloney? Anyone can learn from the books if they are willing to put in the work. For some it will be harder than for others.

It's just that most will quit after the first 100 pages. I have to say this: trading isn't about some method. It's about work ethics. Humans pathetically tend to lack the latter.

And by the way, his three books are $140 all in. Hell, I spent more than that on a pair of college textbooks in my freshman year.

/Wulfrede

 

[ChkitOut]

Quote from Wulfrede:

trading isn't about some method. It's about work ethics. Humans pathetically tend to lack the latter.

disagree, you have no idea how much time i put into trying to understand his teachings. there are millions of people with really good work ethic. heck, there are professionals out there, engineers, doctors, lawyers, all of which you cannot become with bad work ethics, that failed miserably at trading im sure.

to me, its about being lucky enough to either have a good mentor or stumble upon good information, and not being had and lead astray by some guru that basically stunted your trading career.

 

[Wulfrede]

Quote from ChkitOut:

yes, im fully aware of context, and therein lies the problem. impossible to quantify. so if its all totally subjective, then what good is it?

Al is really good at telling you why a trade may work and why it may fail. guess what? anyone can do that. that tells me nothing about when i should be placing trades.

he completely hedges everything he says. its one big giant coin flip. thats what this stuff is.

So, you knew you had to respect context and yet you still tested Low2/High2 expecting a non-random result?

I think that if you are a private trader (meaning you don't work for a house) all of your trading is subjective. However, subjective decisions are still made using completely objective and readily quantifiable building blocks such as the existence/strength of a trend, the time of day, the preceding highs and lows, etc. All of these are simple formulas that play specific roles in assessing the risk and in the final decision to take the trade.

Knowing how to do *that* is the actual trading skill. And that is what you need to teach yourself. Al shows you one way to do it.

This is not to say that some trades can't be quantified and thus automated. For example, you can auto-trade a range quite successfully. However, identifying the right kind of a tradable range can be a subjective exercise that is underscored by knowing enough of the objective parts and applying one's considerable experience.

And, BTW, that very last point - experience - is the ultimate difference between a maker and a loser.

/Wulfrede

 

[gmst]

Quote from ChkitOut:

disagree, you have no idea how much time i put into trying to understand his teachings. there are millions of people with really good work ethic. heck, there are professionals out there, engineers, doctors, lawyers, all of which you cannot become with bad work ethics, that failed miserably at trading im sure.

to me, its about being lucky enough to either have a good mentor or stumble upon good information, and not being had and lead astray by some guru that basically stunted your trading career.

I listen carefully to what Wulfrede has to say.

However, it is certainly possible that you did not find value in Brooks books and after having devoted many months on that material are now feeling frustrated. This is my advice to you:

Take your 10k-20k account or whatever you have and if you want to trade only futures as you have traded them for years. and check out futures trading systems on collective2. There are some good systems on that site. Subscribe to 2-3 of them. Go to their grid and do a search for futures system.

I just did a search for all system using following criteria: PF > 1.6, Sharpe > 2, DD < 50, Age > 60, Number of trades > 50, Annual Compounded return >200.

It gives 8 results, some of them are FX. I would suggest check out a few of them and subscribe to them. These systems are definitely not the best systems out there, but at least there is some real track record associated with these systems, which trading gurus like Al Brooks etc. don't provide.

90-95% of systems on C2 suck, but 5-10% systems are actually fairly good. I think you just have to do careful research to find good systems.

Hope it helps.

 

[Pekelo]

Quote from Wulfrede:

Now, why do you say this is this baloney?

And by the way, his three books are $140 all in. Hell, I spent more than that on a pair of college textbooks in my freshman year.

I agree, his stuff is cheap. 25 hours of video for $250 is a bargain and there are lots of Youtube videos for free.

The reason I call your argument a baloney, because Al probably disagrees with you. None of the books start with a warning, that it is advanced material and only traders (preferably already profitable) with a few years experience should read it. That would mean you are right and it is the college of trading.

Of course that would limit the possible buyers. You are basicly defending an obfuscating and hard to understand material by saying, no, it is not the book, it is the reader...

I think it is the book.... Now personally I believe there is value in his books and videos, but holy fuck!, why does he need 25 hours and 3 books to explain it???

And I also think he (or any guru) should have some kind of test account running showing at least a fairly decent return. It doesn't even have to be real money, but it should be profitable. A system on C2 would be fine and would make wonderful PR for his material...

Of course we have to assume that the account results would be positive...