Chat Rooms - Trading oriented...

Is it an American thing ? rather like the snake oil vendors of times past. The vendors who are only too pleased to sell the magic potion to the aspiring trader who is too lazy to read and study the markets, too lazy or in too much of a hurry to listen to experienced traders.

greed and stupidity also play a part: easy prey for the snake oil vendors. "No need to exert yourself to seek out information. Don't papertrade, or trade in small amounts. Give us your money and one of us will become richer!"

It is common knowledge that experienced people are only too happy to share knowledge with someone willing to listen. It's ego. Have you never felt proud that someone sought you out for advice - and you gave it gratis?

There is a lot of advice on this site once you learn to pick out the trader willing to share, from the snake oil vendor after your dollar.

We have the equivelant of snake oil vendors in the UK but I have never found them in such concentrations as on American sites.

On a lighter note, the dialogues of some threads, where the snake oil vendor loiters, are far more entertaining than many soaps or game shows.

toby

UK
 
wwatson1 and Toby: Cider makes me puke... I prefer Fosters, and other Australian 'oils'... I gotta agree, this thread is resembling a snake pit.

On a serious note, if people spent more time on developing their trading mentality than debating the merits and demerits of various chat rooms, they would be using their time much more constructively.

By focusing on chat rooms, people are missing the whole point about successful trading.... successful trading is most certainly not about being in the 'right' chatroom or having a Holy Grail indicator... successful trading is simply about having the correct mentality to apply to ANY reasonable strategy... only with the correct trading mentality will a trader be able to trade with the trend, run profits and cut losses.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...42733/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/107-3990860-8970922

I urge you all to get the above book... don't take my word for it... read the reviews on Amazon.... Baron, I don't see an entry for the book in your Book Reviews section.
 
Originally posted by Brandonf
What ithe heck can you teach about level2? It used to be worthwhile for order routing, but I don't use that any more... If you can give me a good reason to look at it again maybe I will..but its hard for me think of one. B
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Brandon,

Obviously it depends on your trading style as L2 can still be valuable for order routing etc., with scalpers and the likes but you certainly raise a valid point. At one point in time we all heard of the "magic" of the L2 screen, how it would level the playing field and all that crap. However we know that is, and really never was, a valid point of view. Perhaps that is why I have all but abondoned it as any sort of business. I wonder what my mistake was? Let's see I wrote the course in the spring of 2000, hmm, oh yeah, maybe just maybe, in retrospect, I got caught in a bubble?!

Originally posted by Chartwiz212



He teaches a level 2 course...???? is he the same guy that works with Ken at his semianrs ?? Scott something ?? Maybe he jumped on me for a reason when I posted........but whatver...life goes on.........
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ChartWiz, Ken is a big boy and has been attacked before with no need (or request) for me to jump in. However this time I felt compelled to because your post, after all that you had been through getting flamed yourself, was hypocritical and immature and really rubbed me the wrong way. Truth is, I think your material is excellent and valuable- and my guess is that there are several here who would agree with me-but who would also agree that you showed poor judgement with your rambling ranting post against Ken.

BTW Ken and I co-marketed a one-time seminar after the expo in California leveraging our respective areas of interest, etc.
 
Originally posted by Chartwiz212



Hey..........the more the merrier I always say.....come one come all..........I just wonder how many will participate & will Don really use real $$ for trading ...........make the rules, setup the game & let us have some fun.............Chris
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We will be using real money, so please include your home addresses so I can come collect on the losers :)

I have room for about 3 more at this point, but I haven't checked todays email yet. I agree, let's make this fun, and please keep it simple...I will do my best with the spreadsheet of results. I have set up a seperate trading account for the trades.

Just a note: Try to get the picks to me at least 1 hour before the opening, so I can get the orders in.
 
Hi - I'd like to make sure this is on a level playing field, so can someone explain what the guidelines are?

I'd be happy to participate If we can get a standard procedure in place ... of course nobody shall actually make trades involving real capital based on my or other rooms' calls, this is for learning, using simulated trades.

Rather than just send emails to someone, (since I can't verify other entries etc), can we just make them public here, each morning? What I will do is post my premkt alert list here for the week of Jan 7-11 each market day by 9am EST, along with trailing stop and other strategy notes.

How's that sound? other ideas? thx..

ken
 
I suggest that this challenge needn't be restricted to chat rooms but to any trader who is inclined to participate... its not as if a chat room has a monopoly on the ability to generate profitable trading calls.... to me, this thread seems like nothing more than free publicity for chat rooms... chat rooms should go up against any trader who wishes to challenge them.... then the real "value" of chat rooms will come through.

It just amazes me how all the chat rooms are vying for new clients... I never will pay for one, but if a newbie is inclined to go for a chatroom for his learning curve, my personal recommendation would be to spend some time with Vadym on Realitytrader.com for a good education in intraday trading. Vadym's free material on his site and on SI is very impressive and well thought out.
 
candletrader,

I thought it was open to anyone. Anyway, I still predict that the vendors will wimp out. The one thing they don't want is a P and L done by someone else with their name on it. Can't say I blame them.

Ken, I don't think Don wants your alert list, he wants actual trades that a real trader can enter. If you post your list with long and short numbers, that does not seem to me to reflect your room calls, as you seem to add a lot fo discretion to the numbers. Do what you want, but don't come back here and say it was not accurate because you did something different in the room.

Don,

I think Ken does have a point. The calls should be somewhere we can all see them pre-market. Better for competitors, better for you.
 
Let me see .... hmmmm....

Chatrooms provide real-time calls and not newsletter type of calls. How is their performance on a "newsletter" basis (trades selected before the open) would reflect the performance of the calls they make in their chat-room in real-time???


Now, if you had a contest for stock-picking newsletter services, then you could track performance, but this is not the case. Anyhow, the arguments will live on as far as the liquidity question goes. I mean, sure you could have made that trade with 100 shares or maybe even 1000. But, could 200 members who follow you have the exact same entry and exit going for 1000 shares each .... I don't think so!

I speak from Experience. I participated in FIVE stock picking contests that lasted 4-weeks, each. There were 2300 participants. All trades were executed at the closing bell. All open positions had to be held overnight. No intraday trading and no stops. Minimum price $5.00 and no more than 33% of equity in one stock. Shorting was permitted and 2 to 1 leverage could be used.

Out of the Five times I participated in the contest, I won the contest 3 times. I came in third once, and I came in fifth once.

The percentage returns were:

January 1998 +49% (1st place)
February 1998 +68 % (1st Place)
March 1998 +28% (5th place)
April 1998 +107% (1st place)
May 1998 +39% (3rd place)

The compounded 20-week returns was +822%.

Given the above numbers, does it mean that I can run an intraday-trading chatroom? Absolutely not!!!

In the contest, all trades were held overnight. There were no stop loss orders, and there was always liquidity at the closing price ... (all trades were executed at that price).

I learned a lot from those contests. I had a proven track record for my scans, and I optimized my swing trading strategies with the use of stops.

But, when things tick in real-time and there is real money on the line, the decision process is very different. Add to that the 200-500 paying members and the need to find VERY liquid stocks ... well you see where I'm going with this!

Good luck with this challenge, but I don't see what it is going to prove.

Happy New Year!

Tony
 
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