Creating a group of REAL professional traders?

[Mark Lapin]

That is not true. Noobies won't stick around if there is nothing to learn, specially if they are not even in the same ballpark. Also if the pros keep using pro language (optionguys I am thinking about) a newbie loses interest very fast.

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Another idea: One can use ET's private threads for chatting among multiple people. You only give permission to those, whom you want to invite....

Edit: I remember now, I used this site:

https://www.chatzy.com

The thing is there will be something for noobies to always learn. So your argument is flawed.

 

[direct]

I'd be up to join a Skype group. PM me for Skypename. If you intend a pissing competition though... I'm gone. As a retiree I probably would not fit YOUR definition of a 'successful' trader but I am happy with my trading and have positive expectancy. I run my own race in my own way but understand the desire to be involved with other traders. This is indeed a lonely profession.

Frank

Scratch that. I just read the rest of the thread. I WOULD be interested in a couple of 'trading buddies' if anybody is interested though. PM for Skypename to test the waters.

Alex, I think Skype or Slack would be perfect for something like this as well - its ubiquitous, easy to use, and their subscription services are not outrageous (Hell I would gladly foot the bill for something like this which would be FAR more beneficial than charging some stupid subscription).

So can I ask, what would you do to keep the riff raff out of this group? How would you vet "employees" if you will. Assuming you would want the highest quality of traders in the group, like any large firm would.

Track record? Resume? Let anyone join for a trial run? Etc.

// As a side note, I was a Digital Creative Director at a Software Development co. myself before being a full time trader. Funny how trading has seemed to attract tech people instead of finance people recently.

 

[mercurial]

Impressive results.
Also, it seems like much of your wins came from the last few days in April. Is this an anomaly?

As I said, those results were from the last period I traded actively (June/July 2014). I have done very little discretionary trading since then for a variety of personal reasons but plan to begin again in the next month if volatility picks up sufficiently. I didn't trade at all from mid 2015 to date. That just represents a good period I would like to emulate going forward. The truth is that it looks better than it was - the intraday risk on most days was obscene relative to the gains.

 

[Overnight]

After all, it would be fantastic to find a collection of real-time chat groups created by communities with dissimilar goals and ideas (a group of newbies, a group for HFT's, a group for sharing strategies, etc).

My aim is to simply create one of those. It is encouraging to see so much feedback through here, which is why I believe ET is fantastic place to bounce off ideas such as these.

Just think of it as a "guild". Like in MMOs and the like. ;-) It works to think of it that way.

 

[Gotcha]

As I said, those results were from the last period I traded actively (June/July 2014). I have done very little discretionary trading since then for a variety of personal reasons but plan to begin again in the next month if volatility picks up sufficiently. I didn't trade at all from mid 2015 to date. That just represents a good period I would like to emulate going forward. The truth is that it looks better than it was - the intraday risk on most days was obscene relative to the gains.

Yes, I had a feeling that this was cherry picked, so thanks for confirming. From what I read, many traders have also said that the markets have changed quite a bit from the time you actively traded last. Of course, depending on how a person trades, they may agree or disagree with this.

How do you mean that the risk was obscene compared to the relative gains? The only way I would understand this would be in terms of stops being much bigger than profit targets, and just being lucky that the target hit before the stop.

 

[Overnight]

...
If the OP manages to find a group of legit guys who are the real deal and who actually have meaningful discussions about trading, I'm jealous, and he has my respect.

Well, Gotcha, if he goes through with his idea, why not join the group? No need to be jealous of it.

 

[Gotcha]

Well, Gotcha, if he goes through with his idea, why not join the group? No need to be jealous of it.

I think in many ways its a pipe dream. I've gone down this road a few times and never stumbled across a group that I would saw was legit. Sometimes the reason was because there was no focus to the group, but often it was a case of the blind leading the blind.

The good thing is that these days, my radar is pretty spot on. Much of what I see is highly suspect. This could be because its obviously fake, deviously fake, full of cherry picking, or perhaps its also a trader who just wants to share briefly, with the drawback here being that you can't figure out any sense of consistency. (how many times has surf called a short now? is he gonna be right this top on his 1000 point drop? ) For the purposes of devoting any time and effort into group chat, its almost dangerous to be honest.

So in some ways, I highly doubt it, nor do I really need it, (because I know what I'm doing now), but I would love to get a window into the world of what other people are doing if there are indeed some legit traders still around who do converse.

I would put it like this. I would happily pay for a website that goes to the trouble to vet traders in some fashion and eliminate all this bullshit at ET makes for a less than enjoyable experience. I think you could take away 90% of the posts here and still not lose any important information. Its all about spending my time conversing with legit guys, be they profitable or not, but still honest, transparent, and with no hidden agenda.

 

[marketsurfer]

Doesn't Bloomberg already offer this service for "real" professional traders? Then there is this site-- i don't get the need for anything else.

The inherent problem, even with extreme accurate vetting, is that good fortune and luck is impossible to distinguish from skill and talent in this game. Not to mention the ever changing markets making one trick ponies succesful then not.

Unless the OP is a stealth vendor doing market research or "fishing"for clients

surf

 

[mercurial]

How do you mean that the risk was obscene compared to the relative gains?

Obscene risk: In my case was excessive position size and open drawdown relative to account size and eventually as you point out, smaller and smaller (per contract) wins relative to the potential risk of each trade. I started out risking 5% of the account per trade, then 10% of the account per trade and moved up to 30% on a few occasions where the likely best case was a 70% chance of a 10% gain.

Obscene because I could not afford the risk, I knew better and I knew I was just lucky with the way the win/loss distribution turned out.

 

[Gotcha]

Obscene risk: In my case was excessive position size and open drawdown relative to account size and eventually as you point out, smaller and smaller (per contract) wins relative to the potential risk of each trade. I started out risking 5% of the account per trade, then 10% of the account per trade and moved up to 30% on a few occasions where the likely best case was a 70% chance of a 10% gain.

Obscene because I could not afford the risk, I knew better and I knew I was just lucky with the way the win/loss distribution turned out.

Wow.. those are some crazy numbers. Even 5% of account per trade is fairly risky, but of course this depends on your stats. With something like a 50% win rate on a 1:2 risk to reward, this wouldn't be so bad, but certainly moving up to 30% risk to only gain 10% is crazy indeed.

I find the biggest problem for new guys, at least it was for me, is never letting the stats play out (ie. scared to take the next trade, and then missing that winner, or not capturing the full profit, but always taking the full stop)