Have you used dbphoenix's teachings to become a successful trader?
- Thread starter FeetFirst
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Then I guess there aren't any.
On the other hand, if you understand the law of supply and demand and you can tell the difference between up and down, you're good to go. You don't need me at all.
Dude, he lives alone in an apartment in New Mexico and is on the internet almost all the time - specifically this website. That alone should tell you volumes.
The problem with this discussion, and with the sentiment I think is implied in your statement, is that it is somehow DbPhoenix's responsibility if the person fails. This is not how life works. It is the effort, and moreover the quality rather than the quantity of the effort put forth by the student. Recently, NoDoji noted this in another thread here a ET:
Here is a story from just this week, but first the backstory:
When I started in trading, I found DbPhoenix over at TL. His approach and the Wyckoff materials were a good fit for me. At that time, a few of us newbies found each other and started a sort of e-mail support group. There were five us. Two of us are still trading. The other three each, one at a time, dropped themselves out of the email loop by simply "disappearing," one by one each simply stopped participating. Given how things were going for each of them, I can only assume that they are no longer trading.
My first successes were in trading stocks, focusing on stocks gapping open, and trading opening range breaks and hinges. SLA/AMT is the approach I used to learn to trade the NQ. My fellow newbie from TL also tried the "price action only" approach, but for whatever reason, though he seemed to see things correctly, he did not feel comfortable trading based on what he was seeing. He felt that he needed something to confirm what he was seeing, and so he started looking into indicators.
He came across what seemed to be a long-abandoned website of a trader called Nqoos. On this website were a whole bunch of set up, most using indicators. My TL buddy was browsing through these and he found one in particular where the set up looked very much like what he was trying to trade (his desired trading plan centered on with-trend pullbacks/reactions). He spent some time watching his chosen market using this set up.
Over the first few days and weeks, based on his observations, he changed the bar interval, moving average setting, and the oscillator. He came up with a trading plan based on his version of this set up that he had found for free on the web. He came up with specific rules for entry, stop, profit target. It is completely mechanical. He doesn't even watch his charts - his trading platform has alerts that sound off whenever one of two or three indicator/price conditions is present. Then he starts to watch, enter orders, etc. Once he is in the market, he uses a 2 point reward to 1 point risk. He doesn't have to move stops, etc. Each trade is either a 2X profit or a 1X loss. Very mechanical. It is his only set up. As it is a larger bar interval than most here seem to use to day trade, he at times has a day or two go by without an appearance. On a strong trend day, he might get three or more if he stands by all day. Most days he gets only one, sometimes two opportunities. But it is a consistently profitable set up when traded per his rules.
And here is the story: So my buddy shows a friend of his the set up. He gives his "student" the exact rules, the indicator settings, the bar interval, the instructions for setting entry, stop, profit target, and so on. My buddy's "student" traded for the first time on Friday. On Friday, my buddy's system produced two signals, both profitable, and yielded over $600/contract profit. His student, using the "same" system, rules, etc. finished with a loss of over $125/contract without counting commissions. Why? Because my buddy's student "anticipated" two additional signals that never became signals, resulting in two larger than normal full stops, and he then took the first legitimate signal, but moved his stop to "lock in some profit" when price got to within one tick of the profit target and reversed (stopping him out for a reduced profit before resuming favorably and reaching the original target). He then took the second legitimate signal which quickly went to target, so it didn't give him a chance to screw it up.
The point of the above should really make clear where the responsibity for success or failure ought to be placed. It would be no more right to give NQoos the credit for my buddy's success than it would be to have him shoulder the blame for the other "trader's" failure to follow the set up. Likewise, while I owe much to DbPhoenix, what success I have is the result of my own effort, and only my mistakes (and I do make them - several times a week) are all DbPhoenix's fault.
I have yet to see a thread here (or a post, for that matter) where someone says, "I traded all appearances of NoDoji's 1-min trend continuation setup she illustrated in her 'Why Profitable Trading Is So Difficult' thread during RTH for a month with my stop loss just outside the signal bar L/H and a profit target equal to the stop loss and I lost money!" and shows the trade logs/charts to prove how my strategy is a losing one.
Pay no attention to Donna. She lives in an assisted living community in Paducah and is supported by her grandchildren. They also pay for her internet connection to keep her occupied because she'd be such an annoyance to the other
An edge is a statistical advantage. What you're describing with 100% success rate is merely a technical gimmick, a loophole that invariably gets fixed over time, if not flat out a fantasy.
Would you mind posting those threads? I'm curious as well.
Although Cornix says he trades in a simple way, he also understands a lot of complex trading. Once the techniques are learned the art is developed and Cornix is creative enough to be his own man rather than my clone. Reading simplicity in complexity is the mature style and I try to glance on complex issues here while attempting to show the simple set ups because there's a bigger worldview. Like myself, Cornix has been learning the same things over and over for years, but each time it is at a deeper level. I call it circular learning.
If you don't understand something, you have options: react against it or dig deeper. One is easy and the other has a price tag so high that few ever know the cost. At one point Cornix was thinking his brain was going to blow up with some things I was demonstrating but now he multitasks while trading. He paid his dues and it shows. If you want detailed simple entries make sure you read his thread. What I am doing here is showing that TA can look ahead as I have detailed many entries and exits here and in other threads.
TA works. It always did. It always will. We trade time and emotion and they never end.
Xspurt
If you don't understand something, you have options: react against it or dig deeper. One is easy and the other has a price tag so high that few ever know the cost. At one point Cornix was thinking his brain was going to blow up with some things I was demonstrating but now he multitasks while trading. He paid his dues and it shows. If you want detailed simple entries make sure you read his thread. What I am doing here is showing that TA can look ahead as I have detailed many entries and exits here and in other threads.
TA works. It always did. It always will. We trade time and emotion and they never end.
Xspurt