I have bought Al Brooks' Trading Course

[Hooti]

Brooks' method can't be reduced to quantifying details and it's not fair to conclude that those who fail to quantify like Brooks are just failures. There is a lot of gut-feeling involved, based on what the market "usually does" and guesswork. ...Is it ethical to market a method of quantifying chart details and trying to reduce your teachings to something close to a science, while not addressing the highly discretionary role of intuition and guesswork?

To me, it would be impossible (and therefore unethical) to market a method that did not reduce trading to something as objective and probability-based as possible. I'd venture that most failed traders were brought down by trading (or skipping trades) based on gut feeling, guesswork, and then revenge trading off the resulting frustration.

Mark Douglas said once that “analysis is not the key to being a successful trader, objectivity is.”

So one question might be: is the analysis you are getting from Brook’s method making you more objective or not? Objectivity might look like intuition or gut feeling, but I’m not sure that is the case. Analysis can also make you more subjective, which is likely an error.

 

[Q3D]

With price action you can see the setups from a bullish and bearish perspective. Providing market analysis of each side would be much easier than taking a side and trading, I'm not saying that's what Brooks does, but how do we know he is consistently profitable? The edge between the bulls and bears is thin and mostly determined by speed, retail traders can't compete or even coexist safely with HFT

 

[wrbtrader]

...The edge between the bulls and bears is thin and mostly determined by speed, retail traders can't compete or even coexist safely with HFT

Retail traders and HFT aren't suppose to compete nor coexist. One is discretionary trading or automated trading without algo and the other (HFT) is performed via algo and special automation.

Simply, you're correct...retail traders can not compete with HFT and both have a complete different business model.

Also, most (not all) retail traders are discretionary like Al Brooks....he does not use automation trading, he does not use algos or anything close to such. He's just a discretionary trader with rules while other retail traders are discretionary without rules.

There was a survey once done here at ET about discretionary trading. About 40% did such with rules and the rest (60%) did discretionary trading without rules. Simply, most discretionary traders are trading via the feel, gut or guessing...no rule base trade method.

If you think that stats isn't valid..similar survey done on stocktwits.com with over a thousand anwsers...almost the same statistics. That's scary and just another fact that we as retail traders can not compete with HFT mainly because we don't have the tools nor the business model for such a competition.

We have our own niche and should concentrate on that instead worrying about what others are doing that we can not compete with. Our edge is determined by the ability to adapt without notice, trade markets not common place for HFT or we can sit back and follow the volatility trail left behind by HFT...the latter is what I believe most retail traders are attempting to do via changes in supply/demand based upon all of these threads I see about supply/demand, s/r levels, bar to bar analysis and many other well known trade methods or analysis.

Remember, we were here first...before HFT. What truly doomed most retail traders prior to HFT were the rule changes at the exchanges, government and brokers. The cost of trading has also dramatically increased since the 90's when day trading was popularized. In addition, more foreign markets are more interconnected than before...these are all big obstacles for the retail trader and less for the HFT.

Regardless, if HFT is a big issue to you...don't trade markets that HFT is frequently involved within. Seriously, its an easy solution to the HFT concern but only if you're willing to trade other markets.

 

[marketsurfer]

Retail traders and HFT aren't suppose to compete nor coexist. One is discretionary trading or automated trading without algo and the other (HFT) is performed via algo and special automation.

Simply, you're correct...retail traders can not compete with HFT and both have a complete different business model.

Also, most (not all) retail traders are discretionary like Al Brooks....he does not use automation trading, he does not use algos or anything close to such. He's just a discretionary trader with rules while other retail traders are discretionary without rules.

There was a survey once done here at ET about discretionary trading. About 40% did such with rules and the rest (60%) did discretionary trading without rules. Simply, most discretionary traders are trading via the feel, gut or guessing...no rule base trade method.

If you think that stats isn't valid..similar survey done on stocktwits.com with over a thousand anwsers...almost the same statistics. That's scary and just another fact that we as retail traders can not compete with HFT mainly because we don't have the tools nor the business model for such a competition.

We have our own niche and should concentrate on that instead worrying about what others are doing that we can not compete with. Our edge is determined by the ability to adapt without notice, trade markets not common place for HFT or we can sit back and follow the volatility trail left behind by HFT...the latter is what I believe most retail traders are attempting to do via changes in supply/demand based upon all of these threads I see about supply/demand, s/r levels, bar to bar analysis and many other well known trade methods or analysis.

Remember, we were here first...before HFT. What truly doomed most retail traders prior to HFT were the rule changes at the exchanges, government and brokers. The cost of trading has also dramatically increased since the 90's when day trading was popularized. In addition, more foreign markets are more interconnected than before...these are all big obstacles for the retail trader and less for the HFT.

Regardless, if HFT is a big issue to you...don't trade markets that HFT is frequently involved within. Seriously, its an easy solution to the HFT concern but only if you're willing to trade other markets.

Huh?? The cost of trading has PLUNGED since the 90's. Not increased.

I guess that was a typo on your part?

 

[Q3D]

Regardless, if HFT is a big issue to you...don't trade markets that HFT is frequently involved within. Seriously, its an easy solution to the HFT concern but only if you're willing to trade other markets.

Does the HFT on the ES futures market have any effect on day trader's trading? Studies say 46% of the volume on the ES is HFT but Al Brooks has written that HFT provides liquidity and trades at the sub-second level and has little to no influence on price action at 1 minute time frame and greater. Others say even daily charts are made more volatile due to high-speed computer trading..who is correct?

 

[wjk]

Providing market analysis of each side would be much easier than taking a side and trading, I'm not saying that's what Brooks does, but how do we know he is consistently profitable?

Have you considered this? Send him an email regarding his P & L, and see what he sais to you if he responds. Just tell him you'd be more interested in his approach if you had evidence he is successful. It can't hurt to ask, or have you? Would you believe whatever he told you? I mean, without seeing the actual trades in his account (which I'm not sure you would be able to verify without considerable personal info on him), or tax records, how will you really know?

 

[NoDoji]

Providing market analysis of each side would be much easier than taking a side and trading, I'm not saying that's what Brooks does, but how do we know he is consistently profitable?

Why do we care if he's consistently profitable? If he provides tools that make me consistently profitable, then I've benefited from his book, which costs very little compared to the cost of courses, professional mentors, and trading rooms. If he's personally incapable of applying his own useful concepts to his personal trading, why should we care? That's the domain of trading psychologists.

Did you ever have an idea that you talked to your buddies about but failed to pursue and later discover that someone made good money based on that same idea? An idea can be good all by itself even if discussed by someone who doesn't have what it takes to personally benefit from it.

 

[romik]

Past PRICE data printed on a chart is what TAers use.

Price Drivers don't use past price-- so the system is completely different than ta.

First nice day of the last several. Going to the beach. See ya!

surf

So how could you possibly have established an exit @15k on your recent call if you don't reference past data?

 

[wrbtrader]

Does the HFT on the ES futures market have any effect on day trader's trading? Studies say 46% of the volume on the ES is HFT but Al Brooks has written that HFT provides liquidity and trades at the sub-second level and has little to no influence on price action at 1 minute time frame and greater. Others say even daily charts are made more volatile due to high-speed computer trading..who is correct?

High Frequency Trading started when in the dot.com bust and approved by the SEC. It begin with trades in seconds until technology improved and now its doing trades in micro-seconds. That's fast considering one micro-second = 1/1000 of a millisecond and one millisecond equals 1/1000 of a second.

That's an amazing technological advance and advantage...from seconds to micro-seconds.

Retail traders can not compete with that speed for obvious reason regardless if you're using chart analysis or just bid/ask screens...we're basically following the smoke trail in the sky by a jet in which the jet is no longer there.

HFT really doesn't have an impact on retail traders unless they are doing something illegal (e.g. spooking, gravy, layering, stuffing quotes). Most of these illegal activities are designed to manipulate or trick other firms...not the retail trader...retail traders that are just collateral damage. Simply, I've seen a growing consensus that HFT only impacts retail traders when there's illegal activities occurring.

Also, the SEC, CFTC and others are lame...when they catch firms doing such (many per year) in stocks or futures...they fine them a few million even though the firm has made 10s of millions from such. They have even banned some firms for a year from doing HFT and these firms then pay others to do it for them until the year has expired.

I've heard both sides of the coin from within the industry of HFT trading. HFT has provided additional liquidity and others say HFT is a no show when volatility is off the map and others say its other HFT firms causing the volatility to spike off the map...

HFT competing with other HFT.

Unfortunately, legal activities or illegal activities...HFT (aggressive firms...not passive firms) has increased the cost of trading dramatically since early 2000 for retail traders. That's the negative impact on us retail traders.

I've seen somewhere (I think its one of the professional magazines I subscribe too) that there are about 90 HFT firms in the U.S. and about 30 HFT firms in other countries...I'm sure those numbers are constantly changing every year. I personally know of 2 in the U.S., 2 in Montreal, Canada and 3 in Paris, France...aggressive and passive HFT firms.

Seriously, stop worrying about HFT. If its a big concern to you...stay away from the high liquid markets like the Emini ES futures especially if you're a newbie trader or someone that hasn't been trading it since its birth to notice dramatic changes in its price behavior on the intraday level that seems just "creepy" or "scary"...long enough for you to develop a feel for the "crap price action" when it shows up...telling you to stay on the sidelines when price starts to bounce around on increasing volatility but really going nowhere even if you have a valid trade signal.

S&P 500 Emini ES futures is not a learning trading instrument. Learn your trading in something else until you get good at it prior to moving into Emini ES futures

P.S. Everything I've stated above can be found on the internet via info by those within the industry, research firms, SEC, CFTC and magazines for the professional trading community. My other source not on the internet are via a few relatives and friends of the family that are not HFT but institutional traders or employed at institutional trading firms.

P.S.S. Not a good sign in your trading when you stay hung up on one person. It's become too personal for you and keeps you stuck inside a box...unable to move where you really want to get to.

 

[i960]

HFT really doesn't have an impact on retail traders unless they are doing something illegal

This is true in futures but isn't true in equities. In equities HFT depends on latency arbitrage across fragmented exchanges to make RISKLESS money.

WRT ES, it trades better now at VIX 20+ than it did at 12.