Impossible to find a real pro with a real edge as a mentor?

[riskfreetrading]

Quote from shortie:

i was wrong. i meant to write it like this: prob(win)=X/(X+Y)

i don't know the texact formulas but this is the type of ratio i see in backtests (quick and dirty)

I re-read the posts, and I think what you may have meant in your head while giving the first answer was the ratio of the two probs. If X=Y, 1/2 as prob or a ratio of 1 are equivalent.

Maybe you have a different understanding of the problem. The Monkey wait until the end to take his profit, but his stop can be taken before the end. Are your test reflecting it?

 

[shortie]

Quote from riskfreetrading:

I re-read the posts, and I think what you may have meant in your head while giving the first answer was the ratio of the two probs. If X=Y, 1/2 as prob or a ratio of 1 are equivalent.

Maybe you have a different understanding of the problem. The Monkey wait until the end to take his profit, but his stop can be taken before the end. Are your test reflecting it?

i guess i was solving a different quiz where Y is set, just like X.

it is still clear to me when the monkey exits if X is not hit (if Y is not set). I will assume that the monkey waits 50 years (its life expectancy). in other words there is a time exit but it is very far in the future.

if X is set and Y is not set, then then the monkey always loses because the random walk will hit X given enough time. so the expectancy is -1.

 

[riskfreetrading]

Quote from shortie:

i guess i was solving a different quiz where Y is set, just like X.

it is still clear to me when the monkey exits if X is not hit (if Y is not set). I will assume that the monkey waits 50 years (its life expectancy). in other words there is a time exit but it is very far in the future.

if X is set and Y is not set, then then the monkey always loses because the random walk will hit X given enough time. so the expectancy is -1.

Let us assume the Monkey has a job, and he can show up only at close each day (or week). So the Monkey places a stop, and also a close order at close. The Y is outcome. The X is known at entry. The holding period is also known (unless trade is stopped earlier).

 

[Brandonf]

Quote from dancalio:

You get what you pay for. Anybody willing to tell you about their winning system for $500 doesn't have a system worth paying for.

I just don't agree with this, obvioulsy I have a little bit of a bias but I think that people simply do not think about how much money is available in the education field when they make this statement. A guy like Ken Roberts, who made his money before the Internet even came out, has a net worth of over a quarter billion dollars. How many hedge fund managers can say that? Even the ones who have been around for 20 years and are the most respected names in the field. I hate to bring up Wade Cook because he is a known fraud, but the government reported that he also made hundreds of millions of dollars. Larry Williams. I've heard from several reliable sources that Jake Berstien is worth mid 8 figures. Again, even the most succesful of HF managers may never reach these numbers in their entire lifetime.
I can remember back "in the day" when Ken Wolffs room was huge. Ken was bringing in close to $250K per month and he worked for about 4 hours a day and enjoyed the hell out of his life. He was also trading and running that business did not impact it - so again why not? It was not extra work for him because he outsourced every single thing except telling people "Im buying X".
People seem to worry that if I give out my system it will stop working. I think this is a valid concern for a line of computer code, but I don't think it's valid for a system that requires for you to decide for yourself what the data means. Vic Sperandeo's book is great and he lays out pretty much what he does, he currently manages ( I think) around half a billion dollars. Toby Crabel wrote his book and sold various subscription products for a long time while building his money managment business.
I think that people look at the amount of money available and they see it from their own limited point of view. I can tell you that there is a lot of money out there. Here is a fast example. Lets say I have a CD course. I know how to market so the launch is very effective. It's a $2000 course and I sell 500 copies of it (which happens a lot more then you can imagine). Now, out of those sales I obviously have my fullfillment cost, probably around $50 per order, and I have to pay my affiliates, probably around half ($1000). I'm still sitting with $950 times 500. Not only that but if I'm smart I tried to sell them a newsletter too and I'm charging $50 a month for that. I can do this launch 3 or 4 times a year if I'm good at it (I'm taking these numbers from a guy I know who is the marketing guy for a trading site, and these are the numbers they put up). Each launch then brings in $475K to me plus 300 people probably stay with the newsletter until at least the next launch. This creates a business that has profits of close around $2million per year, and again this is not even one of the bigger guys out there. John Carter and Herbert Senters have shown a number of people exactly what their numbers are, and they do nearly $300,000 per month just in subscription products, the total business brings in around $6million. That's on top of what they make trading, which they have done live in front of a crowd a number of times to show that they do know exactly what they are talking about. Show more then just a few guys on ET who bring in $6million or even $2million per year. I doubt there are more then 10/15, if that.

I think it's just a matter of economics. If your a trader and can bring in say half a million to a few million a year with your trading why not start up a business selling the courses and bring in an extra $2million to $5million a year. It doesnt take much of your time, if your that big I gaurantee you that you never deal with a customer, you simply put your product out and make the money.

Brandon

 

[Brandonf]

One last example of a guy who does mentoring and coaching online for a product and makes a lot a nice living, both at what he is teaching and at teaching.

My friend Curtis has a poker training site. Curtis is a pretty good poker player, he made about $140,000 last year playing and just under $200,000 the year before. To me, that's a good poker player (esp since I'm a lousey poker player). Curtis also has a site where he offers a poker ebook and upgrades to coaching and analysis software. His poker coaching business makes him around half a million $ this year, and he made about three times as much before all the laws in the US changed in regard to promoting gambling and whatnot. Does his coaching business make him any less good at playing poker? Of course not, in fact it probably makes him better, I have always found that nothing speeds up the progress of my own knowledge more then teaching.

 

[shortie]

statistics does not come naturally to me .

i was not able to figure out the formula for probability ratios. i probably lack some basic knowledge in statistics.

Here is what i tried and got stuck.

X - stop
Y - outcome
P(<=X) - probability that the price moves to X (or lower) any time during experiment
Pend(>=Y) - probability that the price ends up at or above Y at the end of experiment
Pend(X_Y) - probability that the price ends up between X and Y at the end of experiment

we are interested to know the ratio P(<=X)/Pend(>=Y)

the above probabilities add up to 1:
P(<=X)+Pend(X_Y)+Pend(>=Y) = 1

but i don't see how to get to P(<=X)/Pend(>=Y) from the above.


without formulas i am guessing that the monkey loses money no matter what X. to make money it should remove stop and add a limit to lock in profits.

Quote from riskfreetrading:

I re-read the posts, and I think what you may have meant in your head while giving the first answer was the ratio of the two probs. If X=Y, 1/2 as prob or a ratio of 1 are equivalent.

Maybe you have a different understanding of the problem. The Monkey wait until the end to take his profit, but his stop can be taken before the end. Are your test reflecting it?

 

[jficquette]

Before people spend money on trading they need to investigate what type of mental model they operate under.

The best $ spent initially would be with an industrial psychologist and get tested for what your ideal career would be.

People fail mainly because they don't have the money to get started and because they do not have the emotional makeup to actually risk money on an unknown.

There many techniques that work over time. Its not the technique. Its the mental disposition that you have.

John

 

[monti1a]

A real pro with a "TRUE" edge would rarely.....heck you might as well say never...give away his/her edge. It's like asking a man can you fuck his wife.

Now...would you let someone fuck your wife?

 

[[Proximo]]

Yes. If they paid me :]

 

[zdreg]

Quote from goldenarm:

Let's start with an analogy. There are tens of thousands of fiction novels in the world. So how many basic themes are there? Only three: man versus man, man vs. nature and man vs. himself.

And how many basic technical setups are there for successful daytrading? Four. They are:

1. Breakout from a consolidation

2. Breakout from a pullback in an uptrend

3. Breakdown from a consolidation

4. Breakdown from a rally in a downtrend

That's all there is to it. Now go and make some money!

man vs. woman at least for the everyday ET poster.