It's been 3 years and I'm back!

[Baron]

I wonder why would a successful trader waste his time and money (since time IS money) on forums like this talking to newbies?

Perhaps you should ask yourself why any successful business person would EVER sacrifice their time and resources to help others. They do it every day, so there must be a reason.

It's because some things in life are worth more than money. And I can assure you that helping others along their journeys by sharing your own successes and failures is one of those things. And you want to know why that is? It's because helping others gives you something back that money in itself cannot. And that's joy. It's a powerful feeling and anybody who's truly experienced it wants more of it.

And any super-successful person isn't naive enough to believe that he achieved his success all on his own. He knows deep inside that he had some help from other people along the way in a variety of ways. So it's only natural to express thanks by turning the table and helping others who haven't achieved a similar level of success yet.

 

[Martinghoul]

I wonder why would a successful trader waste his time and money (since time IS money) on forums like this talking to newbies?

There are many reasons why I, for one, do it... Some of these reasons are a bit more altruistic than others (along the lines of what Baron mentioned). Regardless, stop your wondering and accept that there are reasons.

To the OP, well done for surviving... Hope you keep your mojo and best of luck!

 

[speedo]

Giving is it's own reward...try it.

 

[Palindrome]

I remember that day very vividly in October 2014. That spike came after David Tepper announced about 1 week prior he was shorting bonds. I was wondering who was getting squeezed or who was taking money from who.

I also remember calling my mortgage broker to see what rates were. As it pulled back quickly after the squeeze I marked that top, and said to myself I will refi my MTG and lock a rate on the retest of that level in January of 2015. That's exactly what I did.

I've been salivating a short of bonds on the retest of the major recent highs. I'm getting the feeling we might not see that again though.

 

[humbletrader2016]

The nice thing about helping the newbie ones is that you tend to do better by sharing and learning at the same time. Why? It is because they look up to you, which means you tend to do better with some pressures on your shoulder so you won't disappoint them (unless you are a reckless person.)

Besides, reading many trading books only help us with the knowledge, but not with trading related. Exploring those trading forums over the years gave us better ideas of how to build our own trading system so that we can make profit consistently. Unless you are a selfish person, once you are confident of what you are doing, you will begin to share or giving advices on those forums just like other successful ones.

 

[qxr1011]

I wonder why would a successful trader waste his time and money (since time IS money) on forums like this talking to newbies?

i see only couple of reasons

first - vanity...

second - killing the time

trader has nothing to talk about not with newbies not with oldies... but sitting alone a year after year gets to you...

 

[vanzandt]

Damn, I wish I could buy you a beer right now.

hahahaha Put it on Zandy's tab.

 

[vanzandt]

I think helping others makes one think more. Exercises the brain. At least it does for me.

 

[s0mmi]

Is this a prop firm where everyone trades their own money?

They back you at the start (up to say $10,000) then if you want to risk more you need to buffer your own account. I think thats pretty standard but I don't know about other shops. I'll die at this shop if I have to.

Up-till volatility died a few firms had million $ traders. Which firm are/ were you with?

PM me. I don't want to list it here because Google searches will bring it up.

Do you keep anything over nite? I been selling Financials since about mid 2011 for Long Term, I doubt I am gotten short highs even now, cause eventually going to be Black Swan for stock market and tons be rolling into Financials. Waiting for June 24 lows be taken out for snowball down. I do some day trading and spreads. But I actually prefer the Bund.

I just read a bit of my original thread, and I did keep overnight positions back then because my strategy wasn't stopped out yet. Surprise surprise, this hasn't worked for the past year (but did for ~4 yrs before that when I started). I'm day trading every day (although in these conditions sometimes it's only 2-3 trades in a week). I'll only do multi-day trade when I want say, a Box (short, mid and long year legs together) and I say "I'm entering at this price, I'll average and play but I have to get out by Date B." And that Date is usually something like CPI, or the Reserve Bank Meeting, or its minutes. Everything is dangerous these days really. If your condition is not to get out on all the enormous Tier 1 events like that then you are gambling sir.

s0mmi...I didn't read the entire contents of your original thread, but why were you away for 3 years? I trade the 30yr. outright and I'm assuming you're trading bond spreads still? Obviously, you believe spreads trend better if that's the case. Am I right?

Its very soul crushing when you spend 16 hours a day trying to figure the game out, and no matter how much you figure out what works 'right now', when you eventually get raped, you feel a deep shame and don't want to just socialise and talk about trading. I'm 5.5 years in the game, not 15-20 years. Every day is a gift to me, and it feels like it's going to slip any day now.

Also, importantly, nothing changed in ~2 yrs after that. I had nothing to help you guys with except "Hey Im making more money!" which only a fuckwit would say. I've come back now because I wrestled with some demons and I have some life-long adjustments that have bought me another 3-4 years in the game where-as some of my other trader friends have quit and given up.

I still do Bond spreads (although Outrights is what the Dream has been for 1-year due to this volatility... but it's expected, you can't expect Spreading to be the Winner every year forever). And yes, if I like a trade fundamentally (based on data, rate agenda, or whatever) then I'm always hunting for a spread and will scalp it at the high probability times.

 

[s0mmi]

I wonder why would a successful trader waste his time and money (since time IS money) on forums like this talking to newbies?

Years ago, when I was on my own (with One dear friend), we searched all around for information. It was hard to even get help with-in our own firm. Now, 5 years later, there's an environment of sharing and honesty that I'm proud of. Also, more importantly, I am still a dumb cunt sometimes. My things won't work, I will make a mistake, I might get something wrong...

How stupid of me to think that I can never learn again? I'm here for both you guys to develop, get more insight, general knowledge, or even for someone who's thinking of being a trader to read through all this.

I'll make an important point, most the game-changing decisions I ever made in difficult times, to stay alive, was off new guys.

Why new guys? Because they don't have X amount of years of experience, they just "see it as it is" for the past 3 months. That's worth its weight in gold. I can be more specific if someone would like. Just because you guys are in another country or another market or equities, doesn't mean I can't learn or have a door open and likewise. There's enough shit cunt snakes in this industry as it is.

Let's use a function of your black-swan stop. If I risk $100k on an black-swan every day with a certain time-stop (6-12 hours holding max), and I'm making $20k a month (0.2) return, but a trainee who risks $5k is making $3k every month for a quarter... I'm going to start asking some questions. And this is exactly what I did, and I found 10,000 plot holes in my trading and I worked month after month to fix them. Now sometimes you'll find the other person risks double per trade (he will hit he stop quicker). But other times you'll find "Oh he's getting in at better prices.. a better time.. and losing less because he gets out on X condition..."

There will be a time when the market changes again, and that trainee will struggle to change, but I'll be right there saying "you don't need to get fucked for 6 months, you just need to tweak Y and B". Usually those variables are as simple as, widen you 2-tick average to 4-tick. Change your time entry from 10am to 11am. Do not trade 50/50 trades before Tier 1 data like U.S. GDP, or CPI, or the FOMC minutes etc.

The difference between doing that and not is literally life and death. Although it's not as daunting as it seems, we are always talking about it and I make Cheat sheets every month which let everyone know "GOOD TRADES" vs. "BAD TRADES" last month, so they can see the patterns change.

Look, you are 1000% correct - only Gobshites waste their time on these stupid forums - for, as you rightly said, Time = Money.

Give something back - what a load of bollox - reminds me of that stupid "Phantom of The Pits" article some years ago - meditation me arse, visualization me arse - cop the fuk on, learn how to gamble correctly and responsibly, and STOP listening to idiots posting a load of shite on dumb internet sites.

The best post on this stupid site in a long time - well done, who ever you are

J_S

You're salty sir and I'm sorry. You obviously fell for their tricks at the start, many of us did. I'm here to talk about facts, statistics (not nerdy numbers) and methods to improve trading and evolve. Anyway if you remove the salt from your eyes just have a read at the substance and you'll see that I've been sitting in a computer chair for 5.5 years now playing games, farting and trading at the same time. I didn't make all the methods myself, a lot of the principals were handed to me, but I've given many guys a Free Ride and they screw it up anyway.

I got a lot of PMs over the years that I never replied to because I had some personal rough ones too.. but when someone tells me "Sir please help me, I lost -$250,000 trading of my parents money" I just know this guys is done for and I can't help him.

What's even worse is when you have a friend who's been there 3-4 years, starts failing, you try to help them (because I was doing the same wrong thing), and they just don't listen. Time and time again, they don't listen. I learned so much about Pride and Ego in this damn job. We have so much built inside our heads about the way we think things operate, and our actions to go along with it. I can see why people become bitter and salty. Its your choice.

Hopefully someone can pick my brain with some good questions about risk/reward trades in Bond products and you can start to get a feel for it. And none of this will matter without a full-time daily dedication to watching, observing figures, and just following the rhythm of a trader.