My Path To Success

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Quote from Shanb:

Where do you see yourself in 3 years? Still selling systems on C2 and trading whatever money you have saved up? Trading as a means to make some money on the side or actually trading for a living

. Idk about you but I don't know if there are many traders that are trading and earning 7 figures and have been independent their whole career. I just don't see it, maybe if they were born into wealth or earned it at a prop earlier on in their careers.
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I have a 1,2,3,4, and 5 year plan which should ultimately take me from about 5k savings to having between 250k to over a million dollars. I think that's pretty good. I definitely feel C2 will be important. For one thing, many funds are desiring open/transparent records and I feel that I'm already on the forefront of that. Hedge funds are losing their appeal and the "dogs today" could be the kings tomorrow. This is a long term plan for me. I *like* the game. I'm in a good place..

>>The title of the thread is "path to success," I want to know how >>successful you are.

That's the thing. Most people are conditioned to see "success" as a destination, a display of status or an external achievement. Success is path. Its a constantly doing whats required to be successful.. the more you do whats required to be successful then more successful you will be at every given moment. Ultimately, success for me means being able to spend more of my time working on what I want to work.
 
Quote from Lucias:

I have a 1,2,3,4, and 5 year plan which should ultimately take me from about 5k savings to having between 250k to over a million dollars. I think that's pretty good. I definitely feel C2 will be important. For one thing, many funds are desiring open/transparent records and I feel that I'm already on the forefront of that. Hedge funds are losing their appeal and the "dogs today" could be the kings tomorrow. This is a long term plan for me. I *like* the game. I'm in a good place..

>>The title of the thread is "path to success," I want to know how >>successful you are.

That's the thing. Most people are conditioned to see "success" as a destination, a display of status or an external achievement. Success is path. Its a constantly doing whats required to be successful.. the more you do whats required to be successful then more successful you will be at every given moment. Ultimately, success for me means being able to spend more of my time working on what I want to work.
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this is priceless. good shit here!
 
Me:
Coach, you know there is something that I don't like about this whole idea of prop firms. You know I was good friends with Dr. Steenbarger for years and that I'm a straight shooter. I don't doubt that most props are trading spreads. I have a good article somewhere around here that talks about how they went from speed edge then moved to spreads as volatility was good in those products. Some firms like SMB started offering training coincident with the arrival of HFT on the scene.

Coach:
Yes, in my mind, the idea that going to a proprietary firm will make one successful is just another variation of the dream that rainbow merchants sell. This is why you have to guard against these notions. 90% of traders are looking for help and 90% will fail. If a firm can't pay a salary then they aren't very confident in you nor their own edges. So, why should you be confident enough in them to take a risk on them? You shouldn't!

Listen, every successful business person had to go through a hard time or a lean time. You don't have to the smartest person in the room to make a fortune. But you have to be willing to stick with something long enough to give it a chance to work.

Me: Yeah, and I'm a directional trader. Always been strongest at calling direction. I guess this is why my former friend, Dr. Steenbarger, basically you know just told me to focus on that.

Coach:
Right, he worked with the best of the best and he said something then I've no reason to doubt it. Remember, Jim Paul lost over a million trading spreads! You can lose or win with any method. Given that many professionals do trade spreads and pairs then sure study it so that it may become a future profit center.. But remember when you were sick?

Me:Yes, I was sick one day and another trader said you will lose trading when you are sick. I would have won but had that nagging self doubt in my mind.

Coach: And you remember what happen you set a rule not to trade after hours?

Me: Yes, I lost a good opportunity. A large portion of my success is surely the result of my own belief in myself and my ruthlessness in self-honesty and tearing down any and all mental barriers that have taken me away from 100% performance. Removing rules, false notions, lies.. leaving only the essence of truth.

Coach: Then remove any notion from your mind that you need to trade spreads to be successful! Again you can win or lose with any method. And, as for big proprietary traders, you know that the highest grossing C2 developer made over 500k last year. You also realize that you've one of the best tracked futures systems of all time. You are in a great position to profit from what you do best. I don't even know why you would consider anything less.

What's the first rule of gambling?

Me: Focus on strengths.

Coach: Then focus on your strengths!! Forget the rest. Are you a trend trader, a target trader, or a scalper?

Me: I'm none of those. I'm a predictor. I do whatever it takes to win and everything that it takes and I'm willing to do it at all times.

Coach: Then do what it takes!!! Whatever it takes and everything that it takes. And leave the dreaming to others with more terrestrial concerns.
 
I have a 1,2,3,4, and 5 year plan which should ultimately take me from about 5k savings to having between 250k to over a million dollars........."

.............................

posting and pissing is a sideways activity.

it never helps the bottom line.

start pullin' the trigger.

s

:cool:
 
A bit more about how I trade...

There are many methods, tactics, that I can use to express my sentiment about the market. These are often described using terms such as trend following, target trading, and scalping. Most recently, I've been conducting trades that I refer to as scalping/quasi scalping where I'm shooting for an approximate 1 point or less.

I, also, learned recently that contrary to my knowledge the C2 platform was using a simple "if touch then filled" algorithm. I had incorrectly believed it was using a more sophisticated algorithm. It thus came as a relief when I was able to cross-reference my hypothetical results with one of my real money subscribers. My subscriber reported his actual net profits over my scalping period which were in-line and actually exceeding my hypothetical profits. It is very important to look at all costs when executing a highly active trading strategy and get the best deal possible.

As my trading frequency has increased, I've started to look at my trades as sequences versus individual events. I don't care if an individual trade was profitable, so much as whether my the sequence as a whole was profitable.

I'm not sure if scalping is actually less risky then the other methods. On the plus side, my standard deviation per trade is a lot lower , my stop can be smaller, good returns can be made with less average leverage per trade, and I can adjust more quickly to changing market conditions. On the down side, the profit efficiency tends to be lower, trading costs are much higher, and total risk if measured as a whole is still high. Also, if not careful 1 bad trade can ruin many good ones. Overall though, it just may be a much lower risk because historically for me to do 1k+ per day then I need to risk about 1.5k up to easily 3.5k-4k. I'm not as likely to hit my huge profits days scalping but if I'm risking say $200-$300 per trade then I'm less likely to take a huge hit on a single trade.

So, I'm getting more inclined to executing across multiple time frames. I think to meet optimal profit scenario that executing across multiple time frames would be required. There are a few ways to do this. One would be to hold multiple accounts. The other would be to find a highly correlated instrument and trade it as a surrogate. It may be that my hedge/hammer style could be adapted for this purpose.
 
Plan For Survival

My discretionary futures system is now among the last strategies "standing" at C2 when ranked by age, equity curve, net, and risk/adjusted return--my system is unarguably one of about 4 "top" futures systems. If you look at the data, you see the truth and you don't see 100% returns per year with no risk. I wish they were out there.

I know people downplay C2 but think about.. is there any "game" you personally can join where there are thousands and thousands of competitors and make it into the top 1 or 2? Try making it into the top 1% or .5% in ANYTHING isn't a small feat. Only some of the blowhards here and we know who they are would claim otherwise. I guess I'm comparing what I've did to achieving a high score in a video game and yes I am because its really hard and 99% of us will never be 1% in anything we do.

I plan to go live soon but my first priority is to my subscribers. I'll be going live with 5k or 6k but I've a subscriber with an account more then 16x what I'll be trading and so going live isn't that big of deal for me. Again I know everyone here has 100k just lying around but in the real world only a small percentage of the people have the risk capital to trade futures.

I'm starting to think about forex because I can get probably 10x as many subscribers and it suites my account size better. I feel I'm going to be the best in futures or forex or wherever I'm trading and there are a lot more people who can trade a small forex account. With my ability, I should be able to capture a large segment of the market, just like capturing points in the futures market.

As a professional signal provider then I have to think about what my client base wants and can afford. Forex is something I should have given more thought too years ago. But, I felt it didn't have the prestige of trading the futures market and I felt future was the fairest game. Today the Forex game seems to be more transparent and accessible then ever. And, I hear about more traders day trading in currencies.

One possibility is to shift my system development focus away from futures to Forex while keeping my discretionary trading in futures. I think part of my plan needs to involve broadening my edge. But, either way it will be hard work required.
 
Well today I placed 2 small probe trades in the real futures market for the first time. I'm setting my system up so that I "autotrade" it.

There were a few things that I thought were true that weren't true and these things I only started to learn over the past few weeks.

1. C2 doesn't use a realistic fill engine. It assumed fill if touched.
2. All limit orders are converted to market orders when autotrading at C2 within a few seconds. But it doesn't do this with any intelligence.. For example, I would have thought it would say.. okay as long as we are within X ticks of the limit then don't rush to market but wait.. okay we moved more then X ticks away better get to market

The real problem with this system is that I can't ever know for sure how things will turn out. I mean even if I set my limit orders where they are crossed, I'm not guaranteed to get filled at my limit. It actually happened today where it went to market giving up 1 tick even though it crossed my limit within seconds.

I know that my autotraders have been profitable. On the day I scalped the most, he did better then the hypothetical. Unfortunately, he didn't keep good records and had his own issues, and so all I know for sure is that he was profitable.

I'm going to give it a shot. I plan to place some trades direct to the market too. If it doesn't work then I'll have to adjust and regroup. I actually like the MIT order type but only when it makes sense.

I'm just a small trader.. just a market predictor doing what he enjoys. If I can do that and make a profit then I'm doing pretty good. Its been a huge amount of work and years for me to open such a tiny account. I won't even have enough to trade over night.

I feel pretty good.. I'm a little concerned about giving up my limit orders but I know at least I know that my subs were profitable overall and I was trading about as tight (limit/limit) as possible. If I can hit an 75% of profits then I'll be pretty happy.. might take some adjustments might not...

I probably won't be 100% live (taking every trade) for about 2 more weeks as I iron a few more things in my game plan but I want to be 100% live within 2 weeks.

Do I still think about NADEX? Sure, obviously one reason I moved to futures was so that I didn't give anything up. I think NADEX could still be big.. I don't know. Maybe when I build my account up I can give it another shot.

I think this is an important step for me. I don't feel a need to prove myself any more. I feel like I'm in a pretty good place and am both talented and highly trained enough to deliver.

I have been trading 5-6 lots of OPM. So, i'm not worried bout my 1 lot.. One of the best things about trading through the hypotheticals is that I can see myself making $500-$600 and feel it is worthwhile.. This may work to my advantage as I slowly build my account up. I mean that if I were to see okay I made $50 right then I might try to push things too far.

I am thinking of rescaling my system down though. I have a certain comfort level in terms of the size losses/wins I want to see and my account is a bit larger then that. I don't know.... we'll see.

I'm also writing a newsletter now and sharing some of my insights. I feel good about this because when I think about the big picture: I wouldn't have been happy keeping everything to myself.
 
Second day live.. I placed a few more small probe/test trades.

Unfortunately, the autotrading software opened a long position when I closed my short --- without telling me. I closed it for a profit but the prospect of having positioned being opened when I'm closing positions and not being aware of them is a serious risk. C2 informed me this was caused because I scale in/out of positions and was not trading at full size. This was nearly completely hidden from me. I discovered it quickly but it took me a good several minutes to close that position. C2 assured me that their software would have closed it but then I was able to manually find/close it before their software did.. doesn't inspire confidence. An error like that could devastate my account

Now I have a few options:

1. Trade direct to exchange and AFTER I'm filled then I send my orders to C2 (with any appropriate multipliers). I lose the benefit of proving that I'm trading my own system. It would require that I change my trading style.

2. Don't scale in/out of positions at C2. This would probably fix the issues. It would require that I change my trading style.

3. Shelve trading my signals for now and just focus on my simulated trades. I've found that my autotraders don't really care if I take the signals or not: they just care how much they are making.

4. Shelve the C2 completely and just focus on my real-money results. It doesn't seem wise as I should be able to maintain a top ranked C2 system which I'd hope eventually pay off.

5. Scale down my system to actual trade size. Will require changing my methods slightly still...
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I'm not sure what I will do but leaving open the possibility of this happening again is not an option. This is a disappointment and I worked with C2 management all day to try to find a solution. I did not like the responses I received as they said such behavior was "normal".

One thing I should make clear. I would be trading my signals at 10x leverage. I use a max of 4x to 5x leverage in my account and on average only about 2x leverage. Obviously, the average trader who has the capital to trade my system has more 'room' for errors then I do.

I'm also thinking about what to do because my system has returned so much that the extra capital is a problem in itself. The system is now at over 100k and I don't really need that much to trade. I can scale down the system but then I'll take a performance reduction because all trade fees will be based on the lower starting capital and previous trades will be "scaled" as a fraction. I can leave the system as is and just keep adding size but that makes it less attractive to most traders, I suspect.

Anyway, I've been rather frustrated as I haven't even been able to start the OEC software due to some bug within the program or my computer. I'll need to do some deep thought before I make a conclusion on what to do about C2.

Honestly, I am tired of working day/night without getting any return. So I do think my live trading will be a part. But my account is still small and if I can get enough subscribers at C2 then I can make more money from subscription fees then even from trading.. even if I hit my 70% to 150% return goals.
 
Okay, I have spoken with C2 more and the only way I can scale in/out of trades is to use at least 100% size and no limits on # of contracts. This is quite disappointing because I don't see why it should be so difficult to trade a system at fractional size.

I now have basically only a few options that make sense to me:

A.
Submit my orders direct to exchange and develop an API/script that will copy what I do into my tracked account. If I do this I might as well start with a new system. I would not get any proof that I was trading my system.. although I could switch back/forth.

B.
Continue to trade my hypothetical account and focus 100% on doing my best on the hypothetical and getting more subscribers until I have enough capital to trade at least 2 contracts.

I hate to leave those contracts free that I could be capturing but if I don't have the right setup then I should probably "pass" and wait until I'm in the right position. I don't think I have "summit fever" but I have been working for a long time. I've made other people lot of money and really don't get my fair share.

So.. a lot of options including going the CTA route but that is more money spent that I need for trading.
 
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