Therein lies the issue with regard to understanding and profiting from the markets. There are many books, speakers, traders, programs, firms, funds, and markets in which people operate many of which may or may not be acting in the participants best interest. Therefore it is incumbant upon an individual before risking capital to acknowledge this fact and act accordingly.
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Superior trader, a born talent or can be taught?
- Thread starter bitrend
- Start date
Therein lies the issue with regard to understanding and profiting from the markets. There are many books, speakers, traders, programs, firms, funds, and markets in which people operate many of which may or may not be acting in the participants best interest. Therefore it is incumbant upon an individual before risking capital to acknowledge this fact and act accordingly.
Quote from Thunderdog:
snip
As for your reference to drills and the analogy of the Marines, I think you may have something there. Although I have never been in the armed forces, I imagine that boot camp builds discipline through routine and helps to build soldiers. But I don't think that boot camp builds superior soldiers. I would think that it is a necessary starting point rather than an endpoint on the road to superior performance.
Your points are well taken. Doing specific sets of drills is a second level of activity.
The first step is to get the map of what is on the table. By doing a comprehensive looksee at risk, knowledge, skills and experience a person quickly gets the picture that most everything is off limits for the time being.
But what comes of the looksee is an appreciation for actually how to make a terrific beginning that builds upon success and really avoids the repeated failure epidemic seen in ET. At the beginning there is no such thing as money management for instance.
Going through the ranks definitely comes after basic as you point out. Lets say the basic training using a 100 separate drills in sets, or so, is behind the trainee and he is doubling at a set rate.
I have concluded that the money velocity spectrum goes through 8 plateaux. This stuff doesn't fly here in ET. But what if??? Most of my posting relates to these 8 topics if they come up. As you say my posts are unintelligible for the most part. For me these are old subjects and I lack the ability to change gears and post in the vein of the inquiry.
The 8 arenas for gaining performance rank do not get handled individually but they get handled partially repeatedly. So a thread on a key topic isn't handled well when it is singled out.
The 8 are also intermingled and their adjacency allows them to partially support acquisitions in other arenas.
Saying there are four basic trades is corny and supposing it is a case of acquiring, from the formal disciplines of knowledge "innateness" for each of the four "modes" is an endeavor for those who do not go into the trenches where the fight is conducted.
The major website where we will keep the support elements is developing as a wheel or pie of many wedges and a general path in the form of a helix. Doors to get in are everywhere. There are two other conveniences: an interface that allows anyone using another system to access ours through the search that is set up using the foreign vocabulary and acronyms (sort of a cross reference filter); and a laundry chute mechanism. It chutes you to a helpful place when you select it. Often a concept is dependant on a prerequisite. If you find out you are missing prerequisites you take the laundry chute to where they are waiting for you.
It is all kind of pragmatic and drill oriented. Wear work clothes and not entertainment outfits.
We have found that the drills first used to ramp up after the initial framework stuff were too dense and compact and people went more right to the excel versions to have the analysis done automatically. This stunted getting into the super levels since handling the excel results was not as meaningful. When this was cured, the cure came about by doing one-on-ones manually.
That is when we went to the VI team and setting up technology to make remote one-on-ones possible(without pitfalls) and repeatable. (VI is Village Idiot).
Concurrently, we got to understand that meetings had heavy drill components that were subtlely present, i. e, "could you just repeat that one more time?". So we are making live meetings places where files are automatically generated when a drill surfaces.
An example is a completed cycle being passed around by a member. The VI team puts the copy into a scanner and it appears on the screen and I use a stylus that annotates the conversation which is being recorded as is the annotating process. It is a video drill being composed where the topic is one of the drills that is done as part of trading what is on the handout copy.
Think of something s simple as projecting into he future the change of volatility with respect to a short term trading channel. the person is learning how to always have the exit limit onan annotated chart of something they oare owning. We trade the long diagonal of short term channels since it makes so much more money than exiting at less effective places.
There is so much noise in ET vis a vis the dialogue it is not possible to savor any of the depth of what can be considered much less understood.
Naturally this group may be seen as self electing (they choose to come to meetings) and they are making money at the rate you tabulated was an upper limit. we people are sitting around a diner table and are of like mind (in terms of improving their peformance potential0 going to cantasia technology is a natural. we have instructors from other commercial operations, programmers who program as consultants for investors and academics who are part of the formal scene. It turns out that an oriental woman who play ping pong and badmitten internationally is out best trader. So your point on getting to super is the main thrust of the group actually. They do not bring rocks the size of houses...lol
You see that they are like you. They roll their own to get to where they want to be. they, as you, can discern what they want to take away with them and fold it into thier game plan.
Supersizing a trader comes from more drills that are designed and redesigned to deal with the 8 arenas we see as the 8 doublings of money velocity that a trader goes through on his way to the summit. I walked back from the summit to put in my collectors bag pockets stuff I could see there along the trail. It fitte into 8 pockets.
As a person has the framework set up (the opposite of a base camp), he goes through basic training with drills to strengthen the framework and get all the interconnections installed. He is a person who is operational and knows the market basically.
He becomes supersized by more effort through experience in knowledge and skill building. 8 different arenas are involved for getting to super.
Our group uses trading business plans comprized of 11 parts each. The written materials we hand out provide for the cut and paste of the parts and the excel pro forma in part VI contains the breakpoints for the 8 doublings of money velocity. When a person roughs out a personal business plan he sees the effect of participating and the ways he chooses to learn. Part of the plan is to articulate how and why the inital capital was justified. In another part that capital is withdrwan for specific applications and the plan operated wholly on profits.
This iterative refinement process they use to become more effective and more efficient is self driven. All meetings are based on two typew of Q's continually fed into the system. Ones that demand immediate answers to handle on the spot solutions and those types of Q's that forward the process under way. Almost nothing else is under consideration.
Becoming a super trader is an automatic process. As you see, poeple arrive at the doorstep of a meeting place. From there on out they just do their thing in a context of support. You can understand what it is like to come to a meeting that is a follow on of questions regarding a having a business plan (an excel spread sheet trurned out to be their impression of what a business plan was). We simply got together 128 pages of support information and a few illustrations and five appendices on stuff. The review of the 11 parts of a busioness plan was pages 75 through 86. The 8 arenas was pages 87 through 117.
These people are nailing the market by my standards. we are coming into the end of the first quarter and second doublings are being bagged. Now the business plan is heating up. 100% of the participants are doing it.
We have teams of people doing work; individuals too. An agreement was made accept incoming requests. All incoming requests will be handled by responses completed in the form of the request. We are already reprinting our handout; it has been converted to DPF; the ilustrations were scrapped and redone..lol....it is being completely edited for the third time. One five page section is being rewritten into 100 pages to break one drill into five drills (back to the original 5). The channel section (4 pages) is being turned into a camtasia with a book like back up (40 files)
Because this is local we have faces so to speak. Everyone is beginning to pass it forward. So now we have 4 satellite of groups and one local meeting spawned at least four other local meetings that are more frequent than the main one.. There is also a "pay it forward" component. People share some profits in the community. For instance, I pay the costs of everything and I provide some support staffing.
So you are correct, the super trader comes after basics and it is something like rolling your own as it is personalized by a trading business plan and also there is the component of building support websites, the mechanical support software programming and having teams doing work to materialize interfaces and export substantive stuff to commercial programs, etc...
snip
Quote from Chicken Little:
Here is a specific drill which Grob109 recommends for trading any index contract. It stays in the market continuously throughout the day and switches sides periodically. This drill is indicative of the quality of his research and market theories for trading index futures imho.
from Jack Hershey Jun 2 2000, 3:00 am show options
Newsgroups: misc.invest.technical
From: "Jack Hershey" - Find messages by this author
Date: 2000/06/02
Subject: 30 minute warmup bar trading.
Fundamental Money Making Concepts.
I use simple mechanical systems to get people to understand the basic
concept of making money steadily and with little or no risk.
When you trade daily for 6 1/2 hours a key thing to consider is not doing
too much to make some money.
By choosing a futures index of any sort on any exchange in the world, you
have put yourself, for 6 1/2 hours a day in a place that is truly dull and
unexciting. Being there is fairly safe and not too demanding so you can
relax and repeat a few tasks over and over to make some money.
I work first with 30 minute bars to frankly eliminate any sense of urgency.
I use the prior days last bar to get the ball rolling, or I suggest you wait
until the second begins to eliminate the end effects of the market.
Here is a progression of four mechanical methods to illustrate making money
primarily and secondarily to illustrate that losses are neatly reduced more
and more as a little sophistication enters the picture. I also introduce
how in a trend you can switch to the most favorable side of the channel to
exit. Because this is very simple and mechanical there is no need to
clutter it with a stop system as yet mostly because it an index tied to the
performance of and aggregation of stocks. We can tuck stops in easily
though as a commitment to our ordinary discipline.
The four items in the progression are:
1. break out of prior bar.
2. slope pairs of bars.
3. overlapped pairs slopes
4. retracement.
Here is the progression:
1. set up a 30 bar display for a futures index.
2. enter on the breakout beyond (above or below) the prior days last bar
hi/lo.
3. hold until the current bar breaks out of the other end (from your long or
short entry) of the prior bar.
4. hold on inside bars.
5. hold on successive bar break outs in the same trend.
6. on breakout of 3., reverse so you can take on new trend trade.
7. repeat 3. through 6. for remaining bars of the day.
8. settle at end of day.
Backtesting of the drill on tradestation for the continuous ES data produced the graph below:
<img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=852219">
Thanks for taking the trouble to do the search and to do the equity curve.
I couldn't find the post. Is there a way you can post a way to get to it?
You may want to relabel the equity curve so it is consistent with the thing you put up as what you backtested.
TIA.
Quote from Chicken Little:
Here is a specific drill which Grob109 recommends for trading any index contract. It stays in the market continuously throughout the day and switches sides periodically. This drill is indicative of the quality of his research and market theories for trading index futures imho.
from Jack Hershey Jun 2 2000, 3:00 am show options
Newsgroups: misc.invest.technical
From: "Jack Hershey" - Find messages by this author
Date: 2000/06/02
Subject: 30 minute warmup bar trading.
Fundamental Money Making Concepts.
I use simple mechanical systems to get people to understand the basic
concept of making money steadily and with little or no risk.
When you trade daily for 6 1/2 hours a key thing to consider is not doing
too much to make some money.
By choosing a futures index of any sort on any exchange in the world, you
have put yourself, for 6 1/2 hours a day in a place that is truly dull and
unexciting. Being there is fairly safe and not too demanding so you can
relax and repeat a few tasks over and over to make some money.
I work first with 30 minute bars to frankly eliminate any sense of urgency.
I use the prior days last bar to get the ball rolling, or I suggest you wait
until the second begins to eliminate the end effects of the market.
Here is a progression of four mechanical methods to illustrate making money
primarily and secondarily to illustrate that losses are neatly reduced more
and more as a little sophistication enters the picture. I also introduce
how in a trend you can switch to the most favorable side of the channel to
exit. Because this is very simple and mechanical there is no need to
clutter it with a stop system as yet mostly because it an index tied to the
performance of and aggregation of stocks. We can tuck stops in easily
though as a commitment to our ordinary discipline.
The four items in the progression are:
1. break out of prior bar.
2. slope pairs of bars.
3. overlapped pairs slopes
4. retracement.
Here is the progression:
1. set up a 30 bar display for a futures index.
2. enter on the breakout beyond (above or below) the prior days last bar
hi/lo.
3. hold until the current bar breaks out of the other end (from your long or
short entry) of the prior bar.
4. hold on inside bars.
5. hold on successive bar break outs in the same trend.
6. on breakout of 3., reverse so you can take on new trend trade.
7. repeat 3. through 6. for remaining bars of the day.
8. settle at end of day.
Backtesting of the drill on tradestation for the continuous ES data produced the graph below:
<img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=852219">
What was the slippage and/or commission that was setup on this system?
What type of orders? (Limit, Stop, Market)
...
I really don't care about theories or who's right/wrong... From my observation, this test seems like it's not tested right to draw the conclusion you have made.
Quote from TSGannGalt:
What was the slippage and/or commission that was setup on this system?
Equity curves are easy to manipulate.
I think this is just the first one of a family of four equity curves chicken is doing. It has one small slip up, maybe. He may have done it with the wrong size bars (5 min as shown) or he misslabelled it as 5 min bars instead of 30 min bars.
When he gets to the second progression, one using pairs of slopes, the backtest gets more complicated.
The third progression is done with 30 minute bars on two charts where the two charts are offset by 15 minutes and pairs of slopes are involved from progression two are involved. That is a very long and involved backtest.
The fourth progression, the retrace progression, is done using an iteration of the third one.
If he posts the source of the post in 2000, then people can go there and see what was posted for the four progressions instead of just the first one which was designed to show a base line beginning point for iterative refinement and how doing refinements really improves the profit margins.
So far, we only have an equity curve based on the wrong bar durations and perhaps the wrong starting bar. We will probably not get any further than we are now.
None of this is drill oriented, it is just a learning series of four ways to mechanically trade where each one succeeds the former in level of money making. Using 15 bar days is a common beginning approach to take the heat off getting a routine going.
Attached is a third progression covering a day... it is not readable for sure but those doing it were looking at phantom bars out 15 to 30 minutes ahead of the market and seeing how the market turned at different points that day. It just conveys that real forming bars do tell you what is going on and from this you can improve your holds and profit taking by stages of improvement.
On this day, the end of the day close value projected ahead(crosshatchy red bars) and the real bar (solid orange) were coincident.
All of this stuff gets a person to see the market in vector quantities instead of scalars.
I am not holding my breath for chicken to post the html to take you to the series of posts on the four progressions nor do I think he will correct the back test to 30 minutes nor will he do the remaining three backtests to demonstrate how iterative refinement of trading bar signals work. This was in another forum unlike ET.
Have a laugh on me.
Attachments
Quote from Grob109:
Thanks for taking the trouble to do the search and to do the equity curve.
I couldn't find the post. Is there a way you can post a way to get to it?
You may want to relabel the equity curve so it is consistent with the thing you put up as what you backtested.
TIA.
The post is found by doing a google search on groups.
Limit the search to author "Jack Hershey".
At one time your posts were quite prolific on the usenet groups
misc.invest.futures and misc.invest.technical.
There is no need to relabel anything as the test of your drill shows the results of your drill as you described it precisely.
Quote from Chicken Little:
The post is found by doing a google search on groups.
Limit the search to author "Jack Hershey".
At one time your posts were quite prolific on the usenet groups
misc.invest.futures and misc.invest.technical.
There is no need to relabel anything as the test of your drill shows the results of your drill as you described it precisely.
thanks.
Your illustration is showing 5 min bars. I assume yopu used 30 min bars as you state here. All orders were market at the time of the BO on the bar, no bar data for the trades is useful except to choose the value of the BO.
Are you going to do the other three progressions?? Check the chart I posted so you know how to do the pairs of slopes.
Could you post the reference as a red thing with a red line under it? People may want to go to where you abstrated the part you did and see what was going on to use the baseline you backtested.
Quote from Grob109:
I think this is just the first one of a family of four equity curves chicken is doing. It has one small slip up, maybe. He may have done it with the wrong size bars (5 min as shown) or he misslabelled it as 5 min bars instead of 30 min bars.
When he gets to the second progression, one using pairs of slopes, the backtest gets more complicated.
The third progression is done with 30 minute bars on two charts where the two charts are offset by 15 minutes and pairs of slopes are involved from progression two are involved. That is a very long and involved backtest.
The fourth progression, the retrace progression, is done using an iteration of the third one.
If he posts the source of the post in 2000, then people can go there and see what was posted for the four progressions instead of just the first one which was designed to show a base line beginning point for iterative refinement and how doing refinements really improves the profit margins.
So far, we only have an equity curve based on the wrong bar durations and perhaps the wrong starting bar. We will probably not get any further than we are now.
None of this is drill oriented, it is just a learning series of four ways to mechanically trade where each one succeeds the former in level of money making. Using 15 bar days is a common beginning approach to take the heat off getting a routine going.
Attached is a third progression covering a day... it is not readable for sure but those doing it were looking at phantom bars out 15 to 30 minutes ahead of the market and seeing how the market turned at different points that day. It just conveys that real forming bars do tell you what is going on and from this you can improve your holds and profit taking by stages of improvement.
On this day, the end of the day close value projected ahead(crosshatchy red bars) and the real bar (solid orange) were coincident.
All of this stuff gets a person to see the market in vector quantities instead of scalars.
I am not holding my breath for chicken to post the html to take you to the series of posts on the four progressions nor do I think he will correct the back test to 30 minutes nor will he do the remaining three backtests to demonstrate how iterative refinement of trading bar signals work. This was in another forum unlike ET.
Have a laugh on me.
The test was performed on 30 minute bars precisely as described for progression # 1.
A thread describing a traders attempt to follow the remaining three progressions is found in here:
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56093
It doesn't show an improved result as it was practiced by the thread originator.
That leaves two explanations:
1) The practitioner was in error
2) the theory is flawed.
I tend to favor explanation #2.