Many years ago, a lifetime ago for many, I bought Dr. Alexander Elder's fine first book "Trading for a Living." Little did I realize then that my circumstances would change so drastically for the worse that I would need to be "Trading to Live." Loss of easy mobility led to loss of ease of work which led to an unwanted retirement. The French call that unhappy state "en retraite," which means literally "in retreat." My prior market interest in investment, whatever we thought that was, quickly changed from steady growth and dividends to making a fast buck. Let's see...I make about $65 a day from Social Security (yes, my brave little ones, keep working to cover my benefits!)...so if I can make that much every day I can double my standard of living! How hard can that be? Lots of people here say that index futures will turn the trick. So I got me a data service. Got me a futures brokerage account. Integrated the two. And volila! I am ready to hit it, see the attached chart. You are looking at the finished product, as I had to make ther color of the up bars the same as the color of the buy button so as not to be confused. See red, punch red. See blue, punch blue. I can do this!
Trading to Live
- Thread starter Fleming Snopes
- Start date
I am telling this story in retrospect for clarity. So this morning, I sees red, I punches red. I sees blue, I punches blue. Result attached. It IS easy, and Social Security don't care that I made some easy money. If I can make money with that simple system, imagine what I can do if I add some more rules!
will you solely trade the NQ?
I don't have a choice. It is the only index future I can trade with IB's minimum account deposit. Good thing this is so easy. I was worried about blowing my account. Lotsa people here said that was a serious risk with beginning futures traders. That woulda been a month's Social Security down the toilet. Short rations. No heat. No Saturday bingo.
Can you believe it? My data provider is so dumb they color unchanged bars like up bars! And they've been around how many years? This is very distressing, because I thought I was OK to punch blue if I saw blue and I had already punched red. But no, first I'd have to look to see if it was really supposed to be blue. So I called customer support. I was hung out so long I needed support of the athaletic kind. Finally, after apparently picking himself up off the floor from laughing several times, Mr. So-Called-Support said I'd have to write code to fix THEIR mistake! Can you believe it? So I did. And you can see from the attachment that I have a new set of trade rules:
punch blue if it was red unless it's black
punch red if it was blue unless it's black.
Code example to follow. This is gittin' ta be not so easy.
punch blue if it was red unless it's black
punch red if it was blue unless it's black.
Code example to follow. This is gittin' ta be not so easy.
Now you may laugh all you want, but I am mighty steamed that I had ta write code. Hain't done that since I was at collich in the glass palace of the high-and-mighty white-coated snot-nosed software department pecking out Algol code on a card punch machine. Only reason I tuk the course was it was the only air conditioned buildin' on campus. Anyhoo, here is my first code. I tell ya, it was not very damn easy! And I'm beginnin' to wonder if tradin' is really for me. But I'm gonna give it one more day. Awreddy put this month's Social check into the IB account. Lord knows how long it'd take to git it back from those tight-fisted bastards.
Go get 'em Fleming. I'll be watching with interest. Good luck.
Thankee for the 'courgemint. This first day been downright rough. I run the numbers, an' I'm doin' all the work an' everbody else is takin' the money. More on that later after I get out a this here swoon.
Most of the people your age are blowing much more than 65 bucks a day in the casinos, so I would advise forget the sim and try to make some cash. If you blow all your cash, you can probably count on your children 
or an Obama "cash for degenerate gamblers" handout. Good luck trading.
or an Obama "cash for degenerate gamblers" handout. Good luck trading.