Quote from TraderTony:
Nitro - I sense you would need to see trading statements from anyone running a chatroom before you entered that chatroom? At least I think that's what you're saying. Perhaps you are saying you would need to see trading statements before blindly following any calls from a chatroom? These are very different positions as, in the case of Woodie's room, there are no calls to follow. Of the participants, there are people trading a variety of instruments, using different time frames, and accepting different levels of risk. The common denominator is use of CCI, but different people emphasize different ways of doing this. There are no calls and there is no track record. For you and many ET posters this may make the room worthless. In any case, you are obviously fully entitled to decide that you will not enter a chatroom without being able to see 2 years of trading statements from the moderator. Trading gives us all ultimate freedom - thank goodness - and we all make our choices. But others will make their choices differently. To you, that might make them foolish, naive, negligent and so on. But they have their own criteria and may decide that they think (rightly or wrongly) that they could learn something that will improve their profitability and overall trading experience even without (perish the thought) seeing two years of trading statements from the moderator. In the same way that someone might decide that they could possible learn something from reading posts on ET, even without seeing two years worth of trading statements from each poster before reading their contribution. Might there even be a grain of possibility in this? Well, we all make our own decisions as best we can.
I suspect this actually had nothing to do with trading statements. One poster submitted his trading records for the day in question earlier in this thread but it cut no ice. After all, what is one day? Another talked of a close associated who had become consistently profitable trading the CCI but was met with posts to the effect of, well, he may be profitable but he'd be mistaken to think it was because of the CCI (just a hint of what would happen within moments of any profitable statements ever being posted me thinks). Others in the room post trades live directly from their trading front ends but these prove nothing because the majority in the room do not post and are therefore probably losers. And so it goes on. All logical arguments.
Then we had the discussion of motivation. Well, some perhaps it's enough just to prefer individuals who get their rocks off by helping others rather than hurting them, irrespective of whether their motivation is 'selfish' or not.
I have got to know and in some cases met in person a number of extremely accomplished traders through Woodie's room. Many have been professional for years, some are or used to be floor traders, others have followed the home trading root. I find it a highly valuable forum in which to develop my own trading. I have chosen to do this in the absence of seeing Woodie's trading statements. Indeed I have absolutely no interest in seeing his statements (nor Nitro's nor anyone's but me own). Perhaps that makes me the kind of fool some posters will look forward to being opposite their own trades on Monday.
From their own words, there appear to be some genuinely elite traders on this forum: "You have some real traders here at Elite, willing to view your account statements to back up what is said". I applaud the good intentions in protecting vulnerable traders from being ripped off (if there's not just the tinniest degree of contradiction here) and the admirable sense of self worth. And I am sure I will never be fit to pick up the scraps discarded by traders as successful as Nitro.
I have learned much over recent months reading posts and threads on ET. Likewise, I learn every time I spend time in Woodie's room. I find both excellent resources offering advice, opinions, ideas and so on but at the end of the day we all make our own choices (I hope) - that's why we're all traders.