Well the bad news just keeps on coming doesn’t it!
I work up this morning to yet more bad news about the economy and FTSE opened down around 2%. Thankfully as short term traders we have the ability to ride the markets in either direction. Timing these moves is of course another question!
One man who makes it look ridiculously easy is Alan Rich. I was invited by George Hallmey of www.clickthemarkets.com to come along to their A-Z of US day trading seminar near Heathrow Airport. It’s just down the road from me (a very congested road), so I was more than happy to accept his invitation.
Alan Rich shares his trading wisdom in his recent seminar
Alan Rich day trades US shares, which means he takes trades that last anything from a second to the whole day. He trades shares like Apple and Ebay – shares that move quicker than anything the UK has to offer.
It was a good seminar and I certainly took away something from it. Alan used to run a trading floor in the city and he was full of practical tips on how to manage your own trades. When it comes to day trading, Alan has an interesting way of managing his money. Many books focus on technical analysis and entry/exit points, but few focus on trading to make money.
Alan flips this around and tells you to make a target each day and trade based on this not what’s happening in the market. Once you hit your target, stop trading, simple as that. He also drilled into us the need to decide on the sort of trade you’ll be making in advance.
Will you go for a quick move, an intermediate move or an all day hold?
You then need to manage the trade differently depending on the approach you’re going to take. Whichever you do, you need to decide in advance because doing it as the trade progresses is almost impossible because of the stress you are under in a trade. Alan moves his stop to beak even as soon as possible then lets the trade run and exist based on the sort of trade he decided on in advance.
It was a lively session with him showing us how he shouts at himself when in a trade to ensure he knows exactly what he’s doing. Sounds crazy, but I tell you it works. When you are tough with your self you make less hazy decisions. Knowing what you’ll do in advance helps you do make that call in the thick of it.
I can imagine Alan’s trading floor being a very lively one!
In the afternoon we did some live trading, taking some good money out of Apple. Alan of course was shouting at us (in a good way) testing us, asking us what we wanted to do at different points of the trade. Alan drinks a lot of coffee, I’m sure there’s a connection there!
We were also introduced to Alan’s gravity bar software which reduces the trading bars to two colours, blue and red. Blue for up, red for down. I’ve had good reports on this system on various markets from US stocks to forex. There was a retired couple there who were using the software already and were very impressed with it.
I’ll try to organise a trial with view to a review and report back ASAP.
Turn £100 into £5,600 in ten weeks
My publisher (Nick Laight) has just handed details of a new training course he’s backing. With just 5 places available to Market Maven readers, I thought you might want to get more details.
This is the one-day seminar hosted by Roxanne Cross (a self taught and highly successful trader) followed by 6 months of personal training. The seminar will take place on Friday 25th July with students taken on a first come first served basis.
Roxanne has the express aim of helping each and every one of her new students turn £100 into at least £5,600 in just 10 weeks spread betting forex, indices or commodities.
Now that’s quite a challenge! I’ve been handed quite a few validated testimonials from her previous course attendees. They certainly seem a happy bunch!
“I started with £100 and traded £1 per point. I gradually increased my bets to £12 per point . . . My current capital is nearly £7,000.” Jozef Hrbek
“Top course – Top trainer. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED” Gavin Mahon
“Her training is excellent and her techniques will enable anyone to deposit good money into their accounts daily. Her support is also very attentive as she will support you daily until you succeed. I recommend anyone who wants to make a good living in trading to see Roxy and then follow every rule and technique that you learn from her and you will succeed.” H.P. London
“Roxanne’s strategy definitely works!” Chris Underhill
“At last a system that ‘does what it says on the tin’!! Roxanne has developed a personal system of trading that is incredibly successful..” Tony Carter
I will send you more details on Thursday, but if you want to get in earlier, please email Nick Laight for full details [email protected]
Systems systems systems
I’ve had some fantastic feedback from members on various systems.
The biggest praise I’ve received has been for Julie Hatch, which was surprising because I never knew she was providing a service to members. In a previous edition of What Really Profits, Julie outlined her method of using pivot points to trade the Dow. Julie made her email address available for anyone who wanted further help.
She never intended to start a service, but was overwhelmed by the response she got from the article and started helping members with support and mentoring. She made the right decision by the sound of it, I’ve got two glowing testimonials as long as my arm with people extremely happy with Julie’s services. Julie is still taking on clients, but she does seem to be a very personal service, so its only on a first come, first served basis. So if you are interested in trading the Dow, email Julie at [email protected].
On the Forex front, I’m still using TUFXP and FX53 for different trades and am impressed with both of them.
The Wizard has had a tricky few days, but these are longer-term trades and I’m sure they’ll turn around. I’ve one member trialling the US stocks version of the software, so I look forward to hearing about his progress.
I’ve now got a copy of the 10-minute forex wealth builder. It’s relatively simple to get to grips with and the feedback I’ve had from other members is very positive.
Forexbacklash is also getting good reports from the members trialling it.
Magical forex gets poor reports, which is inline with my own experience. It really looked like a system that was big on theory, but had probably never been traded by the author. It happens more often than you’d think, believe me.
I’ve been hammering at the door of ConceptFX for weeks now but keep getting the brush off. This in itself is not a sign of anything untoward, but it doesn’t engender confidence when the software itself costs a few grand. The software is marketed by the same people who produced TradeWin which seems to be like marmite. Some people report that it has made them good money, while others report it has lost money over the last 6 months. With both Tradewin and Concept FX there is no money back guarantee, so until I get a response from ConceptFX I’ll be avoiding this one.
My trades
My filters for TUFXP came into their own over the last week, bringing in around 30 pips overall on the week. Not bad considering I missed two days going the trading seminar and taking a day off to see Jack Johnson in Hyde Park!
I’ve had a number of questions about the filters, so here are my thoughts. I don’t think the system was designed for you to take every signal, in the DVDs Keith talks about combing signals from different time frames. Unless told that a system should be followed to the absolute letter, I like to apply my own method to a system, this way I feel I have more of a contribution to have it works.
Thanks to a member who was one of the original UFXP beta testers, I applied a moving average of 60 periods. To add this click on moving averages then edit. It’s a bit flexible, but basically I only trade with then the PTP appears on a bar close to the moving average.
The logic is that if it is too far away, it has already moved. If it is close to average, it might stop being average soon. I don’t trade if the moving average is flat because things might be too choppy.
My PTP is set to 6. I trade the trailing stop not the scalp trades because I think the scalp trades are affected by the spread. That’s the way I trade it and it works fine for me, but you might find a method that suits you better. Overall, I find the strike rate to be roughly 50%, but the winners are on average bigger than the losers. Unless a trading system is completely set in stone, don’t be afraid to experiment and put your own stamp on it.
Elsewhere, www.tradewithpros.com have produced some phenomenal trades recently. They used options to leverage up on long trades of DBS and DGL, which have made gains of around 50% each. There have been some other smaller losers, but those two have kept me smiling. DBS and DGL are shares that track the price of Gold and Silver.
I’m still long oil. My stop is a $1 above break even ($136) so a small profit no matter what. I’ve got a $150 target and I’m going to stick to it rather than bring the stop up. I’ll find out which was the better option soon enough!
The Wizard has initiated a long trade on the GBP/ USD. I’m only paper testing this one, but for the record, the entry point was 1.9755 and the stop is 1.96838. The 1st target is 2.054. I’ll The system is also long the EUR/GBP. The entry point was 0.797, the stop is 0.7888 with no targets. I’ll keep you updated!
This week’s hot trading buttons
Tomorrow, we provisionally have the UK Halifax Price Index delayed from last week. On the same note, US pending home sales are released on today at 3.00 PM. Bad news is expected for both, the only question being how bad the news actually is.
The week’s top ticket trading is the MPC interest statement on Thursday. The Bank of England is still stuck between a rock and a hard place, with record oil prices driving inflation, and slowing consumer spending hurting the economy. A no change verdict is widely expected to be the more likely course of action.
Trading wisdom
“The three traits speculators must learn to manage within themselves are confidence, fear, and aggressiveness.” Larry Williams
