Getting Half the Juice - from Boris Schlossberg and Kathy Lien of GFT Forex
The longer you trade the markets the more you realize that the only absolute in the game exists on the downside. What I mean, is that the only factor that we can control with any degree of consistency is our losses. Most people of course believe they can control profits and that is perhaps the most naive belief of all. I'll never forget one time sharing a cab downtown with well known colleague who opined in no uncertain terms that he never takes trades with less than 3 to 1 risk reward ratio. I remember feeling uncomfortable at the time with his utter conviction that this was the only way to trade and only much later realized that this man must have never put his own money on the line because his premise was laughably unrealistic.
In real trading there is no such thing as 2 to 1 trades or 3 to 1 trades because you never know ahead of time how much money the market will give you. It is an utter act of hubris to think that just because you want to make 100 points of reward for every 30 points of risk you will actually achieve it. The 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 risk/reward trades are what they teach you trading books, and of course as so often the case what looks great in theory is actually remarkably dumb in practice. As the greatest philosopher since Plato once noted "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
Last week I spoke about the need to set minimum targets and stick to them. However when it comes to maximum gains - the game is always open ended. Sometimes you hit a home run, sometimes a double and sometimes you just have to satisfied with a dribbling bunt. (For all our non North American readers I apologize for the profusion of baseball metaphors) but I think everyone gets the general idea - YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOUR PROFITS, YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL YOUR POSITIONS.
Sometimes when you squeeze a lemon you only get half the juice, and trading can be very much the same way. In practice, most traders scale out of their trades, taking some profit as it comes. In fact when you read our Millionaire Traders book the one unifying theme amongst most of our interview subjects be they trend followers or trend faders, long term or short term traders was that they always scaled out of their winners. Certainty and arrogance is for amateurs. Professionals play the probabilities and always remain flexible and open to the markets.
2008-08-23
Finally, I got wiped out today after several days struggle
I read this note from one forex forum with sorrows. This student just picked up a forex trading class. He said in the forum that he could not control himself. He could not remove any emotion. He could not follow all the strategies and rules. He knew the danger but yet he continued to do it. He told himself he needed to stop not following the rules but he could not do it.
He shared in the forum about what happened a few nights ago. All the indicators were showing the strong uptrend. Yet, he was going for short position. When his trade was stopped, he went to short position again when there was signs of retracement. Worst still, he placed an order without profit target and stop loss. He admitted that he is gambling. So, in the end, his account was wiped out within merely 2 days.
He is in depression mode. He is remorseful and embarassed. An now he is asking others for help, in particular how to control his emotion.
As far as I am conerned, this is a classic example of why an aspiring trader can easily fail after paying for a seminar. A retail trader has a high tendency to approach trading in the wrong way. He trades without a plan. He trades with emotion, greed and fear. A seminar in itself is not in the position to put a newbie in the position of a professional trader. Instead, the newbie has to take control and makes a decision to follow the rules, and trade with a plan. If he fails, he cannot blame the seminar, the course provider, and the instructor. From this newbie's note, he did not blame anyone. So, it is indeed a good sign. He knows his weakness. He just does not know how to do it. In my mind, there is still hope on this newbie. He had a painful lesson and he will learn from his mistakes.
So, how can we help him? Actually, no one except him can help himself. Why? It is because like I said above, he has to take charge of the outcome. Maybe he should stop trading for a while. Maybe he should start again by paper trading in a demo account. Prove to himself that he can make consistent money before funding a new account. It's very obvious that instructors keep telling newbies not to put real money to trade but practise in demo account first. Not many people I know will follow the rules. In my case, I never trade a system unless I have backtested it and paper trade for a while. Only when I see consistent returns I will put my first $ at risk.. Some people call me nuts and some people disagree with me. Honestly, I don't give a damn. Why? At the end of the day, I am accountable to myself, not to the others. So, why am I concerned with what other people said?
I wish this newbie a successful trading career. Don't give up and take massive action to deal with the psychology part. Like what Conrad and I said to our respective students, it is trading psychology that brings success to a professional trader.
I read this note from one forex forum with sorrows. This student just picked up a forex trading class. He said in the forum that he could not control himself. He could not remove any emotion. He could not follow all the strategies and rules. He knew the danger but yet he continued to do it. He told himself he needed to stop not following the rules but he could not do it.
He shared in the forum about what happened a few nights ago. All the indicators were showing the strong uptrend. Yet, he was going for short position. When his trade was stopped, he went to short position again when there was signs of retracement. Worst still, he placed an order without profit target and stop loss. He admitted that he is gambling. So, in the end, his account was wiped out within merely 2 days.
He is in depression mode. He is remorseful and embarassed. An now he is asking others for help, in particular how to control his emotion.
As far as I am conerned, this is a classic example of why an aspiring trader can easily fail after paying for a seminar. A retail trader has a high tendency to approach trading in the wrong way. He trades without a plan. He trades with emotion, greed and fear. A seminar in itself is not in the position to put a newbie in the position of a professional trader. Instead, the newbie has to take control and makes a decision to follow the rules, and trade with a plan. If he fails, he cannot blame the seminar, the course provider, and the instructor. From this newbie's note, he did not blame anyone. So, it is indeed a good sign. He knows his weakness. He just does not know how to do it. In my mind, there is still hope on this newbie. He had a painful lesson and he will learn from his mistakes.
So, how can we help him? Actually, no one except him can help himself. Why? It is because like I said above, he has to take charge of the outcome. Maybe he should stop trading for a while. Maybe he should start again by paper trading in a demo account. Prove to himself that he can make consistent money before funding a new account. It's very obvious that instructors keep telling newbies not to put real money to trade but practise in demo account first. Not many people I know will follow the rules. In my case, I never trade a system unless I have backtested it and paper trade for a while. Only when I see consistent returns I will put my first $ at risk.. Some people call me nuts and some people disagree with me. Honestly, I don't give a damn. Why? At the end of the day, I am accountable to myself, not to the others. So, why am I concerned with what other people said?
I wish this newbie a successful trading career. Don't give up and take massive action to deal with the psychology part. Like what Conrad and I said to our respective students, it is trading psychology that brings success to a professional trader.
2008-08-22
Increase our edge in directional trading - sector analysis
Kudos to Mike Wade and the technical support team of Hubb Corporation in Sydney, 2-day seminar students in Singapore and Hong Kong have the knowledge of sector analysis, and for those folks who purchased Profitsource (http://www.profitsource.com), they can even enjoy the new Sector Scan which is currently available to students elsewhere at ICT and ITT levels.
Have you ever heard a complaint like Wave Theory does not work or Profitsource sucks?
"i have hat lot of failed trades with my profit source for the last 2months, i would like to know what i did wrong. eg i bought lots of wave4 trade that went the exact opposite and i have lot quite some money in the process, what should i do as am starting to doubt the process"
In the past, as this student politely said, I will reply this way:
"Profitsource W4 setups are just that: SETUPS. There is no guarantee they will turn into great profits. It is of most importance that you have a trade plan before you open position. Having exit points when things go wrong saves you money. Adjustment points when things go your way will save you a lot of frustration. If you are up $7K and end up loosing $4k is highly irritable, you need to take care of your winners so you can win more but limit your losses.
Once you are in a trade, it doesn’t matter what EW formation you see on PS. By then you have predefined exit/adjustment points.
There is always a chance that if you can be right about what the underlying is going to do and loose money on options. Learning more about how options work should eliminate that danger."
Here is what I would have said in the past:
"I strongly suggest taking advanced seminars. I was struggling for two years, then after ICT, ITT and POMM I was able to become a full time trader in 14 months. Yes I had to do homework as well as sacrifice vacation time to attend seminars and OASIS; however, telling my employer that my last day on a job will be 9/12/08…priceless."
However, as an instructor now, I know I should not reply with emotion and insist others to follow what I am doing. At the same time, I know very well that if something is not working, I may not be convinced to get additional education as a means to change my strategy. There are more costs involved and not everyone is ready to do so. Grateful to Mike because he studied sector analysis and found that it works well to increase his hit in directional trading.
In this respect, the 2-day Singapore and Hong Kong seminars in July 2008 incorporated sector analysis as part of the agenda. This agenda is exclusive to only Singapore and Hong Kong students as far as I know. The sector analysis discussion is only available to other students who are at ICT and ITT levels (which means they have to pay to get such knowledge).
So, what should a student do? He should start looking at the sector analysis to understand how smart money flows from one sector to another sector. He should understand how different sectors react at a prevailing time or at a particular market condition. This is the starting point.
As part of the identification of trading opportunities, 2-day seminar students may considerfocusing on
1. Strong stocks in the strongest sectors that display a Wave 4 Buy set-up, or a bullish break-out set-up
2. Weak stocks in the weakest sectors that disaply a Wave 4 Sell set-up or a bearish break-out set-up
The amount of trades obviously will be reduced but the hit rate increases, and this is something I discovered over my backtesting. My hit rate in July on sector directional trading is 80% correct, and suddenly a non-directional trader like myself finds the niche and confidence to come back to directional trading. Do I need to take additional courses to do that? Not really. At the end of the day, additional education is useful in helping us to improve our skill. But nothing comes with building confidence based on the basic stuff that still works well. A 2-day student does not need to any advanced courses to gain this experience. Just come to any of our 2-day seminars either in Singapore and Hong Kong, which is free re-attendance to them. So, why paid $4,000 to get something that may potential be free.
Our next 2-day class is scheduled to be in Singapore on 23/24 Oct and in Hong Kong on 28/29 Oct. If you are an existing Optionetics 2-day student living in Asia, you may consider taking action to see us.
Kudos to Mike Wade and the technical support team of Hubb Corporation in Sydney, 2-day seminar students in Singapore and Hong Kong have the knowledge of sector analysis, and for those folks who purchased Profitsource (http://www.profitsource.com), they can even enjoy the new Sector Scan which is currently available to students elsewhere at ICT and ITT levels.
Have you ever heard a complaint like Wave Theory does not work or Profitsource sucks?
"i have hat lot of failed trades with my profit source for the last 2months, i would like to know what i did wrong. eg i bought lots of wave4 trade that went the exact opposite and i have lot quite some money in the process, what should i do as am starting to doubt the process"
In the past, as this student politely said, I will reply this way:
"Profitsource W4 setups are just that: SETUPS. There is no guarantee they will turn into great profits. It is of most importance that you have a trade plan before you open position. Having exit points when things go wrong saves you money. Adjustment points when things go your way will save you a lot of frustration. If you are up $7K and end up loosing $4k is highly irritable, you need to take care of your winners so you can win more but limit your losses.
Once you are in a trade, it doesn’t matter what EW formation you see on PS. By then you have predefined exit/adjustment points.
There is always a chance that if you can be right about what the underlying is going to do and loose money on options. Learning more about how options work should eliminate that danger."
Here is what I would have said in the past:
"I strongly suggest taking advanced seminars. I was struggling for two years, then after ICT, ITT and POMM I was able to become a full time trader in 14 months. Yes I had to do homework as well as sacrifice vacation time to attend seminars and OASIS; however, telling my employer that my last day on a job will be 9/12/08…priceless."
However, as an instructor now, I know I should not reply with emotion and insist others to follow what I am doing. At the same time, I know very well that if something is not working, I may not be convinced to get additional education as a means to change my strategy. There are more costs involved and not everyone is ready to do so. Grateful to Mike because he studied sector analysis and found that it works well to increase his hit in directional trading.
In this respect, the 2-day Singapore and Hong Kong seminars in July 2008 incorporated sector analysis as part of the agenda. This agenda is exclusive to only Singapore and Hong Kong students as far as I know. The sector analysis discussion is only available to other students who are at ICT and ITT levels (which means they have to pay to get such knowledge).
So, what should a student do? He should start looking at the sector analysis to understand how smart money flows from one sector to another sector. He should understand how different sectors react at a prevailing time or at a particular market condition. This is the starting point.
As part of the identification of trading opportunities, 2-day seminar students may considerfocusing on
1. Strong stocks in the strongest sectors that display a Wave 4 Buy set-up, or a bullish break-out set-up
2. Weak stocks in the weakest sectors that disaply a Wave 4 Sell set-up or a bearish break-out set-up
The amount of trades obviously will be reduced but the hit rate increases, and this is something I discovered over my backtesting. My hit rate in July on sector directional trading is 80% correct, and suddenly a non-directional trader like myself finds the niche and confidence to come back to directional trading. Do I need to take additional courses to do that? Not really. At the end of the day, additional education is useful in helping us to improve our skill. But nothing comes with building confidence based on the basic stuff that still works well. A 2-day student does not need to any advanced courses to gain this experience. Just come to any of our 2-day seminars either in Singapore and Hong Kong, which is free re-attendance to them. So, why paid $4,000 to get something that may potential be free.
Our next 2-day class is scheduled to be in Singapore on 23/24 Oct and in Hong Kong on 28/29 Oct. If you are an existing Optionetics 2-day student living in Asia, you may consider taking action to see us.
2008-08-21
I am not defending for Optionetics. I am only talking about business and commercial sense
I was engaged in a dialogue in my discussion board with an Optionetics student from the US. She wrote to me a long post:
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I was engaged in a dialogue in my discussion board with an Optionetics student from the US. She wrote to me a long post:
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I am happy for you to be part of the Optionetics, being its official teacher. I’m not so happy for the newbie’s out there. When you were just a regular “student” you were more open, more helpful. When I was studying your BMIC, seeing you post your live trades or even trades that just closed, it was very helpful. Now your response to most questions is that you cannot do it anymore, because you are Optionetics teacher. How that suppose to help the new student? Just another student (you 2 years ago) could do it, and now you, the official teacher cannot help as much as you were able to do short time ago? For the sake of new students, please, quit being a teacher, and become just another student again. It will benefit them more, like it did me.
My original education on the Iron Condor started with Don Fishback. That’s where I learned the formula to compute the Expected Move, that I believe is the most accurate, since it comes straight from the Black-Scholes options pricing model. Any time some student asks about the EM formula, he is being told “it’s a big secret, unless you pay another 3-4 grand and come to a POMM class”.
How about just pointing the curious student to some books? You just said in your previous post that you cannot say anything about non Optionetics books. My question then is “Is Optionetics also in the books sale business, not only in seminar business?” What about books by Charles Cottle, his older one CWS or the newer one OTTHR? Would pointing them to students prevent them from going and paying for POMM class? Or maybe these books would motivate them even more to go to that class?
After studying Don Fishback’s Iron Condors, I also was studying from Keith Fitz-Gerald, before running into Dan Sheridan and you. At the same time, because lucky me I live around
That’s another beef that I have with yours and all the other teachers answers when somebody asks “Which is the best broker to use?” I was invited to attend Expert class in
While I can understand that at least you guys, the official Optionetics teachers should not discuss the other teaching companies, like Pristine.com or Randomwalktrading.com how about just saying that RWT has good books (and I have written proof that some of the Optionetics teachers were/are contributing writers to their monthly articles). While I’m not impressed with Pristine’s options side education, their technical analysis is very good, as pointed already about a year ago on discussion boards by another Optionetics student (who luckily for us did not become a teacher ;>)
Most of the students are honest, hard working at their option education and not looking only for freebies (like our friend Bok, the CPA ;>) Sometimes just the seminar is not enough; I for example had read at least 100 books on TA, options, psychology of trading etc… I attended some other options seminars, besides the ones by TOS. I’m on the mailing/seminar list of Nison, Bigalow, OptionsUniversity, etc… Point them to those materials, so they can study in the confines of their homes, have different point of view, some questions explained different way. I believe that no wrong will come Optionetics way doing this. They will appreciate more the company who REALLY has the students best on its mind, not only its account receivable.
I will end it there for tonight. I hope you and all others will look at my series of posts as not me complaining, but trying to see the real Optionetics – Empowering Investors company, that I believed it to be over 5 years ago during my 2 hours free introductory seminar.
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I thanked this student who provided me with the honest feedback. There are lots of restrictions or business ethics as to why Optionetics is not in the position to fulfil the wishes of newbies. Whatever it does, it will never please everyone on the planet. So, may I have the permission to explain:
1. As a company that provides educational services (and not a charitable organization), the employees and contractors have to be paid. No one does charity work in this business anyway. Accordingly, Optionetics has to be run as a business, i.e. a profitable venture. Having said that, it has strong business ethics. It has its students/customers to be concerned. Students' success brings into Optionetics the intangibles, and its reputation. Therefore, from a business perspective, I don't understand why there are still people who lack the business mindset and insist that a company such as Optionetics is morally wrong in selling educational services. It is the corporate objective to be in this business and it is a business proposition.
2. While Thinkorswim is a licensed broker based in the US, it does not have a license to operate in Singapore. On record, only Optionsxpress and E-trade have license to operate in Singapore as brokers. In this respect, it is not possible to recommend Thinkorswim as a broker in an event held in Singapore. To do so will put the company in trouble as the Monetary Authority of Singapore will be after the company. Moreover, as far as I know, Thinkorswim or any other unlicensed brokers are unable to provide any form of solicitation and demonstration of their platform in an event held in Singapore. If so, the Monetary Authority of Singapore will also be after them.
3. From a business perspective, other service providers are actually the company's competitors. So, like Warren Buffett looking for a valued stock, the third criterion is that a company must display a strong economic moat. So, how can a company running a business mention other competitors' products or services in its own event. It simply does not make any business sense.
While I appreciated that student's effort in bringing up many points, what is missing is a sound business proposition, and commercial sense. As I am running my own business, these things are very obvious to me.
2008-08-19
It takes all sorts of traders to make this world
I am still in the process of recovering from the two full days of invovlement in Invest Fair 2008. I was at my Optionetics' booth, with the aim of meeting prospective students (or appropriately put, options traders wannabies). I shared with my teammates in Skilled Builders Group meeting last night on two interesting stories I had in this event.
Story 1: Meeting a student who had previously signed up for the 2-day seminar but eventually gave up
I met with this student who previously signed up for the 2-day intermediate seminar (i.e. the package that includes our Home Study Course and free life-time reattendance). He was one of the members of the 95% Club. In other words, he failed to continue with the program. When I asked him why he failed, the response was as follows:
"I am not as smart as you"
"I am not a lawyer"
"I am not a university gradutate"
"Options is too difficult for me. I don't understand the concept"
Do you think the response is fair? You may be able to understand why there are so many people in the end who decide to give up. The response was far too negative. It is precisely why these people will fail because they constantly put their mind into unresourceful state. One major challenge for professional traders is to avoid negativity (or stay in the resourceful and positive state). That is the mindset of professional traders. So, good luck with this fellow student and hope he will do something he likes.
Story 2: Seniority in trading - does it matter?
This may be a good one laugh after all. One participant in the Fair came to our booth and asked whether our program (Profitsource) has any proprietary indicator. I explained that Profitsource does not have any propreitary information because it is just a software to allow the users to do technical analysis. I then explained to him that I trade forex without even using any technical indicators at all. He was a bit shocked and asked me how many years of experience I had in trading. When I mentioned that I had a few years of experience, he said that the fact that I enjoyed my success for a short period of time does not mean anything. I was a bit surprised to hear that because if this gentleman has been in this business for 25 years, why is he still looking for propreitary indicator? Does it matter if one has been in this business for many years? Does seniority mean success? Go figure out. I was laughing behind his back because I could not believe that a trader with 25 years of trading experience is still searching for the Holy Grail.
More to come!
I am still in the process of recovering from the two full days of invovlement in Invest Fair 2008. I was at my Optionetics' booth, with the aim of meeting prospective students (or appropriately put, options traders wannabies). I shared with my teammates in Skilled Builders Group meeting last night on two interesting stories I had in this event.
Story 1: Meeting a student who had previously signed up for the 2-day seminar but eventually gave up
I met with this student who previously signed up for the 2-day intermediate seminar (i.e. the package that includes our Home Study Course and free life-time reattendance). He was one of the members of the 95% Club. In other words, he failed to continue with the program. When I asked him why he failed, the response was as follows:
"I am not as smart as you"
"I am not a lawyer"
"I am not a university gradutate"
"Options is too difficult for me. I don't understand the concept"
Do you think the response is fair? You may be able to understand why there are so many people in the end who decide to give up. The response was far too negative. It is precisely why these people will fail because they constantly put their mind into unresourceful state. One major challenge for professional traders is to avoid negativity (or stay in the resourceful and positive state). That is the mindset of professional traders. So, good luck with this fellow student and hope he will do something he likes.
Story 2: Seniority in trading - does it matter?
This may be a good one laugh after all. One participant in the Fair came to our booth and asked whether our program (Profitsource) has any proprietary indicator. I explained that Profitsource does not have any propreitary information because it is just a software to allow the users to do technical analysis. I then explained to him that I trade forex without even using any technical indicators at all. He was a bit shocked and asked me how many years of experience I had in trading. When I mentioned that I had a few years of experience, he said that the fact that I enjoyed my success for a short period of time does not mean anything. I was a bit surprised to hear that because if this gentleman has been in this business for 25 years, why is he still looking for propreitary indicator? Does it matter if one has been in this business for many years? Does seniority mean success? Go figure out. I was laughing behind his back because I could not believe that a trader with 25 years of trading experience is still searching for the Holy Grail.
More to come!
2008-08-15
Full-time Trader? Does a full-time trader need to trade full time?
Come across the following questions from Conrad's Board which was raised by an aspiring forex trader. This guy asked
"I have some doubts whether to be a full-time Forex trader after 1 year.
i) My friends told me that it takes as much as S$100k to trade in Forex market.
ii) There is no guarantee to make money in Forex. Otherwise, people will have quitted and traded full-time at home.
iii) Is it a must to work a trading firm to gain experience?
Kindly advise a lost soul like me.
Thank you."
How will you respond if you were asked to answer these questions?
Ans: Yes, your friends are correct in that you need to take as much as $100k to trade in forex market. But where is the leverage? Do you understand the concept of leverage which can be a double-edged sword. It can work for you and against you. So, go figure out what leverage means in forex market and how you should apply leverage correctly.
There is no crystal ball out there. I don't even know what to eat tonight. Let alone what I am doing tomorrow. However, does a full-time trader really need to trade full-time? It has always been a FAQ and a $64K question. I won't sacrifice a 9-5 job because I will trade from 10-4 at night. It is simply switching the work clock. It does not make sense. While a lot of folks have painted a 24x5 feature in forex market, do understand that there are certain hours where the market moves fast for you to make money. I place my forex trades only at 8AM when Tokyo is open, 2PM when Frankfurt is open and 3PM when London is open. So, I don't need to trade forex full time as I have better things to fill my non-forex trading hours. Attend Wealth Academy to understand the concept of primary source income and multiple stream of income. It will blow your mind.
The last question is whether it is a must to work in a trading firm to gain experience. Straight answer is "no". One can gain experience by doing the following:
1. Learn the skill by making mistakes in the martket.
2. Get education to learn the skill, paper trade to gain experience and increase confidence level.
At the end of the day, there are too many folks out there who want to take advantage of the quick-to-be-rich scheme. Here is another classic example!
Come across the following questions from Conrad's Board which was raised by an aspiring forex trader. This guy asked
"I have some doubts whether to be a full-time Forex trader after 1 year.
i) My friends told me that it takes as much as S$100k to trade in Forex market.
ii) There is no guarantee to make money in Forex. Otherwise, people will have quitted and traded full-time at home.
iii) Is it a must to work a trading firm to gain experience?
Kindly advise a lost soul like me.
Thank you."
How will you respond if you were asked to answer these questions?
Ans: Yes, your friends are correct in that you need to take as much as $100k to trade in forex market. But where is the leverage? Do you understand the concept of leverage which can be a double-edged sword. It can work for you and against you. So, go figure out what leverage means in forex market and how you should apply leverage correctly.
There is no crystal ball out there. I don't even know what to eat tonight. Let alone what I am doing tomorrow. However, does a full-time trader really need to trade full-time? It has always been a FAQ and a $64K question. I won't sacrifice a 9-5 job because I will trade from 10-4 at night. It is simply switching the work clock. It does not make sense. While a lot of folks have painted a 24x5 feature in forex market, do understand that there are certain hours where the market moves fast for you to make money. I place my forex trades only at 8AM when Tokyo is open, 2PM when Frankfurt is open and 3PM when London is open. So, I don't need to trade forex full time as I have better things to fill my non-forex trading hours. Attend Wealth Academy to understand the concept of primary source income and multiple stream of income. It will blow your mind.
The last question is whether it is a must to work in a trading firm to gain experience. Straight answer is "no". One can gain experience by doing the following:
1. Learn the skill by making mistakes in the martket.
2. Get education to learn the skill, paper trade to gain experience and increase confidence level.
At the end of the day, there are too many folks out there who want to take advantage of the quick-to-be-rich scheme. Here is another classic example!
2008-08-14
The $4K Forex Course in Singapore
"The worst fx training ever given by a local company. You trade in order to earn 2 - 3pips per trade! Don't ever join them! You will be cheated 3.5k. I happened"
"I attended XXX and my take on them is they teach retracement. A course in retracement is not worth $400 not to mention $4000!"
"Recently i attended a seminar by XXX too... sounds interesting... but when it comes to the course fees for 2 days... its almost $5k! (round up) Is that too expensive? Or, is there value for it (for anyone who has attended before)."
Many folks in Singapore must be confronted with rising cost of living. Hence, some daring folks are looking around for quick to be rich scheme. There is a variety of schemes available in Singapore - stocks, options, futures, forex etc. You name it, Singapore has it.
Out of curiosity, one of my trading buddies asked me for websites on forex education. It prompted me to one and I saw some folks discuss the forex courses that are conducted in Singapore. In fact, my trading buddies overseas asked me how I got my forex trading education. What I told them was that Singapore ranks Number 2 in the world int terms of the number of forex traders. So, we are spoilt by choice.
I am a firm believer of education before putting money at risk. So, I was one of those who paid a few thousand dollars for these courses. I did not do only one but a few courses over the period of three months. I also plan to do a popular forex course next month, after I postponed it for three times because of my overseas assignments in options teaching. I also have plan to do an advanced forex course in the first half of 2009.
So, does it work for me after paying a few thousand dollars on forex education? The real answer is that these courses work. Why are they not working for some people? To be frank, I believe it is people that make these courses not work. Why? Let me ask your these questions. Why do you trade? If your answer is "money", then please run. Don't walk away. As my mentor, Tom Gentile, said, money is the result of successful traders and should never be a goal.
Money itself does not motivate us to do something. It's the emotion we attach to the money that drives us. Something I learnt in Patterns of Excellence @ AKLTG. So, if you haven't figured out the answer to "why trade?, perhaps you should not spend that kind of money to get education. You are not even ready to start a trading business.
As far as I am concerned, that course which a lot of folks have negative feedback works for me extremely well. To be frank, Dr. Lim has given me a lot of inspiration simply because he is a believer of looking at the price chart without using any technical indicators. When I was asked by others how I trade forex, my response is I don't use any technical indicators at all. One guy questioned me and sought confirmation. I re-confirmed that I don't even use an indicator such as moving average. How amazing it is to trade forex this way.
The FAST2 is a beginner strategy. It laid down the important concept of having a Profit Target and a Stop Loss in forex. Having a PT and a SL in forex is a must because of the volatility of the forex market, especially during the European and US trading hours. However, newbies tend to focus on the outcome of a trade and not the process of practising to make the skill perfect. Worst still, some newbies can't wait to recoup their course fees and start trading with real money. Guess what will happen? Losing money? Most likely. It is not the strategy that does not work. Newbies simply do not have the requisite skill set yet to trade live. That's the whole point.
Have you ever wondered trading FAST2 in certain hours only? Have you ever wondered not to trade FAST 2 in certain time? Have you done a basic fundamental analysis of what is going on in the global economy? Have you studied the inter-relationship between the stock market, bond market, commodity market and the currency market? So, if you have no clue what I am asking above, you are not ready yet. The above questions are important as far as FAST2's performance is concerned.
A lot of folks do not discuss FX104, which is a daily trading system given by Dr. Lim in the supplementary course which costs us only $20. Yes, I did FX104 under the old regime. FX102, 103 and 104 are blended in a one-day course already but it is still $20. It's amazing how FX104 performed since I started trading it on 28 May 2008. In my case, I started paper trading this system for two months before I go live. I proved to myself that the system can generate consistent paper money for two months (which was 1,400 pips out of 14 trades) before I put the system on live. So far, in my real account for FX104, I have done 4 trades already , and profited around 200 pips. As I am writing this post, a FX104 short trade is in the process and it is already broken even.
So, you may ask why FAST2 and FX104 work for me but there are so many folks who complain about them. Like I said, before you go trade anything, you must do your due diligence. Having a trader's attitude and approach trading as a business.
In my recent Seven Essential Credentials of Successful Traders series written for Optionetics, I said that all successful traders have the following things in common:
1. A Strong Self-Belief that trading is a viable business
2. Have good traders habits
3. Have S.M.A.R.T Goals
4. Have a Master Plan for this trading business
5. Have Winning Strategies
6. Willing to "Kaizen" - continous improvement
7. Know how to protect this business
So, aspriing traders - have you got what it takes to be a trader by having all the above credentials? If not, you are not in the 5% Club yet I must say. You still need to work hard in order to leave the 95% Club.
Take care!
"The worst fx training ever given by a local company. You trade in order to earn 2 - 3pips per trade! Don't ever join them! You will be cheated 3.5k. I happened"
"I attended XXX and my take on them is they teach retracement. A course in retracement is not worth $400 not to mention $4000!"
"Recently i attended a seminar by XXX too... sounds interesting... but when it comes to the course fees for 2 days... its almost $5k! (round up) Is that too expensive? Or, is there value for it (for anyone who has attended before)."
Many folks in Singapore must be confronted with rising cost of living. Hence, some daring folks are looking around for quick to be rich scheme. There is a variety of schemes available in Singapore - stocks, options, futures, forex etc. You name it, Singapore has it.
Out of curiosity, one of my trading buddies asked me for websites on forex education. It prompted me to one and I saw some folks discuss the forex courses that are conducted in Singapore. In fact, my trading buddies overseas asked me how I got my forex trading education. What I told them was that Singapore ranks Number 2 in the world int terms of the number of forex traders. So, we are spoilt by choice.
I am a firm believer of education before putting money at risk. So, I was one of those who paid a few thousand dollars for these courses. I did not do only one but a few courses over the period of three months. I also plan to do a popular forex course next month, after I postponed it for three times because of my overseas assignments in options teaching. I also have plan to do an advanced forex course in the first half of 2009.
So, does it work for me after paying a few thousand dollars on forex education? The real answer is that these courses work. Why are they not working for some people? To be frank, I believe it is people that make these courses not work. Why? Let me ask your these questions. Why do you trade? If your answer is "money", then please run. Don't walk away. As my mentor, Tom Gentile, said, money is the result of successful traders and should never be a goal.
Money itself does not motivate us to do something. It's the emotion we attach to the money that drives us. Something I learnt in Patterns of Excellence @ AKLTG. So, if you haven't figured out the answer to "why trade?, perhaps you should not spend that kind of money to get education. You are not even ready to start a trading business.
As far as I am concerned, that course which a lot of folks have negative feedback works for me extremely well. To be frank, Dr. Lim has given me a lot of inspiration simply because he is a believer of looking at the price chart without using any technical indicators. When I was asked by others how I trade forex, my response is I don't use any technical indicators at all. One guy questioned me and sought confirmation. I re-confirmed that I don't even use an indicator such as moving average. How amazing it is to trade forex this way.
The FAST2 is a beginner strategy. It laid down the important concept of having a Profit Target and a Stop Loss in forex. Having a PT and a SL in forex is a must because of the volatility of the forex market, especially during the European and US trading hours. However, newbies tend to focus on the outcome of a trade and not the process of practising to make the skill perfect. Worst still, some newbies can't wait to recoup their course fees and start trading with real money. Guess what will happen? Losing money? Most likely. It is not the strategy that does not work. Newbies simply do not have the requisite skill set yet to trade live. That's the whole point.
Have you ever wondered trading FAST2 in certain hours only? Have you ever wondered not to trade FAST 2 in certain time? Have you done a basic fundamental analysis of what is going on in the global economy? Have you studied the inter-relationship between the stock market, bond market, commodity market and the currency market? So, if you have no clue what I am asking above, you are not ready yet. The above questions are important as far as FAST2's performance is concerned.
A lot of folks do not discuss FX104, which is a daily trading system given by Dr. Lim in the supplementary course which costs us only $20. Yes, I did FX104 under the old regime. FX102, 103 and 104 are blended in a one-day course already but it is still $20. It's amazing how FX104 performed since I started trading it on 28 May 2008. In my case, I started paper trading this system for two months before I go live. I proved to myself that the system can generate consistent paper money for two months (which was 1,400 pips out of 14 trades) before I put the system on live. So far, in my real account for FX104, I have done 4 trades already , and profited around 200 pips. As I am writing this post, a FX104 short trade is in the process and it is already broken even.
So, you may ask why FAST2 and FX104 work for me but there are so many folks who complain about them. Like I said, before you go trade anything, you must do your due diligence. Having a trader's attitude and approach trading as a business.
In my recent Seven Essential Credentials of Successful Traders series written for Optionetics, I said that all successful traders have the following things in common:
1. A Strong Self-Belief that trading is a viable business
2. Have good traders habits
3. Have S.M.A.R.T Goals
4. Have a Master Plan for this trading business
5. Have Winning Strategies
6. Willing to "Kaizen" - continous improvement
7. Know how to protect this business
So, aspriing traders - have you got what it takes to be a trader by having all the above credentials? If not, you are not in the 5% Club yet I must say. You still need to work hard in order to leave the 95% Club.
Take care!
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