my journal

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you appreciated my long post: I enjoy reasoning out loud. However, as I said, I don't plan on selling anything.

The original point of that post was to address the question "should one buy other people's systems?" and my conclusion was "no, build one yourself, but you have a long way to go". But before that, I asked myself "should I sell it?" and replied "no, whether it works or it doesn't, you shouldn't sell it".

The reasoning backing my conclusions, and the summary of everything, is that it's not convenient to sell your systems if they work, and it's not honest to sell them if they don't work. That's why I wonder whether it's convenient to buy them, because I don't think it makes sense to be selling profitable systems (unless I am wrong about my assumption that spreading your system diminishes its edge), so the only people selling them might be the dishonest ones. And that's why my conclusion was to advise that member to build one himself.

PART C: THE USE OF A COMBINATION OF TECHNICAL TOOLS FOR TIMING THE BUY AND SELL OF HOT STOCKS
The use of Slow Stochastic and MACD signals to maximize the trading gain
With modern technological tools, traders can make the buys and sells on a timely manner. The criticism that the signals from technical analysis tend to be late. Yes, it would be totally true if only 50-day moving average, or MACD was used as a single tool for stock selection in the good old days.
Nowadays, traders can use the combination of various tools such as: In the example below, MACD and Slow Stochastic signals guided the traders to a good buying point. However, the sell should follow the more responsive Stochastic signal to preserve the gains the traders “recognized” from the hot trade. Thanks for the modern technology, these technical tools are free to use and easy to learn.

Chart C1: DPTR 6-month daily chart with 50-SMA
1/ Stochastic gave a buy signal first

2/ MACD also gave a buy signal one day later

3/ Bullish sentiment with the MACD confirmation, prices started to move, volume picked up. In the next 2-trading days, prices increased to $2.28 & $3.03 and daily volumes increased to 11 & 64 MM. Prices kept moving up (4A) 5 of the next 6 trading days to $4.25 (See 4a) but the volume kept decreasing (4B). Since volume did not go up to follow the prices, we have a situation where technical analysts called: Price volume diversion and the effect is a price reversion is imminent.
Stochastic gave a signal to sell (5A) on Sept 15 when traders could unload their position at around $3.75 a share. Those who waited for MACD signal to sell (5B), it occurred later at the close of Sept. 21 where the traders could unloaded the shares for around $2.00 which meant most of the gain from the run-up was evaporated.

A person with some basic technical trading skills would have sold DPTR at the first signal that came up which is Stochastic signal due to the warnings of the price and volume diversion, also the gain of more than 100% in such a short period is another good reason for the traders to take the first exit. MACD has a weakness due to its nature as a trend follower. If there is a full automatic trading system, the computer would have programmed to use the Stochastic sell signal for the sale execution.

The general rule of technical analysis is traders should rely on more than one indicator to make the trading decision. While traders could be more safe to wait for the MACD bullish signal to place the trade, but waiting for MACD sell signal is always late, and follow Stochastic for selling signal is more proper.

Wow, a lot of work went into your post. I don't know anything about the subject you cover, so I won't dare to comment. Hopefully other readers will have an informed opinion. I've just read here that you're studying for the CMT exam, so congratulations for all your hard work. As Ali G would say: respek, man.

I am always in my single room, and quite happy about this. I almost feel too happy, with nothing to complain about. This happiness is becoming unbearable: I am becoming frustrated with this happiness. Maybe because happiness means freedom from problems, but freedom from problems also means boredom, and boredom means frustration.

Yesterday, to compensate, I got into a fight with the switchboard operator, who wasn't answering the phone (not to me for half an hour, but when I called her from a different phone she answered immediately, that whore). It is better to be frustrated and argue with the switchboard operator than to be bored maybe.

Today, I am so happy and without problems... or rather "so bored and without problems"... that I am looking for other people's problems to worry about. Isn't that what everyone does when they've got everything under control and say "now I want to give something back"? They're bored and are so used to working, that not doing anything makes them feel uncomfortable, and they'd rather work for free. Their "generosity" derives from boredom then. I've often felt like that.

Anyway, I was looking for other people's problems, and I think I have found a person with problems I could worry about: one of these days I'll treat to lunch this new friend of mine. A few months ago I met this intern, who does very good fundamental analysis on Italian stocks and is also profitable with it (simple and yet comprehensive analysis, based on standardized parameters that measure a company's health), but as usual, just like me, he is undercapitalized. He is supposed to be here for 6 months, and then maybe hired, but he got into an argument with his boss, who called him an idiot and told him to look for another job because he won't be hired at the end of these 6 internship months.

I am a bit upset about this (not too much though, because basically I only care about myself) because I think the most unfair and low thing for a boss is to disrespect someone in a position as weak as an intern. If someone's weaker I am always on their side: even if he were Adolf Hitler. Besides he called him an idiot in front of everyone else. Also, this guy disrespects his employees on a regular basis. If he did that to me, I would certainly not accept it. I have never been afraid of being fired, actually they'd do me a favor. Ah ah... once someone gave me too much work, a real bad ass manager, and I told him "yes, I'll come to your room in a bit", but then I got so upset for being taken advantage of, being given the most burdensome work (excel-related work) by everyone, even by other offices and bosses that weren't my own, that I just got up and left, without even turning off my computer: I just took off and went home, and didn't show up until three days later. And then I didn't even get in trouble for it - wow, what a totally amazing, excellent discovery!

Wow, I thought I was running out of ideas for posts, but I just came across, I don't remember how (oh yeah, I was looking for more Jesse Livermore videos) this totally amazing excellent discovery: Fap Turbo and the Forex Critic guy, and I have to say both may not be actually be about a scam but something that works, despite appearances. This post right here is very related to my earlier post:
WHY ARE PEOPLE SELLING THEIR SYSTEMS? DO THEY WORK?

Here's the Forex Critic guy's web site, beware definitely a salesman but not necessarily a scam:
http://www.forexcritic.com/Click-Here/

Here's a video from his web site (he talks about a comparison of forex robots he made):


Charlatan or honest guy? The guy seems like he knows what he's talking about, unlike those folks in the second advertisement, below, but like them, he seems to advertise the same product and definitely makes money by doing so. So I don't have an answer. As I said earlier, I always recommend to build your own system. Also, all these people seem to be just salesmen, but still I cannot rule out that these robots being sold work. I'd like to know your opinions. If you are very skeptical, you'll at least have fun (I couldn't help giggling a little, despite the fact that I tried to not have prejudices) watching this video below:



http://www.fapturbo.com/
http://www.ivybot.com/
http://forex-megadroid.com/

Whether these are scams or not, this marketing phenomenon cannot be ignored by us automated traders, because one day these robots could change the markets (whether they work or not).

Here's some useful and related EliteTrader.com's threads:
Is Fap turbo for real?
Automated trading - Megadroid
programmable FX platforms?
Foreign Exchange Robots?
Anyone tried Forex Lexus?

I'll come back here and read them whenever I'll be at work with nothing to do, like a pleasant pastime.

The way I see it right now is as follows, but I will be wrong about something for sure. These people programming these robots on sale are "rogue automated traders", in other words: automated traders who didn't make it, didn't manage to make money with their systems, do not trust their own systems with their own money, and want to make something out of all their (unsuccessful) work and out of their over-optimized systems. They get together with someone else who has some capital and marketing skills and market their product, and sell it as we see in the above advertisement, which pretty much shows, in itself, by hiring all these non-believable actors, that the product is a scam (otherwise they wouldn't need to pay people to lie).



Because the world is round, it turns me on. Because the wind is high, it blows my mind. Love is old, love is new. Love is all, love is you. Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry.

Dad's home. I still don't know whether I should feel sorry for him, or feel afraid of him, like I have all my life. Certainly, he's not a friend and never has been. I still feel some sort of heart-ache when he hear him opening the door. It used to be the beginning of some serious harassment, non-stop criticism about something I supposedly did wrong. The truth is that my dad is and always has been a sick mother ****er. He can have all reasons for being that way, but nonetheless that's what he is, and it makes sense for me to avoid him. I don't see how behaviors like his could make me feel anything other than pity or fear. Certainly not genuine liking, that is not the feeling I can feel about him. He's an obsessive persecuting asshole.



Ellens dritter Gesang

Hows the trading?

I hope your not doing discretionary trades, you should be focusing on your systems and allowing them to work... If you want to do a bit of gambling; Put £50 in a Poker account and trade small, make it last... Thats a better way of losing small amounts of money, than forming bad habits in the markets; Because its a business... So treat it as one. And i think you'll get equal kicks out of poker because its also a sport you can gain an edge in.

Don't discretionary trade without a pre-defined plan.

German Arnolt








As Time Goes By

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension.
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's theory.
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax relieve the tension

And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed.

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.



And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you."
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date.
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate.
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny.

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

German Arnolt

Hungarian Dances


Piano Sonata No. 14


Love of My Life


L'Apocalypse des animaux

Yeah, very wise as usual. So actually I could be doing better at poker than at discretionary trading in my case, because I could never gain an edge at that. Yeah: today no discretionary trading took place. I am all done with my systems. I've built enough of them. Now I'll focus on money management and quality. The quantity is enough. One big worry I have today is that this guy I paid for a laptop on ebay is not going to send it... I am really concerned about this. Even though it's unlikely that he won't do it. Now I'll go talk to my dad. I won't tell him about my worry, because he'd show his usual "support" face, that looks like a wall. It's like talking to a wall. Talking to him and looking for support is like talking to my wall. It gives me the same feelings. Should I go or should I not? I need to go because I have to go to the bathroom. From fear to pity, these are the feeling I alternate for my dad. Friendship never. I just go from fear to pity. It used to be constant fear and hate. Now it's changing. He's getting older, we're both getting older. He's finally giving me a break. I feel a lot of resentment though. It's like the guy in the Great Santini movie, if you know what I mean. Watch it, it's quite good.

Thanks for the nice words on my taking the CMT program. My intention is that the preparation for the test is an opportunity for me to be aware of the areas of my weakness. I don't see any problem of passing the first test of the three but studying to get real knowledge on half of the subject areas that the sample test that I got wrong answer or I did not know is more important.

It took me 10 minutes to learn the concepts of Bollinger Bands and several years later I'd found out that I had the wrong interpretation of the phrase: When the bands are narrow, the price movements are less volatile, it could be a good point to purchase the stock - if other indocators are positive and also a point to get out of the position.

It took me several years for me to realize that my personal bias about making money in the market made me think that less votality is the time to purchase and to make money. It's the same way some people accused that Nicolas Darvas is a fraud since he wrote a story of buying more stock if it moves out of a box.

In the last few days I've learned about double-bottom format of a stock. It's totally different than what I've been thinking before.

Again, thanks for the kind words for a person who loves to be a student.

PS: From a tip of a member in this forum, I'm about to go to kindergarten for Babypips at Babypips.com, may be I know something about Forex in the next 6 months

I will reply as I read your post, sentence by sentence.

Taking tests to learn like you're doing is not my favorite thing but I was taught since an early age to have a passion for learning (everything is taught to us basically, or a consequence of our environment). I like better to learn things on the internet, by using google or wikipedia. Almost everything I've learned, I've taught it myself. Schools and teachers and tests are my enemies and the enemies of learning. Multiple choice tests are not as bad and so are American schools. Italian schools are disgusting: we have a lot of memorization here, no multiple choice tests and your papers or verbal exams are subjectively graded by teachers, who can choose to give you whatever grade they want, because it's very debatable and subjective how well you did.

Bollinger bands and many other technical analysis concepts are too complicated for me. I can only understand price, high, low, close, time. All my systems are derived from these concepts.

Double bottoms and other formations are not my favorite thing either because they are very hard to code and back-test, so they are one of the many things I discarded in my years of back-testing.

Well, yeah, kind words to you and to myself, because I am a student like you, so in a way I am praising in you the qualities I see in myself as well. It's just like when we tell other people "you have great taste in music" and we're actually telling them "you like the same music I like (and I have great taste)".

Yes, Babypips.com: it's good to keep learning as if you still didn't know anything and were in kindergarten. However I would like to remind you and myself that the only point of all this learning is to make money, because once that happens, I will be focusing on learning different things, like swimming, playing music... I'm certainly not testing systems on tradestation for fun. Even writing on a forum is fun only because the alternative is sitting idle and staring outside the window, or even worse finding some work to do here at the office.

You know what? I am still very very upset about my laptop not being sent yet. I am afraid I got ripped off or something like that. Besides, that computer maybe doesn't even correspond to what he posted on Ebay. This mother ****er, asshole... my payment came in yesterday for sure and he still hasn't sent me anything. I am really starting to get nervous, he's pushing me to the edge. He still has only 24 hours left to send me my laptop and then he will be breaching the agreement. Then I'll have to threaten him as usual and write him "I'm gonna hunt you down" and "I know where you live", and the usual things: death threats, mailing him bullets... I'm gonna give him another 24 hours, then I'll start. If I don't get my laptop by Friday, he'll wake up one on Saturday and find a horse's head in his bed.

Damn! I can't believe he still didn't write me telling me the code of the package. Yesterday I called him and he said he would send me the code. He still has another 24 hours before I really get upset. And if that happens he's not going to have a pleasant awakening.

Ok. I asked my boss for more work. He gave me some, but I am done with it, too. So now I can officially start screwing around guilt-free. And that means I will work on my own stuff, as it is usually the case.

I am going to pick up those topics again, about the robots on sale, thereby continuing the discussions posted above:
1) WHY ARE PEOPLE SELLING THEIR SYSTEMS? DO THEY WORK?
2) What are we to think of these robots on sale (Fap Turbo and others)? Scams?

I will now proceed to read the topics I listed earlier, from EliteTrader.com and I will comment on each one of them:

1) Is Fap turbo for real?
All right, first of all: the poll is unequivocal: 25 out of 28 elitetraders think it's a scam. But, apart from all the funny jokes about it, Bigpipn says the most meaningful things: which is what I thought from the start. He then cites other robots that are sold and that seem much more serious and reliable than Fap Turbo. From this thread so far I would conclude that Fap Turbo is not just a scam but a scam for idiots or very ignorant people. Then Brandonf says similar things, even more convincing in the sense that these people selling the product are not even traders, but just swindlers. Ok, I've read enough about Fap Turbo, and from here on, I'll just skim through anything written about it (unless I find something disagreeing with what we've established so far). I also gotta mention that the Forex Critic guy is a total scammer as well, since Fap Turbo is a scam and he actually says it's the best of three different products. It's very shocking because he seemed, from the video, like he was honest and in good faith. What a disappointment.

2) Automated trading - Megadroid
Ok, moving on to the next robot. den999 says what many of us were thinking already, and at the same time sums up the entire thread: This is thread is even more entertaining than the previous one in how it exposes and makes fun of the scam this is all about. For example, cabletrader: Before dismissing megadroid as well, I have to note that, despite all the mockery and criticism, the person who started the thread at the end replies: He could be one of the scamsters or not. Or it could very well be that a curve-fitted system, depending on how you use it, can actually make money. But overall, let's discard megadroid as well.

3) programmable FX platforms?
Ok, here there's just one post, that from the way it begins says it all "what FX platforms are programmable and not scamsters?". Then he quotes something from the Forex Critic guy himself or from a similar web site that praises some of these scams and lists links to buy them so that when you click them he'll get credited some money. Pretty sad this "forex critic" guy. But hey, if you need money really bad, it's also reasonable to rip people off and to be disonest. The problem is if you do this even when you are not desperate for money. You know what I mean? If you need money to live, it's even ok to rob a bank.

4) Foreign Exchange Robots?
Good one, because it's by the same guy who started the other thread above about megadroid. It could mean that he really wants to know, or that he really wanted to advertise. Either way, the answers he got make me even more convinced that these robots are a scam.

5) Anyone tried Forex Lexus?
Wow, this is great. More (entertaining) evidence to the previous findings, but also a great link provided by Bigpipn:
http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/metatr...rex_lexus/demo
It seems to be a web site against these scamsters (I'll check it out later).