How Much Do You Make?

:)

Well, well....this thread's up and running again is it??! It's an interesting one, that's for sure...mainly because, as much as I have practiced and learned over the last 3 1/2 years in which i have been a member of this site I still cant but help think that there is a smidgen of hope for Jls to be successful over the long haul.

I know and understand all of the negative responses he has recieved,but the fact that he is betting small means that the only thing to worry about is the amount of time he has to wait b4 he eventually turns a profit. Imagine a 4000 pound A/C with D4F betting 1p/p. The FTSE would have to go to zero b4 our good friend 'jls' was proved wrong. He's done the math. He's not looking to be the next Jesse Livermoore.

I would not yet put myself in he same ilk as someone like the impressive Mr. Charts although anyone who's know me on these boards would hopefully tell u that i am an accomplished trader. My only problem is that I can tell from his posts that he is an intellligent individual who, with the motivation, could devise a much more profitable trading system.

This thread was started a long time ago, so I hope that either"
a)You have been....and will continue to be sucessful....or
b)You have devised a more professional, less 'pacience dependent' system :)

Temp
 
Colin - you are pretty sharp today.

Sharky posted a tested message after I told him I was having problems replying to the thread. As you can see I eventually got it working.

John.
 
Hi Temp,

As you say I have done the math. I have a degree in maths (from a reasonable University) which has affected how I approached trading. One advantage of my mechanical strategy is that you have a very good idea what your profits are going to be and what sort of risk you are exposed to.

I would say that my strategy is a bit like the tracker fund of the trading world. There are always going to be active traders that do better than me, but there are also a lot that will do worse (all those making a loss for a start).

For those of you serious about considering different investment strategies and perhaps fall into the category of not going too well with trading then here are the sort of returns that you can expect to make with a strategy like mine.

The returns from my trading can be split precisely into two components. The first is a large fluctuation which has an exact correspondence with the underlying instrument for example the FTSE as it drifts between 3000 and 5000 and back again. As this component will be the same when the FTSE is at 4000 in 2010, it is soon outweighed by the second component which is made from all of the trades that I make each day.

(I actually trade in several instruments including fx and commodities so it is unlikely that they are all low at the same time - reducing my risk.)

As for the profits - if I allow my short term fluctuations to be large e.g. I'm prepared to lose most of my money in the short term, then my long term profits are approximately 1% a day. Which I'm happy with.

The whole point of this thread was to try and establish what sort of risks the various types of traders are taking and what sort of returns they are getting. So that we can then research the type of trading that matches our style rather than blindly following the herd. For example:

"My name is Mr. P. lots, I do aribitrage, My trading requires loads of capital, I can expect an average 1% return on each trade if I am prepare to risk up to a 10% loss of my capital. There are about 10 trading opportunities a week".

"My names is Dow Whipper. I do traditional EOD day trading. I get stopped out 50% of my trades making a 10% loss. On the succesful trades I make a 10 to 20% profit."

Obviously this is not an exact science, but any information that we share with each other will allow us all to understand the whole trading world a little better. Probably a bit hopeful to try it - but I did. Perhaps it would have worked better if we had an anonymous board. Now there's an idea ...!
 
jls,


so , does this mean you are trading 2 different time frames : a long one with your buy and hold FTSE trades and other shorter intraday type trades on various markets ?

whatever you say , I think there is more than even chance the FTSE could crash and stay there for 10 - 15 years . Can you hold your positions that long ?

history both recent and past is not on your side . the Nekkei was at 40,000 only 14 years ago and is now less than 10,000.

the 1929 dow crash meant that in infation adjusted terms , prices did not recover til the 70's .

Good luck !

P.S. Mr. Leeson is a good example of how NOT to trade , the man ws a greedy egotistic fool and got what he deserved.
 
jls483 said:

I think I should also admit that I don't have a course and have never given a course on SuicideTrading.
It was a poor attempt at humour. But I do reserve the right to give a course in the future!

I did mean it when I said I would give a course -

John.
Click to expand...

Of course you did John - by looking at your website thats your plan !

Sounds like your fishing for some content for it !

I suggest if you want to gain any sort of credibility on here, you first take and pass the STA exam.

Anyone giving courses should either be qualified or be well respected.
 
Colin,

I am toying with the idea of giving a course and if I did then a web-site would be one of the ways of promoting it - but as you point out it does require either qualification or respect. It is already clear that my trading methods are not main stream so I'm not convinced an STA exam is the way forward. I'm not too fussed about credibility on t2w (good thing you might say) so if I ever do give a course I think I will have to go either down the cheap route or writing a book route. Still no rush for that - provide nobody else writes the book first!

To answer mma - no you can't seperate the two parts! If I could I would immediately throw away the short term losses part and just keep the long term profits! If the FTSE did crash and never moved again I would lose money. But if it did crash it would still be volatile and my profits would still keep coming and eventually they would outweigh the losses - it would just take longer than it does now. The secret is not to get greedy, always keep enough back to keep trading whatever the FTSE is at.

I think my strategy is so alien to most traders that I won't talk about it any more on t2w. I am really more an investor than a trader. People don't think Warren Buffet is a fruit-case and he is also a long term buy and hold man. I am just using spreadbets to avoid stamp duty, for tighter spreads, to avoid CGT and to increase my returns by investing on a margin.

John.
 
You seem to forget you are talking to a group of traders.

If i was to do a course i'd charge a fraction of the price you were talking about.

Sounds like a very thin book...try thick paper and hardback to go with some big words
 
jls ,

* If the FTSE did crash and never moved again I would lose money. But if it did crash it would still be volatile and my profits would still keep coming and eventually they would outweigh the losses - it would just take longer than it does now. *


I was definitely refering to the crash and die scenario rather than the crash and then come up and down again . my 2 examples of the dow and nekkei backs up my asertion .

well you could still hold in this scenario , the issue is how long and how much pain can you take .

I personally have nothing against your trading methods , I for one will never use them , but what you do - hey it's up to you .

I hope you have mega deep pockets !
 
"People don't think Warren Buffet is a fruit-case and he is also a long term buy and hold man"

jls,
warren buffet is also a huge user of options to protect his downside -is this something you have considered?
(coincedentally he's also running with Arnie in Cali' so I'm not sure his cred' is going 'north')

The term or tactic 'buy and hold' is not one that really exists anymore within the professional investment community.
 
Last edited:
jls483,

I am sure your strategy will work if you have an infinite amount of money to keep pumping in to the market if there is a long term fall. What is the difference between your system and averaging down? Some traders are able to average down and come out with a profit but they do tend to have a lot of capital and are able to call on reserves. This has been going on a lot longer than you think and why you would need a maths degree, a course or a book to work out how to do it is beyond me. All you need is pots of money and to be willing to loose the lot.
 
OMG :-0 what an utterly pointless thread, I can't believe I actually spent 5 mins looking through it. Can some one please stop it/close it?


:eek:

*****CLICK*****
 
I have to agree with Kael - this thread has gone, is going nowhere - like last time. May I just have the last word! At no point I have I fully explained my trading strategy so how anybody can know that it is a waste of time or too simple to full a book or just "averaging down" or Nick Leeson trading I do not have the faintest idea. I can understand that the average trader will flip as soon as they see the words "no stop loss" - but this is not the whole story. Just like Ryanair have a bigger strategy than what appears the mad idea of selling seats for £1. I have no plans to share my strategy on this board so let's leave it as something that works for me. As for my pockets they are growing deeper and larger by the day. If anybody is interested to know more then if I find time between counting the profits, I'll get the book together and do a deal with Sharky to sell it through t2w.

All the best,

John.
 
yea right

any successful trader that mentors doesnt need to worry about giving away their secrets - they actually give away alot for free... but that doesnt mean others can impliment it successfully

there's nothing wrong with averaging - i do it quite successfully thankyou

its not the principle its the implimenting
 
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