The Traders Symposium 2004

BF1

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Attended this today and thought it was a great day.

Robin Griffiths from HSBC gave a very enlightning presentation and one of which I didnt think Id be interested in as Im not really into fundamentals. However, his mix of both TA and fundamentals was very interesting.

The 2 big names, Jake Bernstein and Larry Williams were brilliant. My favourite out the 2 was Jake. He really didn`t want to get off the stage and the audience were quite willing to forsake lunch to let him carry on! He gave a number of systems to take away and look at.

Tom H was his usual passionate self - very good.

All the speakers did a good turn. Well done T2W for getting this together.

I have to say though that Jake Bernstein really was the star turn for me. I have signed up for his UK visit in November.

He genuinely seemed to want to help others succeed. There was no sales pitch from him whatsoever, or really from any of the others.

So many of these things I have attended and walked away with nothing, partially because I think the speakers sometimes put across things that they do day in day out which are second nature to them but can seem quite complicated to newbies. They don`t explain them in laymans terms, if you know what I mean.

If there`s another seminar of this type in the future I recommend you give it a try.

BTW Ive not been paid for this write up but will gladly accept any money anyone wants to give me :D
 
Bigbusiness said:
I found this interesting about Jake Bernstein. It doesn't make me want to rush out and buy one of his large collection of books, courses, newsletter etc:-

http://www.turtletrader.com/jake-bernstein-forbes.html

Interesting.

I was at the Symposium as well. Very good. Thought Jake and the others spoke well. Perhaps a bit too much feel-good, retail showmanship at times but some interesting ideas nonetheless. Commodity seasonalities, day of the week effects, reaction before market holidays, market reactions to gaps, commercial activity vs market sentiment, opportunities for trading market over-reactions etc.

One criticism I had of the body of material presented over the day though was the discussion of stops and losing trades. All a little vague. I'm not at all convinced by Jake Bernstein's optomised market specific stop levels. (Generally, too little time was spent at the symposium on managing trades that aren't going to plan I felt. A bit more realism would have gone down well.) In Jake's defense, it was quite amusing to see the number of times people asked questions on modifying his system after he said explicitly do not change the rules of the strategy discussed. Human behaviour once again creating opportunities for the systematics?

Larry Williams was absolutely excellent. The most thought provoking speaker for me after the first speaker from HSBC. Larry's conditional approach to trading, as evident via his interpretation of Commitment of Trade report stats and elsewhere was useful. Will probably buy one of his books. An independent thinker, and a bit of a dude as well.

As for the link posted above, it's a useful reminder that all that glitters is not gold. The whole trading literature industry is full of self-proclaimed experts, CNBC included. Interesting that turtletrader.com is slated by Curtis Faith, one of the original Turtles. As a reminder, the Turtle rules can be found free at www.originalturtles.org. As I understand it, Curtis gave them away as an antidote to people profiteering from Turtle reputations. I wonder how much money Jake et al risk / return from the methodologies discussed....

Plenty of ideas to be played with after the session. Interesting that cycles, in different times frames, were brought up by 4 of the 5 speakers I saw. Good value for money at £249. Would go again.
 
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Hi

Glad you enjoyed the day :cool:

BF1 said:
All the speakers did a good turn. Well done T2W for getting this together.

While T2W advertised the event (for a fee) they certainly didn't have any input into the day!

Tactical Trader were the organisers of the event and we have worked very hard over the past 6 weeks or so to make sure it was a good one :cheesy:


BTW Ive not been paid for this write up but will gladly accept any money anyone wants to give me :D

:LOL:

Thanks for the feedback - we'll let you come to the next one!

Rob
 
Tactical Trader said:
Hi

Glad you enjoyed the day :cool:



While T2W advertised the event (for a fee) they certainly didn't have any input into the day!

Tactical Trader were the organisers of the event and we have worked very hard over the past 6 weeks or so to make sure it was a good one :cheesy:




:LOL:

Thanks for the feedback - we'll let you come to the next one!

Rob

Thanks for setting the event up guys. As mentioned above, I thoroughly enjoyed.
In terms of feedback for next time, it would be great to get some sort of pack with the slides / content presented by each speaker.
 
Got an email fromTT about Jake Bernstein for this November 13th.

Is it a general seminar, where you then have to sign up for more expensive courses, or do you come away with something tradeable ??

Having been to see Jake, have you been impressed enough to buy any books by him ?
If so, which ines, and did they live up to expectations ?

thanks
 
trendie said:
Is it a general seminar, where you then have to sign up for more expensive courses, or do you come away with something tradeable ??

I won't bore you with a big sales pitch - what I will say is yes you will come away with many tradeable things and no you won't have to sign up for more expensive courses (unless you want to :LOL:)

At the symposium Jake could easily have promoted his range of newsletters, books, and other stuff he produces, but he didn't.

What he did do was give away a number of tradeable systems which people could analyse, implement, and inevitably try to make better.

trendie said:
Having been to see Jake, have you been impressed enough to buy any books by him ? If so, which ines, and did they live up to expectations ?

I know that one of our members (I don't think they're a poster here) bought one of Jake's seasonal trading books. He was very impressed and made money from his first couple of trades using the book.

I personally have used a number of his methods since the symposium and so far have been impressed - but then I would say that wouldn't I? :D

Hope this helps,
Rob

[Edit @ 11:31] - I should also point out that this is a small-numbers, class-room style, interactive seminar, not some big auditorium, motivational speaker style event :D There are at most 35 places, many of which have already been taken.
 
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Hi Trendie,
As you might know, I gave a presentation at the TT Symposium and watched my fellow presenters very attentively.
What Jake does is completely different to the way I trade and coach. I am a very sceptical person but I have to say as I watched him and especially as I thought about him and his methods in the following days I have become more and more impressed with the guy.
In my opinion he seems genuine and his methods viable and valuable. He is also a very entertaining and enjoyable speaker.
I think most people would gain by going to his seminar. That is my personal opinion; I have not been asked to comment and I am not advertising him - I am just giving my personal view.
And no I don't get a commission !
Richard
 
Did go to the seminar after all. Quite good. Especially as he gave access to his website for the seasonal trades etc.

However, I have received an invitation to attend his 3-day real-time seminar.
( actually Sat-Sun learning, then only the Monday real-time ).
For £1,600.

Anybody else received this ? Anybody interested in going ?
 
I have read about one of his seasonal trades:-

"Bet on the S&P 500 March contract to rise from Jan. 12 through Jan. 18. For 15 years, he says, this trade was a winner 93% of the time."

The problem is, 1999 and 2002 look like a disaster on the charts, as the S&P plummeted between the 12th and the 18th. 2003 also looks bad.

I also wonder how many samples there are for these seasonal trades and if they are that statistically significant?
 
Am i right in thinking that it was possible to buy a cd of the symposium? I think tacticaltrader advertised it after the event. Anyone know if you can still buy it?
 
They did not go through with it due to the high production cost, TT did have the event recorded but turned down my offer to author it to DVD for free
 
Well this is a blast from the past :D

It wasn't just production costs - there was also the problem of how much we could sell it for.

Those who attended the event had already paid between £200 and £250 so they would only pay around £20 for it (fair enough), but those who hadn't attended were also only prepared to pay around £20 - which didn't seem fair to those who'd paid so much more.

"author it to DVD" makes a somewhat more involved process sound simple, but had we gone ahead anyway, spent the time and money making it and had 200 copies produced, I'm pretty sure we'd still have 194 copies sat on a shelf gathering dust :LOL:
 
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