A new trading movie has been launched. But I wonder if it is ever going to come to Singapore.

This movie is about the challenges that pit traders faced when they were forced to trade electronically after the pits were closed. So I guess there will be the glamorous success stories as well as the emotional and technology struggles. Check out the official movie website as well.

Hey! We have our local version of the movie plot as well! Remember Tom Yuen and gang? Oh, if you want to listen to more of such stories, you may want to join the Association of Financial and Commodity Traders (AFACT) (Singapore). This organisation is started by a group of former SIMEX pit traders. They organise regular gatherings for traders and ask former pit traders to share their trading experience during the gatherings.

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I have just got a new addition to my family - Baby Jovy. So things will get rowdy for a while. In between time for trading research and  family, I still will be posting short trading thought snippets or interesting trading resources to keep this blog alive. Simply can’t bear to part with this blog and my blog readers!

To all jmot’s blog readers, I AM reading your emails and comments and will reply to them as much as I can. Well, you can also seek advice from the veteran traders  gracing this blog as well!

To our trading success!

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It always gets a bit nostalgic when it approaches the end of the year.  Time for a round-up. So how has your trading progressed this year?

My 2009 trading journey recap:

• It is NOT possible to trade small timeframes when holding a full time job. Nope, not even the hourly or four-hourly timeframe. The psychology burden to get to the charts when the time calls for it is simply too tremendous. Whenever I need to access my charts, my boss is always asking for me. Murphy’s Law at its best.
• Some daily timeframe forex trading systems have their own set of problems.
  • Firstly, different closing times for the daily candle for different brokers.
  • Secondly, for my brokers, the daily candle either closes when I am still in the traffic jam on the way to the office or during office hours (again!).
  • Thirdly, when trading daily charts, trade opportunities come far and between. I got to monitor more forex currency pairs (and make sure they are not correlated). It is even better if I can monitor more markets.
• Started to use EA for backtesting
• Thanks to Max’s sharing, I have acquired many new and important concepts in trading from his amazing research in expert advisors.
• Well, learning how to trade is still tough and I tried to identify the challenges.
• Ah, I also attended 2 low-cost courses - 1 by Tom Yuen and 1 by Ray Barros.
• The best trading book I got my hands on this year is undoubtedly “The Way of the Turtle“. The concept of “trading edge” illustrated at its best.

Some burning unanswered questions:

• I am still trying to figure out how successful traders like Edward Ponsi, Tom Yuen and coconut trade in such a “carefree manner”. Edward Ponsi and Tom Yuen don’t even keep track of the success rate of their trading strategies.
• Scale in - I cannot understand under what circumstance can a trader be confident enough to scale into their positions and how money management comes into the play when a trader is scaling into existing positions.

Looks like I still have more work to be done next year. Success always feel so near yet so far.

As the new year approaches, I’d like to wish you a  FULFILLING NEW YEAR and MANY HAPPY 2010 PIPS AND TICKS!

inpost image by Normaron Fishion

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Regarding courses, my personal thought is I have seen enough. The premises are:

• Everyone’s psychology makeup and environment is different. The trainer is only teaching what works for him and makes him successful given his environment and psychological makeup. Most trainers miss out the following considerations:

1. • Trading timeframe/execution must match your lifestyle and must not be stressful (ie, monitoring and trading during office hours is no no)
   • Comfort with trading system/strategy. Is your trading system/strategy aligned with your beliefs? eg, for someone who don’t believe in indicators, he is better off looking at price action strategies.

• Courses are overpriced - need I say more? Most, if not, all of the info is available on the internet and books! Sometimes the info may even be presented in the wrong manner in the courses ie, misinterpreted!

• We form trading groups after attending courses. But trading groups don’t work out - I have been in and out many trading groups. Somehow the synergy is missing. I have written about my idea of effective trading groups but I have yet to find one. I don’t know if I will ever find one.

• Most courses gravitate towards focusing on strategies because it appeals more to the masses. But we know that trading is not just about strategies. We’ve got to face it. The courses out there are made for the masses and they are out to make a tidy profit. They cannot just cater to individual’s needs.

So…no more courses for me. Well, but if there comes along one that is taught by a true blue trader and is cheap (or free), I still don’t mind attending to hear how he trades, his thoughts during trading, how he approaches the market and other trading stories Other than that, just talking to a trader may be a better way of learning.

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The portrait in the papers did not catch my attention. He did not look like the high-energy educator I knew at all. My wife was the one who spotted the news.

Early this year a group of over 40 Freely students filed claims for the fees that they paid for his options trading course at the Small Claims Tribunal. The claims were filed on account that they signed up for the course because of his trading-related PhD. Subsequently, it was discovered that his so-call PhD is from a degree mill. Mr Clemen Chiang appealed to the High Court eventually. But ultimately, he still lost the case.

I guess appealing to the High Court was the only thing he can do. I heard that refunding the 1st batch of students asking for refund will open the floodgates to the rest of his 6,000+ students. There are already another 400+ students waiting at the Small Claims Tribunal for refund already.

Come to think of it, he is really plain unlucky. There could easily be over 90% of students from any trading school who cannot trade successfully after attending the school. In this business, it really doesn’t matter if your students don’t make it eventually. They always put in caveats, don’t they. It is not like the traditional education. I even know of worse trading schools and they are still running strong! Things may have turned out better if he hadn’t market his course with his PhD. He may still lose his business but at least he will get to keep his earnings so far…

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