Traders' Roundtable

Add one more INTJ here

Average (2/4) on N
Low (1/4) on O
High (1/4) on C

I never had a problem cutting losses, but it took me 6 years to be able to let profit run to some extent and become a winning trader.

Now, a decade into trading, I still need to make an effort in letting profit run.

Anyone here has deep insight ...

What's everyone's opinion on Ed Seykota's new book "Govopoly"?

How about using your P/L as a feedback input to your position sizing, e.g., if n losses in a row, decrease bet size by m%. Then if x winners in a row, increase bet size by y% until you are trading full size again. It is like the sampling rate concept, you are running low-resolution "preview" in a ...

200-week is probably too slow, 200-day is more practical. Yes, if you trade individual stocks, a filter on the index is almost necessary, you don't want to go long in a bear market, and you don't want to miss too much of a bull market. How you define bull and bear markets is up to you, either your x ...

Hi, absret111:

I haven't done it yet. But according to the help file, it seems that yes:


"Stator allows you to import account transactions, open trades and closed trades into the Data Layer (database) from a csv (.csv) or text file (.txt). The data import screen is flexible enough to allow you to ...

babelproofreader, thanks for your recommendation, I'll check that out as well, looks like there is some programming involved - I am not familiar with R, but learned programming in C, VB etc.

rhc, certainly will do. My initial impression so far: I haven't received the registration information yet ...

Thanks for the recommendation, rhc! I just ordered a copy.

Can someone recommend a good software (free or for-a-fee) for trades record keeping?

Preferably the software allows one to analyze P/L, Reward/Risk on individual trades (assuming I can input initial stop loss level), plot equity curve, and do all the standard metrics calculations etc. I trade ...

Dear tokido:

I don't use Trading Blox (I am using MetaStock to view EOD data by Norgate). So I can't comment on how to link Norgate data to Trading Blox. Other more knowledgable memember may comment on on that.

Also, I'd suggest that you contact Norgate customer service directly, they are very ...

A few years back, when I just started trading, I spent a lot of time studying these indicators, without leading to any success. Then, one day, a light bulb clicks on and it dawned on me that these indicators (eg, MACD, Stochastics) are all just distorted presentation of the price series and pretend ...

Regarding number 10, he probably meant he would never commit more than 20% of captial to a single stock, which he may have a stop at 10% of the position's value (or 5%, or whatever)? which translate to a 2% or 1% position size and is thus not a quick way to the poor house.

Anyone here knows if there are any online archives of past issues of IBD (Investor's Business Daily) in PDF format?

Specifically, I am looking for the year-end issues of 2005, 2004, 2003 etc. and don't feel like going to a library.

sunyata,

Yes, I am still using their data, including historical futures and stock data, and I haven't found any complaints so far.

AFJ Garner,

Thanks for the information on Seykota. He is one of my favorite "Market Wizards". I feel I learned a lot just from his Market Wizards interview. I Plan to meet him, maybe the next year, by attending his seminiar. Did you meet him through that route?

Very true.

Had I asked Seykota the same question, he would have probably replied with the following phrase:

You might consider taking your feelings about "trying to understand", "cause" to Tribe.

Oh, by the way, he is working on another book.

A pretty good defintition is found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback

According to Seykota, positive feedback mechanisms are the driving forces behind trends, while negative feedback mechanisms cause mean reversion. I tend to agree with him. But I am always curious of the "nature ...

Haven't read that book, but fully agree with what you summarized from the book.

So, folks, are all (or, most) major trends driven by positve feedback mechanisms?

There is no doubt regarding the value of adding more markets to select trades, because you will increase sampling size, N. According to the law of large numbers, as N -> infinity, sample mean -> population mean. In other words, assume that one has a positive expectancy system, increasing the number ...

I think that one of the reasons that some pure trend-followers (eg, Richard Dennis and his cohort) do not want to miss even a single big trend is that big trends are relatively rare. I found that these people mostly trade only futures markets, which do not have that many markets, especially when you ...