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Hello Rters,
I am just trailing through the last few weeks of postings on the RT
forum and I found this one by Richard Josslin in which he wrote:
>Subject: Re: Gen: Amount of time required for success.
>
>Dear Brent & Group.
>
>My path:
>
>78-79: The Hunt Bros.-induced run-up in precious metals caught my
eye.I began studying about futures and, later, began paper-trading
silver futures,buying at 6, 8, 10, 12, & 20. When silver hit 50, my
$10K hypothetical account had $1 million in paper profits. I was
hooked! Although I continued to read about and study futures, I didn't
get further involved for a few years, as I was then just starting a new
business.
82-84: My business had gotten going, so I increased my involvement with
futures. I joined Tim Slater's trading group (CompuTrac), bought an
Apple II computer, got overnight data from Bob Pellitier's Florida data
company (CSI),went bananas playing with every indicator in the Computrac
program, cobbled together a trading program, opened a futures account,
and began trading.
When I got home from work, I'd download that day's data (by modem), run
my automatic analysis program with my Apple computer, have dinner,
and,thereafter, analyse the print-outs, and call my trades into to my
broker,leaving a message on his answering machine. The following
afternoon, my broker would call me and tell me how they did. I made
200-300% annual return on my account during this period.
Parenthetically, my success here was due to 10% of my trades making 90%
of my money, with the rest either winning or losing a few $100 --- this
was just the experience that Richard Dennis (the "Turtles" guy) said
that he had trading at that time. Although I was making money, I
wanted more consistency, and I thought that I could find that
daytrading. In retrospect, I now question whether I just should have
left everything alone and been happy making 200-300% annually, spending
no more than 30-60 minutes daily on it. Ah, hindsight! but then I
would have missed all the adventure in the years to come!
84-85: Flushed with success, I bought an IBM XT computer and
CompuTrac's realtime program, subscribed to Market Information for
satellite service,and repeated the prior process except for trading.
Living in LA allowed me to follow the Bond/Currency/SP markets for
several hours before I had to leave for work. Spring, 85: I began
trading and made modest profits. Fall, 85: I closed down my business
and began trading full-time. Parenthetically, during this period, the
S&P market was in a long-term trading range between 160 &
180; it's daily range was usually 2-3 basis points, occasionally up to
5;it's margin was around $5K. A $100K account would have allowed buying
20 contracts, say at 180, which now, with the S&P around 1180, would
result in profits of 20 contracts x 1000 basis points/contract x
$500/basis point =3D=$10 million from $100,000 in 13 years. I think I
could retire on that!
85-92: I day-traded primarily the S&P market, generating great heat but
very little light. My approach was entirely based on indicators, using
computers and computer programs (initially all "canned" programs; later
on, my own).
Early on, I switched from the CompuTrac realtime program to a program
produced by Roberts/Slade ("Market Master", as I recall), and when
TradeStation came out, I switched to that (as well as more powerful
computers, from time to time). Meanwhile, Market Information was
acquired by Bonneville, which became Bonneville/Market Information
(BMI), which has since been gobbled up by DBC (Signal). In 92, for a
variety of reasons (including that my then wife had simply lost patience
with me for spending so much time on my research and trading and with my
producing so little money to show for it), I separated and
later divorced.
92-94: I took a 2-year holiday from the futures market, dealing with my
separation and divorce.
94-96: I returned to the futures market, but realized that I could not
return to my prior work, with its old beliefs; namely, I needed to
break out from my dependence on indicators and computer programs. I
began watching the market with nothing but price charts, began noticing
recurring patterns in the charts, and spent several years turning them
into a trading program.
96-current: Let me summarize it as follows:
"What's nice about finding your own voice is that it puts you out of the
competition. This is who you are and you trust that, and you're no
longer competing with other people in subject matter or anything else,
because you can't do what they do, and they can't do what you do."
Author unknown.
>
I do hope that many others of you have found a degree of success that
satisfies you, and that you have done so in far less time than I took.
I realize that I am an independent, bullheaded, old fart, and that my
answer to adversity has all too often been to keep smashing my head
against the stone wall ... to drop my bulldozer down into compound low,
lower the blade, and floor it. In retrospect, I believe that one of the
unforeseen benefits for me of my separation and divorce (25-year
marriage, two kids) was that it gave me the opportunity to realize that
I needed to change my personal style. I did.
In the trading arena, for example, from trying to conquer the markets
with numbers and computer analysis, to learning how to listen to the
market and hear where she wants to go ... and from then, it's just a
matter of following(and shutting up, and not asking any questions, and,
generally, not getting in the way). It works. It took me a long, long
time, but, hallelujah, I finally got it. On the one hand, it cost me
my marriage and my kids. On the other hand, I have since remarried, and
this marriage is stronger, and, what do you know but, double hallelujah,
my kids (they're now 21 and 23) have begun
speaking to their old man, and their comments seem to be, "Who are you?
You've changed!" Life goes on.
Sincerely,
Richard Josslin"
********************************************************************
My own thoughts are similar but were experienced over a much shorter
period of time and I wonder what other RTs comments are with regard to
some of the following also....
I have been extremely interested in technical analysis since about
1992/3 when I was trading spot currencies at a small bank in London.
Maybe I went straight for the easiest route but I decided that moving
averages, RSIs, Stochs and indicators generally were the best.
I had to make markets, cover customer business and trade proprietary
stuff in $/Dm, Stg/Dem and other majors trading on average 1-3 million
dollars per position with Stg 1000-3000 stop losses.
I was determined to formulate a mechanical trading plan but never quite
had enough time to really fine-tune it as my day-job (trading for the
bank)was dominating. Even though I have got closer to that goal, I
realise that for all the years that I've been watching MAs/indicators
turning up/down only to reverse very shortly afterwards I have not
properly learnt what the price is telling me...I refer to for
instance...the use of candlestick patterns, the classical patterns like
triangles, penants, flags, H+S etc so in essence I was not able to read
the prices just read the indicators and as we all know the indicators
nearly always lag the price.
This brings me to what I want to ask you...do you think that there is
any point is continuing to search for the mechanical trading plan which
makes a good return and also wins 60+ % of the time.
I feel the need for a structured approach i.e. using swing levels like
from Gann or Elliott (though less preferred) to filter the indicators.
Maybe the answer is that it's each to their own....we must all find what
suits our own persona/environment/style.
Please, if you have a moment, I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Many thanks, Tom Nagle.
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