Retired Students

Hello everyone!

I just found this forum and I'm excited to find a place where former and current students can get together to share ideas.

I took Gary's 1-5 class back in 2006 and I went hard at it for a few years, but I never really had any sustained success. I would build my account up then lose it...build it up then lose it. Is there anyone out there that is consistently making the returns that were discussed in class??? I've never actually met someone who was able to retire from following these techniques. Are any of you out there?

I think a ton of Gary's students have lost their basket at one time or the other. I was hard headed and did not have patience. After getting the taste of success by taking a basket from $2500 to over $7000 in a couple of months (lost it all), I wanted more of that action, so I lost it again. I was not going to give up because I was simply too close to "Getting It". I dove back after more studying and practicing- and finally "Got It"- I think!

I earn 20% or more on probably 70% of my trades. I earn 10-20% on 20% of my trades. About 10% of the time, I enter a trade and do not like the way the price is moving, or the price looks as if it going to reverse on me, so I exit with a very small profit, break even, or a very, very small loss (less than $100). I rarely have a losing trade.

I am not retired, but I only started a little over 2 years ago, and I am on track to have retirement choice within 7 years. I am 43. My goal is to retire by 50. I should have retirement choice by 48 (knock on wood).

I work at this and- I TRADE HARD!

I am not retired and probably never will since both my S/O and I work at home and we love what we do. However saying that I would like to cut back some on my hours and would eventually like to hire a part-timer to assist with my employees vaction and sick time. For now that is left up to me.

I use generally between $2,500.00 - $3,500.00 per trade and have recently increased this to $2,500.00 to $5,000.00. S/O and I have not lost a trade since February of this year.

I practice Widow and Orphans and don't mind saying IMHO that if all you buy is 100 - 200 shares do not expect great returns at least this is what I have run in to thus far. I practice W/O (actually the Printing Press method) with Apple and use 500 shares. I do okay but I prefer trading.

Before retiring from what I remember GW teaching you need to use the W/O leg to retire. Since I have no intention of retiring but keeping my business and my S/O plans to do the same I really do not pay a lot of attention to W/O.

I will probably never buy stock. I am not good at that at all. I don't think I have the patience for that. Personally I am beginning to believe most folks will only be great in one leg of GW's three legged stool. So if you plan to retire by trading you better save...pay off everthing you have and save...and not get overboard...and save.

I do not trade for a new house, a new car, a vacation home etc. I trade for a very personal reason and intend to save and pay cash for anything I buy.

What made me start paying attention to my trading is when I started to lose money recklessly. If you do not keep records of why you traded XYZ and for how much, you will get reckless. I still use the forms GW provided in his class. I made a rule for myself...If I lost $300.00 before I could trade again I had to pay back $300.00. When you trade you can easily forget you are using REAL money. When I got to the point where it was getting difficult to pay that $300.00 back I knew I had to change something.

I also skipped a lot of GW's books he recommended. I finally stopped the lose, lose, lose record and decided to read his recommended books and play GW's CD's, read his recommended books and play GW's CD's, read his recommended books and play GW's CD's, read his recommended books and play GW's CD's, read his recommended books and play GW's CD's. ((Hint)) I was shocked at all the things I had been doing wrong. (Hint Market Makers Edge)

Now I can say I have earned a little over $200,000.00 since February and my S/O even more since he sometimes trades 2 different trades a day. I don't.... he does. My S/O and I do not trade on margin which allows me to trade eveyday. I am not a day trader. One trade and I am done for the day.

BTW it is a mind game...really!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2013 02:44PM by Darcy2.

I will probably never buy stock. I am not good at that at all. I don't think I have the patience for that. Personally I am beginning to believe most folks will only be great in one leg of GW's three legged stool. So if you plan to retire by trading you better save...pay off everthing you have and save...and not get overboard...and save.

Darcy

You are a great trader and contributor however I thought it to be fair to share that this statement would be more true in the art of small trading. If you trade big charts then W/O or the vault is not very different. Patience is the variable that link all. Also I would like to point out that W/O is not solely intended to "retire", it is a more conservative trade and the quicker you can stop trading the better off you will be. That's awesome that you haven't missed a trade in a very long time however it's a lot less work to buy a quality stock and watch it "walk up the chart" for MONTHS. I would like to urge all of you to consider how important compound interest is and play around with some numbers using Gary's 5% a month rule of W/O. If you are a GW student then you have a market calendar. Find a stock that is volatile and buy it around "that time of year" and let it ride for 4 or 5 months.Repeat that process and In 10 years I guarantee you will be more than happy with the results.

Darcy and or Rookie, I'm not down playing your style at all, in fact I feel like you both are pretty awesome traders and more importantly, people.

God Bless,

BCT

I really liike and appreciate each of your candid responses.

I want to tell everyone that I trade from 1 laptop and a hotspot. I have a full-time job that require a lot of my time, but I prioritize. Is it easy? No it is not, but I have to trade. My wife and I are in public school education. We do not make much money and since we are being candid, we have not received a raise in our district in 5 years! That's right- 5 years! We struggled financially for a long time. I prayed to God for help. We were drowning in debt, and we were paying for bad financial decisions we made.

As the man of the family, I felt worthless to say the least because I saw no end to the madness. Well, I met a gentleman through a team sport that our children participated. He and I developed a friendship that grew into an inseperable bond. Please understand, I am an African American from Southern Georgia and this gentleman is a white male from Rocky Mount, NC. The conversations regarding our childhood experiences were very interesting to say the least. He and I shared experiences that would bring most people to tears (If they have a beating heart). When growing up, my brother and I were "Field Hands", and my mentor and his family owned property and hired "Field Hands". We had some "real" conversations, and I was able to heal some emotional wounds. He was mentally sharp, very well spoken, also sincere and kind. I was driven and determined to re-invent my family wheel. I could not fathom the thought of my kids ever going through a day of the life I lived.

We talked on the phone everyday. He is truly my best friend. He knew my family and I were struggling financially, and honestly, he has the financial means to have written one check and cleared my debt and never missed a beat. He chose to do something different. He baited me by stating, "I want to share something with you that might be of interest. I have done it for years and now have retirement choice. This could help you get out of debt and change your life forever. I will talk with you about it when we meet again". I trusted him. I am ADD, so I harrassed him until he finally had to tell me what he was talking about. He talked to me about WSB. He told me everything including meeting at Gary's home in RM, going to Denny's after class till almost daylight, the amount of work and time it takes to be successful as a trader, etc. I was salivating, but part of me did not think this was real. My dad worked on the trash truck and my mom worked in a sewing factory. The kind of money he talked about was foreign to me. He sensed my doubt in the money, so he did something that might not be recommended, but dog diggity it worked for me. He made the statement, "I am going to give you the amount of money I earn on my next trade minus commissions and taxes". I am like, "Yeah, right".

WE met every Sunday for breakfast for my mentoring/training, so the following Sunday we met at our restaurant. He came in and handed me an envelope. I attempted to open it, but he stopped me and said, "Do not open that in here". Long story short, when I got in my car, I opened the envelope and guess what was in it? Over $9000 in cash. I almost hit the ditch, heart started skipping, got dizzy, and started crying! That did it for me! I wanted to know more and how I could get involved. He told me it was an expensive class, and that it was not offered anymore. He made it clear that had inside connections and could purchase the entire program-including the Dennys CD's. He asked me to wait and that if he had a good trade that specific week, he would get it for me. Well, he trades Apple and trades it well. He had a good trade as always, so he purchased the program for me. He told me from the very beginning, practice for a year-practice for a year, practice for a year! He also told me that I would be a better trader than him. I thought he was crazy because I am one of the most motivated people he has met in his entire life. He stated, "Dude, you have a not quit thing in you. I can already see that. You also have that thing that will not allow you to settle for being mediocre".

I have put more effort in trading than I have anything in my life! I will tell you what trading has done for me-so far. Before trading, we spent more money during the month than we made! Since trading we have cleared bills and have a positive cash flow each month of over $4000 after household expenses. For some that is not alot, but for us, it is the best financial position we have ever been. I do not know W/O either, but I am averaging another $10,000 a month from trading. Plan is to pay off the house and wife's student loan, and become debt free by 2016.

I know this is not the forum for all these personal experiences, but I think sometimes it helps for others to hear success stories. Also, it is evident that success does not descriminate. As Gary said, "Anyone can do this-if you are willing to work".

I just wanted to let you seasoned traders know that when you guys post stuff like this "LIFE" reasons for trading, past experiences etc... It is ver encouraging and motivating! So thanks for doing so and keep it up! I'm a GW student and have been at this for a little over a year. I did the 1-5 courses while sitting in a bunker in the middle of the desert, practiced my but off out there then came home to the weekend seminars. This by far is the most challenging thing I have ever taken on. My past experience has always had success in it and when I took this up well my story changed. I'm beginning to believe more and more on a daily basis that the stubborn and driven people are the ones that do well at this! I look forward to being retirement capable before I retire from my current government job and coming on here gives me that much more motivation. SOOOO THANKS GUYS AND KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!

Great stuff, thanks for sharing!


rookie30 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really liike and appreciate each of your candid
> responses.
>
> I want to tell everyone that I trade from 1 laptop
> and a hotspot. I have a full-time job that
> require a lot of my time, but I prioritize. Is it
> easy? No it is not, but I have to trade. My wife
> and I are in public school education. We do not
> make much money and since we are being candid, we
> have not received a raise in our district in 5
> years! That's right- 5 years! We struggled
> financially for a long time. I prayed to God for
> help. We were drowning in debt, and we were
> paying for bad financial decisions we made.
>
> <SNIP>
>



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2013 06:32PM by trendtrader1.

Finally! Some folks willing to put the cards on the table!

I have asked many students in the class over the years how they are doing and never could get any sort of a straight answer.

Many thanks to those willing to share their experience. We all need to hear this stuff when you are in a vacuum working alone and wondering if all of the work will ever come to anything. We all "hope and suspect" it can. I know we've all run the numbers and know whats possible. But to actually have folks tell what they've actually done is really encouraging.

Thanks everyone for all of your postings. After reading through the responses, I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to post their 5 year annual gain and loss record. Not to belittle anyone's success but it is one thing to trade successfully for a trading zone, for a year, or even two years and it's something quite different to do it over five years or longer. I have never met anyone taking one of Gary's classes that could actually produce this. If any of you could, it would provide evidence that this actually works.

I question why it is that supposedly you can get rich by watching charts, trading zones, and a basket of stocks. How is it possible that over the last 250 years that the stock market has been in existence that some of the smartest people in the world on Wall Street haven't figured this out. I don't say this with disrespect. I say this because I am looking for facts.

Thanks for sharing guys, really great inspiring stories. I took class in 2004. I had and was in the typical "rat race" mentality, in debt and just charge it and pay later until I finally had enough and wanted to get my finances straight and a friend told me about this class. I feel as if God opened a door for me by leading me to this class. I took it along with some co-worker friends of mine which are no longer doing this. I really appreciate this site because I can read, learn, study and post ideas with people that have taken the class. This site along with its members are truly a treasure. Rookie and Darcy's post as well as the others on here are priceless. Not as a result of trading but through mindset and reading the books I am managing my finances better and keeping them in line. I now have credit cards that I carry no balance on. I have lost my first basket and then some, spent countless hours looking at charts, reading, listening to cd's and staying at it. I will make good trades and then give them back, as it seems a lot of times I am my own worst enemy but I can see the potential in this and I must have the "no quit" clause because I can't let it go. I get my butt handed to me and still get up and go at it again. Hopefully one day the "AHA" will happen and it will all come together consistently. The post on here from you guys are really an encouragement as it shows that there is hope at the end of the tunnel.

Jttader:

No disrespect at all but I am wondering how that would make you a better trader if you saw a spreadsheet or trade log that was successful?

BCT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2013 07:49PM by BigChartTrader.

Rookie

Just curious, where in Southern Georgia are you from? I'm from Valdosta. Been a Gary student since 2005.

I am trying to clarify some things I see posted here: rookie30- if 90% of your trades are profitable and you have been trading for 2 years, I am curious as to why you find yourself still years away from retirement choice.
Darcy2 - you stated that you practice Widows and Orphans but also stated that you do not pay much attention to W/O. Can you clarify?
Thanks to both of you for your postings!

BCT,

Thank you for the encouragement to move on the bigger charts. As of right now I simply do not have the patience for that. Since I am not looking to retire however I have not pressed myself to move past trading. I enjoy the daily/semi-daily cash to be honest.

Know that I do practice Printing Press and have on occasion practiced purchasing stock. I haven't left that completely behind. Someday when I do sell my business, which is a ways off, I will probably move more into that area. I am of the opinion that the Printing Press method GW taught isn't far from buying stock. I have been successful with my 500 shares of APPL. I like it because of the weeklies. I make between $500.00 - $900.00 a week off that...and that is virtual.

I know what you said, "however it's a lot less work to buy a quality stock and watch it "walk up the chart" for MONTHS" and that is the thing isn't it. One must be patient and honestly I am not. I can't even wait long enough for paint to dry before I am trying to hang my pictures back on my wall.

I think knowing how one is designed is a major help in the market. I am a type "A" which doesn't lend itself easily to buy and hold for months.

I appreciate your posts. They are very encouraging to me. Please keep doing so.

I was intrigued by a statement that was made regarding not having to sit at a computer and watch for setups. I spent a ton of time this weekend trying to figure this out. I did not understand, but I knew it could be done. After sleeping restlessly on Saturday night, I was awaken with a process that I missed. I pulled up Strategy Desk, downloaded the manuals from the internet, read all the details, and starting building formulas. I am not pro at it yet, but wow, you can actually have settings that alert you when there is a fat pitch or when stock price crosses MA lines,and so much more. I am pretty excited about this find. If I can be alerted to check specific stocks based on my indicators, I will be in "Hog Heaven. I think it can be done to most all indicators I use.

Ha Ha! Look at UA! That is why small chart players do not hold overnight. I anticipated it going down- now as things continue to shape, I might have a trade going in the other direction. Gotta love this market.

highlander Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Darcy2 - you stated that you practice Widows and
> Orphans but also stated that you do not pay much
> attention to W/O. Can you clarify?
> Thanks to both of you for your postings!


I do not pay attention to trading W/O with real money at this time. I practice it (actually printing Press) with APPL only but do not real money trade it. Long ago I practiced W/O (Printing Press) with 100 shares and then 200 shares and the profit (%) just did not excite me. Small charts (55,34,21,10,5,3) excite me. I think when the market hits a different year with different circumstances W/O and/or stocks may interest me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2013 09:30AM by Darcy2.

rookie30

Yep, thats how I solved my ADD issue LOL.

As a technician my entire life has been spent doing a process and seeing results in a few minutes or hours when the problem was solved - the thing I was working on was fixed. Waiting for a trade to set up, going through the basket stock by stock, all the charts all the time, was driving me insane. Plus I learned I hate assembly line work - doing the same boring thing over and over. I had to overcome this or I'll never make a trade. One day I "wandered off the farm" of QCharts and started looking at other charting software and was shocked to find out other charting software could be programmed to alert from price action and indicator action. That sent my head spinning and my first experience was with Ninja Trader. Its OK, but in my opinion, not an elegant charting package especially for stocks. Long story short, I found Strategy Desk. Esignal can do the same and is where I really want to go but right now its not worth spending $225 a month on what SD can do in the time frames I can trade, for free.

I built my "trade matrix" quote sheet that tells me when a stock is trending on the daily charts (using higher lows for the up trend and lower highs for the down trend) for example. I glance at the DUT (DailyUpTrend) column I created and if I see a green box, I know without pulling up a chart, that stock is trending higher. The column next to it tells me where the MACD is on the 65 min chart and another on the 30 min chart. If the daily is in an up trend (a higher low than yesterday) with a falling MACD on the 65 min chart, that is a pull back in a daily up trend. When the 65 begins to trend up with the daily already making a higher low than yesterday that is a potential trade - an invasion force trade. I will still do my analysis to see if I want to take that trade, but it takes a load off by putting me in the ball park of the stocks likely to move just by glancing at my quote sheet. If the set up looks good, then I'll go down to the 15 min chart and set up an email alert for the entry or something similar. No need to sit there watching candles paint. Its a waste of my life.

I do the same thing for the gainers. I have set-up's programmed for that too. Within the first 1 min the stocks in my basket likely to move higher or lower on news are sifted to the top. I typically wait for the first 15 min candle and see what happens afterwards around the 9:45 zone to actually enter the trade, but at least I know where to look instead of clicking, and clicking, and clicking.

The trick is understanding the trading set up you want to see. Once you know what you are looking for, then its simply a matter of figuring out how to program SD to alert you when your style of trade is near. I have several columns set up to show me different types of trades I've learned to look for. My bread and butter is the morning gainer / looser and 30.65,195 chart swing trades. I prefer intraday because of exactly the problem of UA - overnight news can kill a trade.

Hey BCT,

I don't think seeing anyone's historical performance would improve my performance in any way at all. It would, however, provide proof that someone is actually making consistent money trading options. I do not know and have never met anyone that has been successful long term trading options. The only people I know that claim to be successful long term options traders also happen to teach a class on how to do it. All I'm looking for is hard evidence that this can be done consistently over a long term period of time.

JTrader

I would be unwilling to do that as I see that as a very personal account. I completely understand wanting to see hard evidence that it will in fact work as forecasted. What I am here to tell you though is, that it will not work as forecasted. In my opinion, that would be far too easy. It takes a number of years to acheive any success with this and a number after that to achieve what you thought you could do in 6 months after leaving class. GW did explain exactly how to do this in classes 1-5, most of us, including myself did not listen. In fact, I think most people saw the technique of short chart trading and fell in love. If you will just apply a vault type process to trading options you will be successful. I doubt you will trade that much however the one point Gary always made that stuck out to me was...."Most people trade too much".

BCT

JTrader

Email me at soundtrader7@gmail.com

If I am reading your question correctly, I might can help.