Hello Forum

Hello all,

I joined the forum about a month ago and am very excited about all that is here. The amount of information that is shared between the members is unreal and very helpful. I hope to be able to contribute to the forum in a positive way in the near future.

I am a former GW student (2004 – 2006) and have taken the 1-5 classes, Advanced Classes, RTP and DE. You would think that after all of that, along with the years that have passed, my family and I would be sitting on our own private island out in the Pacific. In 2005 I sold my interest in my business and made the leap into trying to trade full time. I gave myself a 2 year time frame to make it all work. If at the end of the 2 years trading was not working, I would find a new direction/career or start another business. Well, it did not work for me in the 2 year window so I started another business.

What went wrong? I thought I was doing everything by the book. I practiced for a year before trading with real money, had QCharts, Briefing, CNBC on 24/7 you name it. After 7 years of being away from all of this I can see as plain as day what a dumb ass I was. Here is a short list of some of my major infractions.

1. Going from being a full time “employee” not being able to look at the market all day to someone watching candles paint on a 5 min chart.
2. Trading WAY too much. I mean WAAAAYY too much
3. Giving myself a time frame in order to make trading work.
4. After taking a loss I would instantly look for another trade to try and make it up.
5. Thinking of my trades in terms of dollar amounts and not thinking of them in terms of good or bad trades.
6. Most importantly I had the wrong mindset

The reason I am back trading is because I firmly believe that I can do this. I am very interested in trading and I hate to give up. So I am starting from the beginning with a new mindset and a very small trading account that is not even funded yet. My goal is to become a very successful Big Chart Trader. I can tell you first hand that I do not enjoy the stress of watching the charts paint all day long. I am using TOS and although it is not as intuitive as QCharts I do like it. My practice trades are all based on the Weekly, Daily and 233. I do have the 55, 34 and 21 charts as well but they are not my focus. I have read “The Slight Edge” (best book ever), “The Power of Now” (2nd best book ever), Technical Analysis for Dummies and several other books lately. Most of the books have been about mindset. In my opinion that is key to being successful in anything.

I can keep going on but do not want to take up any more of your time.

Thanks and I look forward to the road ahead,

Dave

Dave,

Welcome to the forum and best of luck on your endeavor to start trading again. I can relate to your story as we started around the same, took the same classes, and I too set unrealistic expectations on how long it will take for this to work. I even stepped away for about two years during the mortgage meltdown due to the additional stress in my life. Long story but have been in that industry for years, a lot of my friends were being laid off and I eventually lost my job as well. I did not see any reason to throw good money away trying to trade given that I did not have a clear trading plan and very little confidence. I knew this worked because my best friend retired using GWs system but I could not get it to work for me (mindset). Up to that point I only experienced back-to-back winning months one time since starting. Needless to say my frustration was high as I had given this all I had for four years, taken all the classes, and had little to show. For the better part of two yeas I simply watch the major indices trying to predict from day to day where they were headed and kept up with the news

Fast forward to the end of 2011 when I decided to really get serious about dong this again and allowing it to work - not forced it to work. I decided to take GWs new Survival Series Class 1 in Feb 2012. That was the biggest "Ah Ha" moment I have had since starting in 2005. Night and day. I had many discussions with veteran students that were in the same boat with me. Most with the attitude "I wish he had taught it this way originally. I would be so much further along in the process". Personally I was just happy that his teaching style had changed a bit and that he was teaching it the new way. The best analogy I can give you is this. The 1-5, Advanced, RTP, DE approach still had a Mr. Miyagi feel. You were instructed to do a lot but you didn't know why. "Just do it and it will eventually work". You had some rules but never a clear cut defined entry and exit. Mr. Miyagi never took the time to show you that waxing the car was blocking a low kick, painting the fence was intended to block a head shot, etc. In the Survival Series you get all that. You know that if you do not see ABC123 then you have no business being in a trade. If you have ABC12 that doesn't count. And you stay in a trade until DEF456 occurs - PERIOD. Survival I is more structured for the engineer types but definitely provides a foundation that was not here before. The remaining classes get more into the art side. The intent to Survival I is to give you a structured approach on how to enter and exit a trade using a defined rules bases system while keeping your losers from falling off a cliff if you follow the rules. You will start to see more small losses, break evens, and a few that have really nice runs. March - May of 2012 was the first three month winning streak I ever had. Don't get my wrong. I still have some losing months but when I look back the losing times have more to do with falling back into old habits. I get cocky and arrogant after a few nice months and stop following all of the rules. That has nothing to do with GW - that is ALL ME!

To close this out I am not trying to sell you the new GW courses. I do not know the man and will not gain from writing this. I have no intentions of providing my contact information to gain credit for the referral. At this point I have no intentions of taking any more classes now that I have finished the RTP retake. Just throwing out there what helped me and others based on conversations I have had with other students. Not to mention a retake is dirt cheap for anyone that has taken all of the former classes. Roughly 95% of the information taught is the same but structured and taught in a different way with defined rules that only focus on the big charts.

There is a lot of good information provided in this forum. Most is geared toward short chart momentum traders but still good information. GW does not teach or use the "E" chart nor does he need 6 to 8 different charts given him signal to enter a trade. That said there are similarities in Darcy's thought process and the way GW thinks about entering. Check out the trades posted in this thread by fireman1984.

[www.researchtrade.com]

I do not know fireman but can certainly see why he considered and made these big chart trades. Best of luck.

NCT

P.S. Did not mean to slam GW regarding the old format and how it was taught. Now that I have taken all of the new classes and look back in my old notes I can see that he provided a lot of the same information. The difference is that he seems to emphasize certain points now more than he did before and provides that clear ABC123 approach to entering.

Great posts! It's awesome to see so many people working their tails off to become proficient at this craft. I have not added much recently because I have been trying to take to heart how much Gary emphasized that this is a by yourself thing! I don't think that his point there can be understated, but it also must be stated that there is a whole lot of value from the trades contributed here and the help that others so freely give. I just wanted to throw out two books that have been huge in my mindset when it comes to trading. The Disciplined Trader, and Trading in the Zone. These two books stress how trading is entirely based on probabilities (unless you are Darcy.....then it's just win win win). Once I realized that and stopped taking losses so personal things became much clearer. I stopped believing that I had to be right on 10 out of 10 trades to be successful at this. For example, my last 10 trades have been 5 winners and 5 losers but over July and August I have been able to increase my account balance by at least 25% by allowing the ones that were working to work and to close the ones that weren't working quickly. I only hope what seems so simple yet such a revelation to me helps someone else out there get to where they are going just a little bit quicker. I don't know how all that applies to short charts because the smallest I look at is a 144.

Happy/Stress Free Trading to you all and.....
May Christ be glorified in all of this.

Fireman Out!

NC Trader and Fireman1984,

One of the reasons I posted my story is because I personally know several people that have put in a ton of work for many years only to have to step back, pause and reevaluate. We all firmly believe that this does work, but have not been able to personally make it happen. Not because of a lack of effort, but I think because of the wrong mindset. I think that we all tend to make this harder than it really needs to be. I agree with you NCTrader that there was a Mr. Miyagi approach to GW teaching style and I am glad to hear that he has changed his delivery. Don’t get me wrong, the content of what he teaches is great, and I would not “trade” it for anything. Yes, the pun was intended. Knowing that he is teaching with a “if you have ABC123 it’s a trade” and “if you have ABC12 it’s not a trade” is really all I wanted back then. That ABC123 is what I am striving for in my thought process today.

I also agree with you fireman1984, and GW, that this is a “by yourself thing”. However, I feel that that only applies to the actual pulling of the trigger on the entry and exit of a trade. The amount that everyone can learn from one another is huge. Keeping yourself locked in a room and not bouncing your ideas and thoughts off of anyone else is not productive. There is someone out there very similar to you that may say “look at it this way” and that is when you go “That’s IT”! When I found this forum I was blown away at how people here were sharing their thought processes. We are all getting the same information taught by GW, but because everyone is different, we all process it differently. Because of this, we will all develop our own unique approach to what GW has taught us. Darcy and her S/O are perfect examples of this. They have developed their own style, with what GW taught them, that fits their individual personality. And because it fits their own personality it works and works well. A friend of mine, whom I introduced to GW classes, mentioned the book “The Little Book of Market Wizards: Lessons from the Greatest Traders”. This book interviews several successful traders and documents their journeys in trading. What you get out of the book is that everyone has to develop his or her own style to trading. Do not be afraid to develop your own style.

Dave

Welcome dbanko.

The E system works on big charts also. You would use the 144, 233 and daily. BCT mentioned this in another post and how he used the 144 E chart. I tried GW's way of trading using pull backs HRFP, FP and lost enough baskets that I thought I was Little Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf.

The main thing I did to change the pit I was in was to go back and read every single book on GW's book lists and then some more. Trading is a mind thing but you also need to recognize the signals when they are there. I would say the best books on trading are "The Market Makers Edge" and Technical Analysis for dummies. These 2 books are the ones we have depended on to change our life. They are beside me every single trading day. I like to use them often and I like them for candle signals. If you decide to read these I strongly suggest to ONLY read the parts that go along with the way you trade. You do not need to know point and figure, bar charts, envelopes, float channels etc. You need to know ONLY what you use on your charts. If you apply too much to your charts you get confused.

I trade small charts or fast almost always because I am impatient. I know this about me. S/O knows this about him. Sometimes I find something and I hang on until I am tired of it such as GPRO but S/O never does. He is always out before the market close of the same day. We are not day traders by definition. Day traders trade hundreds of times a day. We trade once sometimes twice in a day.

I am not nor ever will I put GW down. What I think is he has found additional things that make his trading even better...that's what S/O and I did. We have found that we can find E trades almost every day but to find FP, HRFP along with E may be a once a week thing. When we find FP and HRFP along with E the trade lasts longer and sometimes the $'s are bigger. Our basket is between 16 - 25 stocks with 25 being the biggest amount. We do change around from time to time on some stocks (not all) when one stock simply dies on the vine such as WLT.

As far as selling your business...OUCH!! S/O and I still own 2 small businesses. We decided until we were ready to sell we would hang on to them. We are glad we did especially after several basket losses. It wasn't until we started the E charts along with GW's FP, HRFP that we have been successful. We have yet to have a loss in over a year...now mind you some of the trades we made $100.00 maybe $200.00 and we could see it starting to turn against us. We have been able to remove all debt.

Our goal is to trade some but do Printing Press and own about 3 stocok sthat pay great dividends.

I want everyone to succeed at this whether they use our method or GW's or any other they find that works for them. You may want to do a private message to BCT also...He trades Big Charts and ask him about his 144 E chart.

Good trading.

Darcy,

I have actually added the E charts on my weekly, daily and 233. One of my first practice trades using the E signal was on HD going into earnings on 8/11. The E on the daily chart is what I believe to be picture perfect. Please let me know if I am wrong. I have not yet added the 144 chart but will give a look here shortly.

With regards to reading the books I have to totally agree with your suggestion of reading only the parts that go along with the way I trade. I recently read Technical Analysis for Dummies and skimmed over the parts that had nothing to do with my chart setup. I am trying to make this as simple as possible where I am only using a few indicators/signals for entries and exits.

As for selling my business, things happen for a reason. I was ready to move on and am a firm believer that God had a different direction he wanted me to go. Not sure what it is but I am going to keep on movin’ on.

Take care,

Dave

I actually use a 55 "e" 99% of the time. It has to line up with a daily,233 trade though. I have never been more confident in my big chart entry as I do now. Darcy, I truly appreciate the education. I don't contribute to the forum anymore and the only reason I feel compelled to is to say "thank you".

BCT

dbanko Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have read “The Slight
> Edge” (best book ever), “The Power of Now”
> (2nd best book ever), Technical Analysis for
> Dummies and several other books lately.


Dave,

I had read The Slight Edge, but not The Power of Now... until I bought the audiobook this weekend after I read your post. Oh my goodness, this book this amazing. I love how the author also speaks about the teachings of Jesus Christ and their deeper meaning. Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning it. I'd been in a slump for a while and just listening to this book has really helped me. God does work in special ways

God bless!

BCT - I miss your posts on the forum. I think all of us want to be good at big chart trades, so your absence is most definitely missed.

Dynamike,

Glad you are liking The Power of Now. That is a very deep book and took me a little longer to read than most. I found myself going back and rereading what I just read to try and comprehend it. In the end I got a lot out of it and will read it again. I need to get the audio of The Power of Now and The Slight Edge to keep in my car. That would be a great use of that idle time.

Dave

Speaking of reading books!!!

I have recently found a couple phone apps that you guys might enjoy. I've been re-reading some of the books from the book list, and I've found a way to have my phone read them to me. I can listen to my book anywhere really.

Here is how it goes.
Once you find or purchase a book in electronic format (e-book) you use this app to read it to you. The app is called @Voice Aloud Reader. This app will read many different formats including TXT, PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, and more. The app has it's own voice, or you can use that ones from your Android phone. Currently I'm using Acapela voice for the voice synthesizer. The Acaplea voice is not free, but it only cost 4 dollars. I'm using the UK English Graham voice because it's the easiest for me to understand. I also have IVONA voice which is free and works well. These are not the standard synthesized voices, these are high quality voices and they work well.

Over the last several weeks I've installed and tried many different apps trying to find one that I liked, and that was free. This is the best one for me so far, and did I mention it was free. If anyone wants to try it out, I'll be glad to assist.

And no, I don't have anything to do with this app or any others apps for that matter:-)

That's awesome, RichieRick!

Yep, I think that is pretty cool to have an app that reads a book to you. Thanks RR!

Hi All,

Just joined this thread today. I have taken WSB 1-5 and Survival I and II (I also posted 2 other comments on different threads as I am looking for an updated thread). Due to my work schedule I only trade using 233, Daily and Weekly. Sorry for a repeating question, but what exactly is an "E Chart"? I have not heard Gary or anyone else talk about this in the 3 years I have been studying this trading platform/edge.

Also, I have truly gotten into my own way of looking at the charts and making a "movie" out of the right side of the chart. With that being said I am wondering how beneficial Survival III/RTP is? Does it mainly concentrate on the "art" of the chart?
thanks,
CLT1987

The E signal refers to the 5, 10 and 20 day MA's crossing over one another to give you a signal to enter a trade. If you look through Darcy's messages you should see something pop up!

Was this something he taught in DE/RTP? Do not remember hearing this in survivor courses or 1-5?

Again, sorry for all the questions. Just curious.

Thanks,
CLT1987

Welcome CLT1987!

Yes, Survivor III in my opinion starts to prepare you for RTP with respect to mindset. I re-read my notes last week and one of the first things mentioned is that SIII will be the least amount of information provided. That doesn't mean that you are not going to receive a lot of good information or that you will not be taking a lot of notes. It simply means that you are starting to get into the art and not as much hard concrete technical trading info. He will always throw out a few technical nuggets. To me all of the classes were worth it as I learned something in each. One caveat. I took SIII last year and will be retaking next month. I will not be at liberty to discuss details but as I understand it he is starting to add a few new pieces in SIII that will carryover into RTP next year. I do not know the details. All I know is that he told the 2014 RTP class that there are observations he has made and things learned that he has never taught. Things that have always been present on the charts but he simply never noticed until sometime in the recent past. He wanted to make sure any new pieces are worth teaching before introducing. I believe he may have tested with some of his coaching clients first to see if it is worth teaching (don't quote me as I really don't know - just a hunch based on how it was stated). As I understand it there are pieces he plans on teaching in the next SIII class and the rest in RTP 2015. Sorry, wish I could help more but that is about all I know. I will say this. Regardless of any new info provided if you have never taken RTP and doing so will not break the bank or cause your family any financial hardship then it is worth it . Especially if you are a big chart trader and plan on sticking with your trading as the knowledge will eventually pay for itself. I will give you this. I know we spent a good 1.5 to 2 hours in one RTP class looking at perfect Survivor technical entries on several stocks and why they did not work. GW provided more context around how he reads the charts, what he is looking for, incorporating the calendar and upcoming events, and seeing the bigger picture. Also teaches a couple of additional exercises on how to get better at seeing the movie. I can tell you from personal experience that doing the work has kept me out of trades that had perfect technical entries but fell off a cliff or simply did not work.

As for "E" chart, no, this is not taught by GW. The three moving average crossover is something Darcy introduced to the forum as she found it very useful in her own trading. Several former GW students have adopted the E as either an entry trigger or used for confirmation. Due to the lag time for a 5 to cross a 10 that crosses a 20 you might have to drop down a few charts to use it as confirmation on bigger charts. If you are trading daily/233 then maybe 144 for E but more than likely 89 or 55 for the E signal. keep in mind that most students that use E also look for FP/HRFP (or SLI) on bigger charts along with an E on smaller charts. Each has their own style. If you decide to explore the E then Google three moving average crossover. The forum calls it "E" because it looks like an "E" when 5 crosses 10 which crosses 20 and they start expanding / widening. One guy I follows and respect for his ability to read the technical picture uses a 8, 13, and 21 crossover. The only difference is that he uses an EMA vs SMA that speeds up the crossing. Typically puts you in a candle or two before the 5,10,20 with SMA.

NCTrader,
Thanks for your feedback. Glad to hear. It's been almost 2 years since taking SII. I will certainly look into taking SIII.

CLT1987

I am a newbie as of this weekend, so I wanted to stop in and say Hi, and tell all the people thanks for all the great info in this terrific forum...I trade with the big charts, using mostly DiNapoli Methods for trend and Fib level entries and exits...I am quite interested in the methods mentioned so far that i have seen..I use TOS for my charting, so i think this will be a great place for me to be part of...

Hiway

Welcome Hiway1! I studied DiNapoli early on and found some benefit by looking at confluence levels. I still use common retracement and extension projections. I do not think of it in terms of DiNapoli but that's how I got started looking at overlapping areas of support and resistance. Interested to hear how his system has worked out for you and what you find beneficial.

NCT