2007...something for everyone...
So, here we go. Every year, near the end of the year, I start looking into the New Year and thinking about what we can do to improve Tradesight. While some of this is still "floating" in terms of a timetable, our concentration right now is to help provide more market/stock timing information to help people trade from different perspectives. That will help people have different styles of trading, if they so choose, for different types of markets.
One of the keys to this is going to be more interaction in the Chat room about timing exits and entries. Our own Rich Derrick has been secretly slaving away in an undisclosed location (OK, fine, his office) on a multi-hour seminar. This seminar will be givien on Saturday, November 18, 2006. Here are the details:
TRADESIGHT MARKET TIMING STRATEGIES SEMINAR
Identify potential price exhaustion points so you can anticipate likely reversal areas and improve entry/exit executions by transacting at more favorable price points.
The seminar will cover the application of objective, mechanical techniques for the FOREX, equity, and futures markets in daily and intraday timeframes.
Topics will include:
• DeMark bar counting techniques, 9 and 13 bar runs, as well as alternate methods for identifying price exhaustion upon completion of 13 bar runs.
• Mechanically identify trending vs. non-trending price action
• Objectively generate trade ideas and levels to improve execution
• Key moving average crosses as signal confirmation to enter/exit trades earlier
• ADX, directional movement indicator as an intraday timing tool
• Static trendline velocity breakout/breakdowns
Upon conclusion of the seminar, traders of all experience levels will have a more objective, mechanical understanding of chart construction and market timing. The cost of the seminar will be $299.
Along with this seminar, we will be adding an additional Messenger feed for about $10 per month. This feed will provide a list of stocks daily that are completing 13-bar exhaustions. In addition, we will be stepping up conversations about these techniques in the room as we head into 2007, so those who have taken the seminar will have a definite edge in terms of understanding what we are talking about.
There's more.
In December 2006, I will be (finally) giving my six-hour Brute Force Trading with Clean Chart seminar as well. Details to follow.
In addition, we have almost completed a version upgrade on the Tradesight Messenger that will eliminate the need to jump to IE or Mozilla to read the full text of a message. It should therefore be much cleaner and faster.
Our Chat room software is about to be upgraded with live chart sharing (instead of static) and polling features. Expect that in Q1 2007.
Finally, in an effort to include more education for forex subscribers, beginning December 1, 2006, the forex subscription will now INCLUDE the link to the Chat room educational recording. You still won't be able to enter the Chat room and participate in the evening Chat sessions without a Trading Room subscription, but you will get all of the comments that we make in those sessions going forward. This should help many people, especially those who have been trying to trade forex without taking the 6-hour course.
We hope that all of these items put together will help create the next giant leap for our subscribers in their trading in 2007.
Seminar sign-up will begin in the second week of November.
Thanks for being the best subscribers in the world.
Chris Mercer
President
Tradesight.com
Tradesight Announces Launch of EFX Front End...
Well, it's here. The last couple of months of designing, programming, and testing have finally come to a close. Hopefully, it means that I can get some sleep sometime soon.
I'm pleased to announce that we have been very successfully testing the front end that I have been working on for the last couple of months for forex. Several people have seen it and used it at this point. The feedback seems to be very positive. From a forex-only trading perspective, it is much cleaner and easier to use than the Navigator. It doesn't require setting up separate windows, etc. Everything is right in front of you.
One of the big things that I wanted to make sure of when we designed this was that the software could be as easy to use as possible while providing a depth of trade types that the MB/EFX platform provides. In other words, if you don't even want to touch a keyboard, you shouldn't have to. I think that you'll be pleased. The various settings are concise but rich in features. You can definitely configure this thing to be easy to use for your style of trading. I find it much easier to enter a series of five or six orders in an account. Certain features (described below) will help people with other trading styles.
Here is where we currently stand. The platform has been tested on multiple machines and works fine. Execution works smoothly, and we're comfortable with the way that the screens layout. So, what do you need to do to get it?
First of all, active EFX customers should receive an e-mail between Friday and Sunday (June 23 to 25) FROM EFX describing the new front end and what the feature differences are between it and the Navigator. Please note that while I designed the concept for this whole thing, an outside programming company did the coding and the platform is going to be controlled and operated by EFX (not MB, just EFX). So from here on, we'll refer to it as the EFX Front End. The actual name will be released in the e-mail that is due over the weekend.
You will have a choice between continuing to use the Navigator and moving to the EFX Front End. Details of this will be clarified in the e-mail that EFX sends out. If you wish to continue to use the Navigator, do nothing. If you wish to use the new Front End, then you will be instructed in that e-mail on whom to contact to get your hands on the software. It probably won't be on the website next week, but they will be able to get it to you if you want to start using it.
The software is listed as "beta" software. What does this mean? In the programming world today, programmers call software "beta" when there are still possibilities that various computer setups could have some sort of conflict that prevents the software from working. So, let me give you some points and details.
1) We know that the software works fine on the machines that we have tested.
2) The more updated your machine is with the latest versions and patches of Windows (preferably XP); INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_category`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES the less likely you would experience a problem. We don't find any issues.
3) The software should not conflict with firewall or virus scanning software as it is written in Microsoft's .Net architecture. NOTE: If you have obscure virus software, incredibly high security settings, or overly protective firewall settings, maybe it will cause a problem. However, this will likely be a "on/off" problem, meaning that you might not be able to log in until you figure out the culprit on your machine. If you can log in and see your account information, it is doubtful that you would have functionality issues.
4) On the off chance that you do have issues, of course, we (meaning EFX and the programmers) will want to hear about your machine.
So. For all of those reasons, the software is deemed "beta." There simply is no way to guarantee that it works on every machine out there, even though we haven't had a glitch on any of the machines that we've tested it on lately. Once it is installed on several hundred machines and any strange "quirks" have been found and fixed, then the software will no longer be called "beta."
Now, there are really a couple of stages of this Front End development. Initially, we were going to wait to release the whole thing until both of the following occurred:
1) MB completed their customer-versus-customer ECN.
2) We had every feature programmed that we wanted.
Waiting for the first item made sense because when MB makes a code change to their servers, we have to make a change for our software, and we thought that might be a lot more hassle than it is turning out to be. So, we're launching in phases instead of waiting for that. Waiting for the second item made sense because we wanted it all there. And then as the product is developed, you start to realize that there is more and more that you would love for it to do. And suddenly, you realize that it might never be released if you don't pick a point and launch the software and then add more.
So, instead of waiting for those two items we're ready to go, ahead of schedule.
I'm not going to comment here on the ECN itself because that is for MB/EFX to discuss and announce. I will simply say that I don't believe it is far away at this point. If you got an e-mail from MB in the last two weeks about rolling your account to their new self-clearing FCM, you probably realized that they are late in the process of allowing customer orders to hit each other so that the "clearing" on many trades stays in-house. Of course, you'll get the best price whether it is a bank or a customer that you are executing against. When they do complete that, it will simply mean that our Front End works the same, but the spreads will be that much tighter.
And this is purely my own prediction, but I think the spreads will be significantly tighter. But the EUR/USD is usually 1-pip anyway, you say? Well, think about large customers placing orders that you can hit down to the tenths of a pip. Those who still think incorrectly about what a "spread" means in the traditionally false markets of forex versus other true markets are going to be blown away. Again, that's my comments, no one else's.
So, what are the features of the Front End as of launch versus using the Navigator. Here are a few:
1) Ease of use. This is a big one. I think you'll just love everything about the way that you can enter orders quickly, even complex ones. The spinning wheel that allows you to drag and drop price changes to various fields quickly is cool. The order types, although they are really the same as the Navigator, seem much clearer here, separating the "Entry" trade type from the "Exit" trade type.
2) Sound alerts. Built-in.
3) Close and reverse. Not a feature that I use, but many have asked for it. Let's say you are long 100,000 EURUSD and want to sell and go short in one motion. It now takes a right-click and a left-click and it's done. Great for active traders going back and forth.
4) Clearer positions window. The Positions window separates long positions from short positions from closed positions much better.
5) Much better limitations. It is a lot easier here to keep track of what you are doing with multiple orders as the system prevents you from entering prices that are too far out of range (without an override); INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_category`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES hitting the wrong direction when setting up a management trade on an existing position, and making it clear what orders you have in the system.
6) Order correction. You don't need to cancel ANY order to make a small change and put it back in. It's all done with a couple of clicks.
What is not yet in the Front End?
1) Advanced Order Types. We're already hard at work on this, but we decided to launch without because it gets things started. Things like ratcheting stops, timed order placement and cancellation, and automatic re-entry of stopped trades is all being worked on.
2) Charts. There are good things coming, but nothing yet.
3) Much more. I'm not even going to comment. We're just getting started.
How long until stuff like the Advanced Order Types are ready? Won't be long. That's something that we'd like to have ready around the time of the ECN launch. As usual, I'm not giving a date, but think about it like this. Once we get passed the rush of giving this out to everyone, the very next day we'll be concentrating solely on testing the Advanced Orders. As soon as we know they work as billed, an upgrade will be made available.
A personal note. Tradesight has been around for five years, starting out as a stock service. I've been trading for 16 years now (gulp). I can tell you now that this is the most complex, interesting, and rewarding thing that I've dealt with in all of my time trading. Just to have a chance to think about what real traders need and tie it to the superb liquidity and order routing of the MB system, well, it's been an experience. I realize we aren't done, but the release of this software for me, personally, trumps adding any of our services, Chat room, or Tradesight Messenger over the last couple of years.
Our plan is to conduct a couple of on-line seminars that walk people through how to use the software in the next couple of weeks. We will do them at various times of day so that people around the globe can participate without staying up to 3 am their time.
For now, I wanted to get the word out to Tradesight subscribers first. Please don't call EFX tomorrow and ask for the download instructions. You will receive an e-mail from them, starting with customers with active accounts, of course. After that, things should be very clear, as we like to keep them at Tradesight.
And for those of you that trade stocks and not forex, disregard this message. Too late.
Chris
Tradesight Announces 10-month Results to Swing-only Report...
On June 28, 2005, Tradesight launched our "Swing-only" report. This $49 monthly service provides four or five picks off of our main and/or small cap report on a daily basis with triggers, first targets, stops, and swing targets. The purpose of this report is to give technically sound stock plays for people who don't have time to monitor the markets during the day. This form of trading ignores key supplemental indicators, such as market direction, volume, news, etc. By using an execution system, such as MB Trading, orders are entered before the bell to go long or short once a trade triggers, maintain a stop on the entire trade, sell half at the first target, and sell the balance at the swing target. Based purely on the rules of the report, we update stops only overnight.
Obviously, there are a lot of things that a trader can do, time-permitting, to improve his/her results using this report. For example, when a stock hits the first target, it would be logical to move a stop up on the second half of the trade. However, because many people simply have day jobs and cannot make these adjustments, we calculate the results of this report as if no adjustments were made except overnight. The only thing a trader needs to do is put his/her orders in the system before the bell, and then be able to cancel any stocks that gap past their triggers, as those trades are not valid.
We are pleased to report that we have updated the results of this trading method. Understand that in some cases, your platform may or may not get you the exact price, and there is no way for us to adjust to that. Also, there are costs associated with trading, although in today's world, you should not be paying more than $0.01 round-trip. People who trade larger size will see their "cost of trading" lessen.
Our results assume a $25,000 starting account so that you can utilize intraday margin. In general, it is rare for more than a couple of trades to be on "full size" at any given time. There are two ways that we track results, as we have seen two different styles of play. Therefore, the spreadsheet has two tabs at the bottom to represent this.
The first method uses a "dollar" amount per transaction, in this case, $10,000 per trade, selling half at the first target, etc. Using this methodology, the results on a $25,000 would have netted you $10,259 minus costs and slippage in ten months or so on a $25,000 account.
The second method uses a "share" amount per transaction. We chose 500 shares as an example because you should be able to trade that amount with margin and a $25,000 account. Using those figures, the net gain would have been $16,370 on a $25,000 account in about ten months.
So, 41% or 66%, depending on your risk-tolerance (note that trading 500 shares versus $10,000 worth of each stock definitely uses more money, but is largely in the same ballpark). And again, this is without making ANY intraday adjustments to your trading. Depending on how available you are during the day, there are definitely some trades that could be adjusted.
Here is the spreadsheet:
https://tradesight.com/recaps/swingreport/swingresults.htm
We believe these results speak volumes about the importance of finding key technical patterns for trade entry and maintaining a projected 2-to-1 or better risk/reward ratio on any trade. We hope that those of you that have been having good results with the swing report and have extra time during the day will consider the main stock report, which gives you several more picks as well as key intraday updates via the Tradesight Messenger. In addition, those of you that trade for a living should consider the Trading Room, where we walk you through trades as they happen and give tons of educational material daily about how to trade the markets.
If you have questions about these results, feel free to contact me directly.
Chris Mercer
President
Tradesight.com
chris@tradesight.com
Tradesight Announces 10-month Results to Swing-only Report...
On June 28, 2005, Tradesight launched our "Swing-only" report. This $49 monthly service provides four or five picks off of our main and/or small cap report on a daily basis with triggers, first targets, stops, and swing targets. The purpose of this report is to give technically sound stock plays for people who don't have time to monitor the markets during the day. This form of trading ignores key supplemental indicators, such as market direction, volume, news, etc. By using an execution system, such as MB Trading, orders are entered before the bell to go long or short once a trade triggers, maintain a stop on the entire trade, sell half at the first target, and sell the balance at the swing target. Based purely on the rules of the report, we update stops only overnight.
Obviously, there are a lot of things that a trader can do, time-permitting, to improve his/her results using this report. For example, when a stock hits the first target, it would be logical to move a stop up on the second half of the trade. However, because many people simply have day jobs and cannot make these adjustments, we calculate the results of this report as if no adjustments were made except overnight. The only thing a trader needs to do is put his/her orders in the system before the bell, and then be able to cancel any stocks that gap past their triggers, as those trades are not valid.
We are pleased to report that we have updated the results of this trading method. Understand that in some cases, your platform may or may not get you the exact price, and there is no way for us to adjust to that. Also, there are costs associated with trading, although in today's world, you should not be paying more than $0.01 round-trip. People who trade larger size will see their "cost of trading" lessen.
Our results assume a $25,000 starting account so that you can utilize intraday margin. In general, it is rare for more than a couple of trades to be on "full size" at any given time. There are two ways that we track results, as we have seen two different styles of play. Therefore, the spreadsheet has two tabs at the bottom to represent this.
The first method uses a "dollar" amount per transaction, in this case, $10,000 per trade, selling half at the first target, etc. Using this methodology, the results on a $25,000 would have netted you $10,259 minus costs and slippage in ten months or so on a $25,000 account.
The second method uses a "share" amount per transaction. We chose 500 shares as an example because you should be able to trade that amount with margin and a $25,000 account. Using those figures, the net gain would have been $16,370 on a $25,000 account in about ten months.
So, 41% or 66%, depending on your risk-tolerance (note that trading 500 shares versus $10,000 worth of each stock definitely uses more money, but is largely in the same ballpark). And again, this is without making ANY intraday adjustments to your trading. Depending on how available you are during the day, there are definitely some trades that could be adjusted.
Here is the spreadsheet:
https://tradesight.com/recaps/swingreport/swingresults.htm
We believe these results speak volumes about the importance of finding key technical patterns for trade entry and maintaining a projected 2-to-1 or better risk/reward ratio on any trade. We hope that those of you that have been having good results with the swing report and have extra time during the day will consider the main stock report, which gives you several more picks as well as key intraday updates via the Tradesight Messenger. In addition, those of you that trade for a living should consider the Trading Room, where we walk you through trades as they happen and give tons of educational material daily about how to trade the markets.
If you have questions about these results, feel free to contact me directly.
Chris Mercer
President
Tradesight.com
chris@tradesight.com
Jack of All Trades
In 1999, it was Internet stocks. In 2002, it was the E-mini S&P futures. In 2004, everyone wanted the Russell futures, and 2005 was all about forex. Please, folks! Stop chasing the momentum! As someone who has been trading for 15 years, I’d like to offer a point of reason. If you feel like you need to find the next “vehicle†for your success, I have a better idea: Find the success first and then trade any vehicle. People spend too much time in the trading world focusing on upside potential and costs. It isn’t the vehicle or the potential that is going to make you successful, and it isn’t the costs that are going to keep you from being successful. Success comes from understanding how to trade and applying that knowledge to the markets. I make the case constantly to my subscribers that they’ll do better if they trade all markets.
Click here to read the full article (PDF)
Tradesight Launches New ETF/Options Service...
We're pleased to announce the launch of our newest trader/investor series service, the ETF report.
What is an ETF? The short version is this: Exchange Traded Funds. Most of you have heard of the QQQQ, which is a stock that trades based on a basket of stocks that make up the NDX. That is one ETF. There are many others, including ones based on US indices, sectors, bonds, and foreign markets.
What is the purpose of trading an ETF? There are many. We aren't going to be approaching this like our main stock report. Most of the calls are not necessarily "daytrading" calls, although we will maintain stops, and you could get stopped intraday. ETFs are a lot more stable than individual stocks. You don't have the individual volatility, which works both ways. They don't often give you massive daytrading opportunities, but your risk in holding these overnight is limited. QQQQ is not going to gap from $42 to $25 overnight due to bad news.
Another reason that we are excited about this service is that it gives us the opportunity to follow foreign market indices. US stocks have been very exciting since the first of the year, but the overall range in 2005 on a percentage basis was the lowest in a decade. That was not true of many other major world markets. There are trading opportunties in these ETFs.
For over a year, I've been looking for the appropriate place to provide education on options. I occasionally cover these in the stock report, but I often get comments from some who see that as a distraction because they are largely daytrading and not interested in options. Well, the ETF market is a perfect place to apply options. Why risk $42 per share on the QQQQ for a one-week play when you could risk $3 in a call or put on the QQQQ and have the same gain potential? We will be discussing this in an on-going fashion in this report.
For a complete list of the ETFs that we will be potentially calling trades in, click on the ETF link at the top of the website banner. Many of these won't see a lot of calls or action, but they are available to us.
What sort of calls will we be making and what do you get with the service? All calls will be made via the Tradesight Messenger. There will be one report per week to review the week's trades, give general comments going forward, and have an educational section for topics like options. Our trade calls will be specific in terms of entries, stops, goals, and timeframes. Calls will be based on breakouts, reversals against support/resistance on the daily charts, Rich's Demark studies, and more. We will try to be as specific as possible about the REASON for the call so that you can decide if it meets your trading criteria. We aren't just going to leave you hanging. As with everything else in the Tradesight world, it's about teaching you to trade and become a better trader.
What is the cost of the service? $49 per month. We will begin taking sign-ups on Friday, January 13th and begin the service over the weekend (Monday is MLK holiday for the markets). There will be a first intro report over the weekend, and then the calls will begin next week. Rich and I will both be writing in the reports each weekend.
Anyone that signs up this weekend (please wait until Friday) will receive the first month of the report for $25 as an Introductory price. Please bear with us as there are always little glitches and issues on the website end when we launch a new service. This one is particularly tricky because the report procedure has changed so that Rich and I can contribute easily to the same report. There is always the potential of shopping cart issues with a new service launch as well. Platinum subscribers will receive the first month of the service for free, and then the Platinum monthly fee will go to $460 per month, adding $40 (a $10 discount (20%) as usual).
This report wasn't my idea (you can thank our own Rich Derrick); INSERT INTO `wp_posts` (`ID`, `post_author`, `post_date`, `post_date_gmt`, `post_content`, `post_title`, `post_category`, `post_excerpt`, `post_status`, `comment_status`, `ping_status`, `post_password`, `post_name`, `to_ping`, `pinged`, `post_modified`, `post_modified_gmt`, `post_content_filtered`, `post_parent`, `guid`, `menu_order`, `post_type`, `post_mime_type`, `comment_count`) VALUES I will say that, but we have received a lot of early comments from subscribers (and non-subscribers) who are very interested in this service, and we look forward to providing it. After the success of the swing report for less active traders, we hope to find a home for many of you.
Thanks for being the best subscribers in the world,
Chris Mercer
President
Tradesight.com
Traders' Interview: Chris Mercer
TRADERS': What did you think of trading/traders before you got involved?
Mercer: That’s an interesting question. I’ve been interested in trading since I was a young child. I used to follow stock prices in the newspaper each morning to see what moved the most. I even tracked options
prices before I was a teenager. The whole concept intrigued me a great deal, and this was long before the days of electronic trading – we’re talking about back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The bottom line is that I’ve always been fascinated by the financial world. If I find a new financial vehicle, I want to learn about it immediately.
TRADERS': What enticed you to start trading?
Click here to read the full article (PDF)
National spotlight shines on Chandler swing trader
Cathy Luebke
The Business Journal
Just thinking about the typical day in the life of swing trader and analyst Chris Mercer may leave some folks winded.
He's up before 6 a.m. at his Chandler home -- well before trading begins on Wall Street. At hand is a research report he's created for clients of his company, Tradesight.com. The report includes a list of stocks to watch for the day, and his computers are set to sound alerts when certain conditions click.
At the opening bell, Mercer dons a headset and sits in front of five screens feeding him information. . .
Click here to read the full article
Why A Nasdaq Market Maker Turned to Forex
I love trading. It’s not about the money. Well, it’s not just about the money.
Too many people think that trading is a science. They approach the process in a black-and-white manner, looking for a specifi c, rigid set of rules to follow – like their own black box that works under any circumstance. But there’s no such thing. Trading is an art. It’s about nuances. It’s about experiencing many situations so that you know what decisions have the highest probability of success.
Click here to read the full article (PDF)
Market Light on Volume? Go Light on Trades
I’ve watched hundreds of people learn how to trade, and there are countless psychological factors at work that thwart their ability to succeed. Fear of news, fear of losing, fear of winning (which sounds odd to some, but
happens all the time) – these fears all impede a trader’s ability to accomplish his financial goals.
Click here to read the full article (PDF)