PipStop

For those of you who missed today's Trading Post Tuesday, you missed out!

All around it was a great series of sessions. Katie Chambers who coordinates the TP Tuesday events here made a comment to me that we should abolish the break between morning and afternoon sessions and just continue the momentum all the way through - which we did, and it turned out great.

We had excellent presenters today, and it was all clockwork. Thanks to all who presented, all who participated and all who attended.

This month we had Metastock and Ensign Software, two charting providers as new presenters, and next month we look forward to having them back as well as some other new sessions and bring back some previous sessions to continue to make this a better day.

The next TP Tuesday is May 20, so mark it on your calendars!

Sometimes a thought occurs to me, or something is emailed to me and I want to share it - RIGHT AWAY, but I get caught up in things and it never happens. Timeliness is important in blogging, and one of my foremost goals is to be more relevant, timely, and present (meaning blogging at least daily).

With that said, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at its highest close since Jan. 10 on Friday and a Marketwatch blog post on The Wall Street Journal today shed some insight into sentiment into the current shape of the stock market.

That sentiment is divided.

Words like "suggest," "tentative," "expect," "concerned" are indications of hesitancy. Of course with the euro breaking 160, oil approaching $120 a barrel, what can be expected?

One thing that can be said for sure is that there is more craziness on the horizon, and it's a matter of how much traders let it affect them.

Time flies and since the beginning of the year, the days, weeks, and months have gone by faster than I can ever remember.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22, we'll have our April edition of Trading Post Tuesday. We're continually evolving it based on feedback we've received and while pre-registration for sessions hasn't been implemented yet, one thing you will notice is that there is no longer an afternoon break.  

So we'll start at 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time (11:30 a.m. Eastern Time) and go right through to 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET). It's a full schedule with three new sessions for this month.

We're opening up the charting hatches and will introduce you to Ensign Software and Metastock, two quality charting applications that both provide tremendous value, although you'll surely see the differences (and no it's not just price).

Also, Trading Post Senior Trading Coach and GTC Group Advisor Pierre Charlebois, has added another responsibility to his plate as the author of the FX Weekly Report. He will share his thoughts on the EUR/USD in his technical analysis session.

TP Tuesday, there's nothing like it, and we hope you join us tomorrow!

View the full schedule and join us for one or all of the sessions.

I've been told in the past that change = confusion. Well to tell you the truth, I don't want to get nit picky and get caught in the semantics of it all. I think there is good change and bad change.

The good change and a very positive evolution that is coming in the next few weeks for Trading Post is a redesigned home page that will steer traffic into some of the key part of our website.

Right now there are nuggets of information throughout our site and you would have to be the Internet Sherlock Holmes to take time to painstakingly find great resources and insight.

As a quick example, I received an email from Pierre Charlebois today, who is one of our Senior Trading Coaches and Advisor with the GTC Group and he pointed out the fact (and rightly so) that there's no clear way for someone to direct themselves to the FX Weekly Report he published last week (I'll post separately about this later). You'll see that Pierre's analysis was spot on, and it would have added another confirmation to your trading.

So there you have it, and I look forward to hearing your feedback when it goes live.

It's always interesting to read opinion.

You read it here, and it's often because I read it elsewhere and share what I think of what someone else has said. Does that make sense?

Tony Juste, who is an advisor at FXstreet.com has been out of touch with his blog recently because of a move he's going through (to Switzerland!), but his most recent posting a week ago elicited some strong comments from Charles and Jean-Pierre.

Notably they pointed out that Tony was dead wrong on his take on the euro, and how dare he share his flawed opinion in the manner that he is - with the potential to mislead so many.

I have a problem with that sentiment, as I expressed in a comment on that posting today. Essentially I said that it's Tony expressing his opinion - he's not holding a gun to anyone's head, and it's up to each of us to evaluate the information based on our experience and knowledge.

Tony is one of very few who are willing to be so scrutinized, and I applaud him. What I wish is that he admits he misread it and chalks it up to a learning experience. We can all learn and adversity seems to be the greatest teacher of them all.

I've got to say that as much as I want to share my thoughts here on MORE of a consistent basis (RE: everyday), I find that I am receiving some positive feedback from many readers.

Whenever I get out to be with other traders it seems like I get at least a comment on the blog. I have to reiterate that ANY comments are welcome, and not just via email to me, but you can easily type your comment in below and it will be a fixture as part of a blog post.

My promise is to keep this evolving in sharing various thoughts related to the trading industry. I always seem to come across interesting bits of news, and I like to share it. If you have any leads on anything, please forward it on ... as many of you know by now, I will always share my honest thoughts with you.

And again, good, bad or indifferent leave your thoughts and it will help me to evolve this!

I had a great conversation with Claude a trader who I have had longtime contact with.

He had come to the conclusion that individuals are doomed to fail in trading, and he's convinced that 90% of those that begin will fail. I obviously took quite a different stance, albeit one that has evolved over the past couple of years.

We both agreed that there is no singular solution that will deliver success to ALL traders. Yet we are barraged with one offer after another - especially in the wacky wild world of Forex trading (or so it seems) - of a solution that can cure your trading ills.

The problem is not these supposed solutions that are out there, but how potential traders might view them as the ONE for them.

In truth each individual trader is different. Unique. One might be a day trader, another a position trader. Then there are position traders who only like to trade the majors, then there are those position traders who are in love with strictly the yen. There are those who are single, with healthy risk captial, then there are those who want to walk away from their jobs at 45 and want to start trading full-time.

A traders profile is not one that should be dictated by anyone other than oneself. So why do so many wannabe traders settle for having someone's "system" shoved down their throat? No wonder there is a sense of disenfranchisement when it doesn't succeed for them. The outlook was wrong to begin with and expectations weren't managed properly.

To make a long story short, the evolution of Trading Post is that we have a foundational trading course that is nominally priced, but packs tremendous value. From there it is up to each trader to see what other advanced trading solutions (courses, analytics, analysis) fits their needs, as they create their own trading profile. 

A trader is not a robot and shouldn't be forced to walk the same path everyone else has walked. OK, so for the first little bit maybe - but after that it's like choosing your major at university then filling it with the 300 and 400 level classes you want to take.

I remember that process - and took some rather interesting courses due to my interest. So treat your trading with a similar type of commitment - and it is a commitment. Not meant for everyone - but meant for those who are willing to see success through.

And to get back to the original conversation where this all started. I do believe that individuals can succeed. I do believe that more than 10% of the population can be consistent traders.

When I started blogging here at PipStop it coincided with my blogging for other things. So now I have 7 or so various blogs which I update to varying degrees. Among them are a family blog, a restaurant review blog, a sports fan blog and a blog for a volunteer initiative I'm involved in.

Sure it all takes time, and I still don't have the perfect formula to juggle all perfectly, but I enjoy doing it all. The biggest reason, other than having a recorded history of my thoughts, is that it helps to clarify thoughts in my mind. It give me additional focus and when I look back on past posts I can see how not only my approach has changed but also my actions.

For any trader looking for introspection into themselves as a trader, maintaining a blog to journal experiences is a great way to grow. It instills discipline and helps to sharpen focus, as long as you're committed to it.

Two free services I'd recommend are:

1. Wordpress.com - The free file storage space they give you is now up to a whopping 3 GB, and it's got a great (meaning easy to use and robust) product, with a tremendous community behind it.

2. Blogger.com - It's no secret that I'm a Google fan - and it's not because I own the stock. Blogspot is easy to use and many, many casual bloggers use it.

What do I use? Well I'm in the midst of moving past the two solutions mentioned above and going with a Wordpress solution that I host myself.