PipStop

I've said it over and over and over.

I like feedback. Give it to me straight, give it to me honestly. The best feedback isn't just cutting but also includes some insight into how something can be improved.

We got an email from Rob on Monday night - which was actually BEFORE Trading Post Tuesday. No matter, though, as he obviously feels the value of being there isn't great enough.

WHY IS TP TUESDAY SO LAME THESE DAYS?YOU USED TO HAVE GOOD STUFF(PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT TRADES AND STRATEGIES) BUT NOW IT SEEMS YOUR JUST TRYING TO GET MONEY OUT OF PEOPLE .

I don't disagree with his main point - although in the past it was more pitch (marketing) and less play (trade talk as applied to the real time market). We are moving in a better direction - maybe we do have off months, but on a whole we are doing better.

Yesterday we did have Pierre Charlebois kick things off with "3 Currency Pairs Due For Multi-Year Corrections." This is very much an evolutionary thing. The concept is dead on and I don't know of anyone else who is doing something like this. We'll get it better.

I disagree with Rob on trying to get money out of people - it's an accusatory thing of sorts that we're greedy. That's what I infer anyway.

I seems like so many who try to get ahead balk at investing into a tool or service that can help them trade more consistently. Trading Post's vision isn't to hawk ANYTHING that comes along, rather it's to judiciously look at what's out there and partner with the best of what's available.

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy something. Heck we aren't even going to make you feel bad if you pass up one approach after another that we might partner with. At the end of the day YOU have to feel comfortable, and YOU choose what's best for YOU.

We provide paths, and YOU have the choice of which one to tread down. Remember we are no longer advocating ONE solution for ALL traders, because there is no such thing.

And that folks is a little long winded, but my honest thoughts. Rob, truly, thank you again for sharing your thoughts, which helps us to further define how we do things - and to keep us on our toes.

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Just as a matter of semantics. I might use "I" on here a lot as opposed to "We" and that is by design. I do have a significant voice at Trading Post but it isn't the only voice and I want to ensure that I am always solely responsible for what I say.

It's not often that you see anything like what I'm about to post. I've got to give a big shout out to our New Media Developer Raymond because he delivered the following links to our Trading Post Tuesday sessions from today on a platter!

If you missed TP Tuesday, shame on you, it's best live - and it's getting better. We bring together the best of what we and our partners have to offer. Thank you to all who participated.

So without further ado, take a few moments or half a day to go through the links from some of our sessions below. Enjoy!

(And please let me know what you think - this is for you so your comments are important)

++ "3 Currency Pairs Due For Multi-Year Corrections" with Pierre Charlebois (joined midway through)

++ "What is Left Brain Trading" with Lewis Evans

++ "Elliott Wave Applied - Trade FX using the Elliott Wave Principle" with Marius Alexe

++ "FX Solutions AccuCharts" with James Chen

++ "FX Solutions GTS Pro Platform" with Xinjia Lu

++ "A Trading Post Perspective" with Samuel Araki

Deep Debt.

It's what's befalling Americans, and I'm sure that you know somebody who has been affected.

In Canada, especially here in Vancouver there is still strong housing development, and although the real estate market has slowed, it still remains steady.

My brother flew into town for a friends wedding, while I was away at the lake house for the latter part of last week, and he's currently living in Hawaii.

It's interesting to get his take on the U.S. economy as an American, and as one who lives in one of the most expensive states.

We all try to get ahead in life, and for my brother he has a solid government job, but, there's always that "but."

It's a new week, and the weeks seem to go by so fast now. I'd like to know, though. What is your "but?" What keeps you from truly getting ahead?

Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy. There is so much information that I subject myself to that I have to close my eyes, lean back and take a deep breath.

Of course I guess I like to punish myself because I like to keep up-to-date with chatter that's out there.

There is always contradictory information out there and I just had to chuckle when Rob Booker flirts with the idea of buying USD/CAD, while today Dailyfx.com picks a short on USD/CAD. Everyone always wants to be an expert and have their opinion. What's yours? The likelihood that you'll come up with correct insight might be just as high.

I've been asked about correlations in the past and how currency prices can be tied to variables in other markets. Ray Barros shares his thoughts.

Then I noticed that Raghee Horner posted on her blog, then recycled the exact post to her FXstreet blog too. Not to rat someone out, but all the exclusive bloggers at FXstreet are asked to provide unique content (aka unpublished) to their FXstreet blogs. Not that I really care, though.

Below is an example of what I look at in my Google (RSS) Reader. The craziness that I talk of above is felt most when I'm scanning through the hundreds of news drops in my Google Reader a day. Somehow, I love it, though.

Two things are official.

I am with my family at a friends lake house (for those of you who are familiar with Western Washington it's the beautiful Lake Samish), and I will be attending the Forex Trading Expo in September (in Las Vegas).

It always seems to be more exhausting at the end of the day "away" from things, but it's just because so much happens - whether it's a hike, swimming, dutch oven cooking or just sitting around being with friends and family.

Far more taxing is walking around an exhibitors hall at a trading expo and feeling like I'm being herded like cattle. For the record, I like just roaming or grazing around at a function like an expo, and I had that point made clear to me by a few who were chained to their booths in Los Angeles last month.

I've already had two of our trading coaches Nikhil Patel and Pierre Charlebois tell me that they'll join me in Vegas. If any others want to come and be Trading Post roamers with us, it'll be a great time.

One question, though, I still haven't booked a hotel. Any recommendations on a Vegas hotel to stay at?!?

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An interesting thing happened as I was checking my email late tonight. I got a message and subsequent Skype call with Abe Confas who I have been carrying on a dialogue for a few months with the prospects of working together.

With the flooding of fly by night trading operations, few in the Forex industry can boast the resume and experience that Abe brings to the table. He's had some exciting developments and the fact that I talked to him at 11 p.m. Pacific and he talked to me at 2 a.m. Eastern suggests that we're serious about our potential collaboration - or it might just mean that

we're both crazy .

Let me go out on a limb and say I'm in the midst of creating the largest social network of traders in the world.

It all starts with Forex traders, and the process has started for me on Facebook, the fastest growing social networking website around.

In the past few days, I've been able to connect with around 500 traders, and I invite you to come and join me!

And soon I'll create some groups too, so be on the lookout.

Since I go through a few hundred blogs a day, oftentimes, if I get past the headline, I'll read the first paragraph or two of a blog post. Today, I read one headline, saw the following picture and howled.

Yahoo’s Jerry Yang (middle) with Google’s Larry Page (left) and Sergey Brin in Sun Valley, Idaho.

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++ THE DANCING FED: I'll share the last paragraph of a blog post by Mike Shedlock of SitkaPacific Capital, and let you decide if you want to read his complete post.

If you have money at any bank above the FDIC limit you are living in a complete fog or your are completely nuts. This statement not only applies to individuals but corporations as well. Corporations better be thinking about where they park their payroll.

++ OIL, STOCKS AND ECONOMY: Rich Toscano shares his thoughts.

++ ANOTHER FXSTREET BLOG: Good grief. This is getting out of hand to the point that I can't even keep track of how many there are anymore. Incidentally, the new blog is by Dirk Du Toit.

++ THE BOOKER TRAIN: Rob's busy, I get it, and maybe I'm too big a nuisance to answer emails to, who knows? But he makes some great points and I'm digging back a few days and piggy backing off a post he put up a few days ago, complimenting our very own Pierre Charlebois.

Below is what I started to post as a comment on that post

I've talked about it with Pierre on a few occasions Rob. Early on for me, it was not wanting to lose. The mentality is why get out for a loss when the market is "bound" to come back? When it keeps going against you though, natural inclination is to continue to resist getting out because the losses get bigger. As it continues to go against you, you get trading paralysis - the inability to get out of a significantly stupid position because you'll lose a ton of money. It's almost better psychologically to get margined out at that point ... you know what I'm going to continue this train of thought on my blog.

I think you see where I'm getting at though. I've been through it myself, and have seen COUNTLESS others continue to go through it. At this point I call it Brick Wall trading - I'll explain that in one of the chapters of a book I'll write in one of my lifetimes.

It's important to impress that the mind is where everyone's success resides. You choose whether you are successful or whether you are not. More often than naught for those who have skewed expectations, it's their own human emotion that overrides the ability to exercise common sense.

I talk so much about this, I think so much about it, and I dream about it too. One day I'll put everything together and write a fun book. Or maybe I'll just keep it simple with a blog.

Trading Post sponsored the first live event in Vancouver in a LONG time - I can't exactly remember the last time we hosted a live workshop - but I'm sure it's over a year ago.

Pierre Charlebois who is creating an impressive profile of himself - as the sole advisor to the GTC Group, exclusive blogger (separate blogs)  at FXstreet.com and Trading Post, Senior Trading Coach with Trading Post and now live instructor.

On a beautiful, sunny summer Vancouver Saturday, Pierre hosted 14 traders at the National Nikkei Museum & Heritage Center in Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver). Incidentally, traders in attendance came from as far away as Seattle and Vancouver Island.

I had my daughter in tow, but managed to drop in and talk to a few of the traders and it was a great group. There's just something about the live environment that is invigorating.

It's true that you need your solitary moments - it is you that ultimately needs to pull the trigger, but in the course of growing as a trader being around like-minded individuals is a great feeling.

We're all human and it's only natural to want some personal interaction.

I'm sure there will be more live events and workshops like this. I guess the question is, what do think would benefit you as far as a live trading event goes?

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A small and significant (perhaps in my mind only) fact is that this is the 200th post in PipStop. Thanks for reading, and we'll reach the next 200 a lot quicker!