Meta-Trader - Webinar gone wild

Welcome back, Meta-Traders.

This past Friday December 7th, I had a chance to join a Webinar hosted by Infinity Futures which was structured as a live trading challenge.

On one side was Hubert Senters (one of my favorite trading personalities) trading Bond Futures and Gold Futures.  On the other side was Brian Rehler, trading mini S&P Futures and Euro Futures.  Note that it was Non-Farm Payroll Friday, and we had a good number so it was a better than even chance things would be moving.  We also had a Consumer Sentiment number due at at 10AM EST.

To make a long story short, they both lost money!  Hubert lost about $550 getting stopped out of both Bond and Gold trades.  Brian lost less - about $200 on a single E-Mini futures trade.  I think both traders were constrained somewhat by the circumstances (2 instruments only 90 minutes) and pressed to trade something since winning by doing nothing wouldn't be much of a show.

In going through the process, Hubert revealed some of his rules, one being after he loses 3 times in a row on a single instrument in a single day, he stops trading that instrument for the day.  He also indicates he usually stops trading by about 11:30 EST regardless.  This performance was different from one I attended the Friday after Thanksgiving in 2011 which was totally hosted by Hubert, and he did make some money in that challenge.  

Altogether the challenge highlights how hard day trading is, and you have to expect a low winning rate and be completely un-rattled by losing money.   Hubert indicated he makes most of his money on longer-term swing trades, and something to the effect that he makes all of the years money in 3 months and spends of the rest of the year trying not to give it back.   Its similar to what I've found in my own trading where most of the money is made on just a few trades, but you need to stay in the game and pay attention, otherwise you will miss out on those big trades when they happen.

And speaking of my own trading, I took profits in Facebook (FB), and added a new position in Pharmacy chain BioScrip (BIOS).   On the currency side, I gave back all of last weeks profits and went into the negative.   But I didn't lose much money and stuck with my plan which is what counts.  I didn't find market conditions to be suitable for that type of trading.

On the Automated Forex Trading side, Atinalla #1 is on a bit of a winning streak, but the remainder of the accounts went to new lows.  I already liquidated the COATL H1 account, and the Atinalla Custom account will also be back to cash by the end of 2012.  I'll be glad to see 2012 draw to a close on the Automated Forex side and we are looking for some Neural Network based systems to show some performance in 2013.

That's all, enjoy your week.