So I’m in Time Square and there are lights flashing all around on giant TV’s while news scrolls by endlessly. It’s 7:30am on this chilly President’s day and I’m on my way to the Marriott Marquis at 45th and Broadway to go to the trader expo!
If you have never been and you want to be a trader, it’s an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in a myriad of techniques and strategies. Admittedly, by 7pm, my brain was feeling a little like mush from all that “strategy!”
Below are a list of some the presentations I attended. Some were good and offered practical approaches and strategies for various markets. Some were a little more like snake oil salesmen claiming they can teach me how to take $10k and make $250k while only working 5 minutes a day! Come on, do people really believe such a system exists?
AT 8:00 am I hit a panel consisting of five successful traders with five different approaches. They each explain what they look at to find and manage winning trades. One plays oil futures and makes trades based on the tumultuous relations between the US and IRAN. Another panelist plays only stocks in the news that have at least 3% moves. Another one manages her stock trades exclusively around Fibonacci levels. While another strictly trades on technical analysis.
Next presentation I visit is how to play ETF’s long and short using a sector rotation strategy. Unfortunately there was no real sector rotation strategy, just a moving average play using the 2 and 5 on the five-minute chart.
I also visited a forex speaker to kill some time and thought it was going to be a waste when the speaker showed us a picture of himself as a competitive collegiate skier. It got interesting however, when he broke into how he uses Elliot wave and Fibonacci levels for his trades and what markets(copper, bond, S &P) lead what currencies. It was a good mini introduction on Forex.
The next man is sort of a cult figure on the trader scene who wears a very expensive watch and whose body guard wears a hat with a feather. The room is packed with probably 300 people crammed into a long hall that seats only 200. People are lining the walls and sitting on the floors. These people love him as he tells them how successful he is. It took the speaker a while to go through his background (like an hour), but then he walked you through what basically was a breakout play off the first 5 minute candle.
Finally I go to a presentation on exploiting the increased volatility in the market. The speaker was like an encyclopedia of strategies. He threw out 5 different trades using 5 different indicators to make trades. He also has several strategy’s based on price plays with cool names such as “The Ambush, Hot knife through Butter and the Gotcha Zone!” It was pretty exciting, yet really left me wondering how he could possibly ever have enough time to implement more than a few of these strategies.
The varying strategies and markets just represent the varying personalities that exist. However, out of all the ideas and trade strategies, there was one underlying concept. Have a clear plan. Each one knew their exact entry signal,their profit target and their stop-loss.
The expo continues tomorrow and is free if you pre-registered. There are more presentations and are certainly worth the time and experience. Be sure to stop by the KeyStone Trading Group booth on the 5th floor at #5203. Pick up a free DVD and talk with Eric and Pete about trading.
