Recruitment of participants Convergent Trading - Accelerator Course

[optionstrading]

I studied lots of Dalton materials, also looked up the glossary of verniman's blog one by one in reference to what Dalton teaches about it and it helped me to understand the basics.

Auction Market Theory: any free source does the job, even old Fatcat videos and similar stuff. PirateTraders course also explains it well.

VWAP: just understand what it means and how verniman uses it.

internals: just google it, learn the basics and know why these can be useful. PirateTraders site again provide a good basic (and free) description for starter.

Tape reading: set your EA T&S like this: filter the noise (eg everything below 5), highlight the large block (eg everything above 50). Or you can set up 2 tapes, one as described before, the second one filter everything below 20. Watch how the trades flow and learn to interpret how it can show / confirm market direction, changes, etc.

If you use TradingView, set up the volume profile on the left showing the DEVELOPING value area lines going to the right. Subscribe to verniman's koffi so you can follow him live. Check his entries vs the developing value area lines and you will learn a lot.

This method used to be quite profitable before the hft algos and 0DTE influence appeared. Even verniman mentioned recently that it changed the markets, made daytrading completely different and who can not addopt will die on these markets and new conditions. Check his latest tweets and blog post. ES is a mess nowadays, it doesn't mean you can't still be profitable using this method if you trade carefully. I personally moved from daytrading to longer term swing trading as I got completely burnt out from watching the DOM and T&S for hours every day for years and needed a more relaxed trading style.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A lot of good information there.

Pirates has a course coming up (https://marketsandmind.com/) - wanna do a GB on this?

How does Verniman use VWAP and how different is how he uses it from others?

But my question is having gone through all this and learning all this, are you yet consistently profitable or do you hope to be soon? If not, what's preventing you from being profitable? The lack of a good strategy, risk management, managing your emotions, lack of capital? I would think because you know all of the above (which is what I'm planning to learn and apply over the next 6 months), you'd be consistently profitable by now.

Or are you saying that this method no longer works as well (coz of what you mentioned above) - but I still know people who are profitable using all of the above.

I'm wondering whether in a few years time - with AI becoming more prevalent and perhaps also being applied to more algorithmic and machine learning - if manual trading is going to be so difficult

For your Swing Trading, do all the above help in the same way, or are there special strategies and other tools that need to be used?

 

[SpreadTrader]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A lot of good information there.

Pirates has a course coming up (https://marketsandmind.com/) - wanna do a GB on this?

How does Verniman use VWAP and how different is how he uses it from others?

But my question is having gone through all this and learning all this, are you yet consistently profitable or do you hope to be soon? If not, what's preventing you from being profitable? The lack of a good strategy, risk management, managing your emotions, lack of capital? I would think because you know all of the above (which is what I'm planning to learn and apply over the next 6 months), you'd be consistently profitable by now.

Or are you saying that this method no longer works as well (coz of what you mentioned above) - but I still know people who are profitable using all of the above.

I'm wondering whether in a few years time - with AI becoming more prevalent and perhaps also being applied to more algorithmic and machine learning - if manual trading is going to be so difficult

For your Swing Trading, do all the above help in the same way, or are there special strategies and other tools that need to be used?

The Pirate Trader guy is very good at summarizing other traders ideas (typically Dalton and FT71 concepts) and presenting it in an entertaining way, but he doesn't really at any extra value. He says the same things in a slightly more beginner friendly way. And ever since he got that Bookmap sponsorship, he is pushing it heavily. We can do a GB, just don't expect anything revolutionary from him.

VWAP: Verniman only shorts under it and longs over ,and uses it as a LIS (line in sand) after the initial balance hour.
https://verniman.blogspot.com/2016/05/outlook-0518.html.
https://verniman.blogspot.com/2017/10/earnings-week.html

I traded the verniman method about 2-3 years ago for about a year and when I was able to execute it properly, I was quite profitable with it. Now that I think back, I believe this was literally the only ES trading method that worked for me. It is logical, teaches you a lot about how real trading works and how the markets work and the theory behind it is solid and makes sense. The problem is, you need to sit in front of the whole RTH session to trade it. Even verniman says it that "if you wanna be here for the good times, you gotta be here all the time." or something like that. And during the whole session, there are usually 3-4 trades so you need to be very patient and be good at sitting on hands.
This was my weak point, I forced trading a lot when I got impatient and was looking to enter when I got bored. He often has just 1-2 short entries during the first half of RTH then a massive big winner during the second half of RTH. By the time I reached the second half of RTH my focus was usually down and I either missed the big entry or entered (and exited) way too soon. However on days, when I wasn't distracted, wasn't impatient, did everything properly, I was always impressed how easy it was to make good trades. I just couldn't keep up with the same focus and patience every day and usually messed up with doing something stupid.
If you don't have issues with focusing through the whole session and trading just a few selected times, then it is an excellent, profitable and smooth trading method. Read through his blog, he shares everything there, I literally read every single post he wrote there and learned a lot. However sitting in front of my monitor all day didn't fit my personality, so after realizing this first I was looking for slower instruments that didn't move so fast, so I got into bonds for a year or so and then this lead me to futures spreads. Spreads fit my personality and trading style perfectly so I'm not looking to go back to outright ES trading ata. ll. But if I would ever have to trade ES again for any reason, I would definitely only use verniman's method and nothing else.

About AI and AI powered algos: it can only mess with few tick scalpers, i don't see how it could affect longer term trades.

Applying all the above mentioned to my current trading: as I trade spreads, none of this applies there, it is a completely different animal, so no volume profile, internals or tape reading helps there.

 

[goldspx]

The Pirate Trader guy is very good at summarizing other traders ideas (typically Dalton and FT71 concepts) and presenting it in an entertaining way, but he doesn't really at any extra value. He says the same things in a slightly more beginner friendly way. And ever since he got that Bookmap sponsorship, he is pushing it heavily. We can do a GB, just don't expect anything revolutionary from him.

VWAP: Verniman only shorts under it and longs over ,and uses it as a LIS (line in sand) after the initial balance hour.
https://verniman.blogspot.com/2016/05/outlook-0518.html.
https://verniman.blogspot.com/2017/10/earnings-week.html

I traded the verniman method about 2-3 years ago for about a year and when I was able to execute it properly, I was quite profitable with it. Now that I think back, I believe this was literally the only ES trading method that worked for me. It is logical, teaches you a lot about how real trading works and how the markets work and the theory behind it is solid and makes sense. The problem is, you need to sit in front of the whole RTH session to trade it. Even verniman says it that "if you wanna be here for the good times, you gotta be here all the time." or something like that. And during the whole session, there are usually 3-4 trades so you need to be very patient and be good at sitting on hands.
This was my weak point, I forced trading a lot when I got impatient and was looking to enter when I got bored. He often has just 1-2 short entries during the first half of RTH then a massive big winner during the second half of RTH. By the time I reached the second half of RTH my focus was usually down and I either missed the big entry or entered (and exited) way too soon. However on days, when I wasn't distracted, wasn't impatient, did everything properly, I was always impressed how easy it was to make good trades. I just couldn't keep up with the same focus and patience every day and usually messed up with doing something stupid.
If you don't have issues with focusing through the whole session and trading just a few selected times, then it is an excellent, profitable and smooth trading method. Read through his blog, he shares everything there, I literally read every single post he wrote there and learned a lot. However sitting in front of my monitor all day didn't fit my personality, so after realizing this first I was looking for slower instruments that didn't move so fast, so I got into bonds for a year or so and then this lead me to futures spreads. Spreads fit my personality and trading style perfectly so I'm not looking to go back to outright ES trading ata. ll. But if I would ever have to trade ES again for any reason, I would definitely only use verniman's method and nothing else.

About AI and AI powered algos: it can only mess with few tick scalpers, i don't see how it could affect longer term trades.

Applying all the above mentioned to my current trading: as I trade spreads, none of this applies there, it is a completely different animal, so no volume profile, internals or tape reading helps there.

what courses and resources you would recommend for spread trading? Sounds interesting your journey.

 

[SpreadTrader]

what courses and resources you would recommend for spread trading? Sounds interesting your journey.

Start here: https://www.cmegroup.com/education/...-futures-spreads/futures-spread-overview.html

Then Guy Bower is a good beginner friendly intro into spread trading.
His youtube (scroll down a bit for spreads): https://www.youtube.com/@GuyBower/videos
His spread course (I believe it is on Clubbing somewhere): https://masterclasstrader.com/advanced-spread-trading-course/

You can also check Rajen Kapadia's free videos (although I find his teaching style to be super boring): https://www.youtube.com/@r4jen/videos
His course is a bit better and it is also on Clubbing.

And while you are on youtube just search for 'futures spread trading', there are some other great videos there eg from Barchart, etc.

These are all introductory level courses, so from here you can decide which way to advance further:
- intramarket calendar spreads
- intermarket spreads
- inter exchange spreads
- exchange listed spreads / synthetic spreads
- mean reversal / trend trading spreads
- short term / long term
- seasonal or technical approach (or both)