Factor Member Webinar December 2018

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Factor Member Webinar and Q&A with Peter L. Brandt - Recorded live December 5, 2018  Updated Member Q&A section on the website  Opening discussion/presentation by Peter 
  • Standard Deviation 
  • Tracking Account 
  • Trading less - what does that look like 
  Live questions from Members  
    1. Documenting your trades - I would be interested in understanding how much information you gather for each one of the trades you put on. What kind of journal do you hold excel, paper or any other method? Do you archive your charts? Do you have a small comment as to why you put on the trade and the amount of risk? When you review it post mortem - What is process for reviewing your trading plan based on your trading journal? And how do you incorporate that into your future approach? 20:04
    2. When you move a stop to breakeven is this entry price or entry minus the partial profit taken and breakeven considering this partial profit? Also, is the 100bp partial profit taken 100bp return on account based on the partial position closed or 100bp return if the entire position was closed? 24:23
    3. Possible H&S in gold? 26:18   
    4. Why doesn’t Factor include the nominal value of interest rate futures contracts in capital utilization calculation? 29:12
    5. In the CME Agricultural Futures markets, do you recommend to only have entry and/or stop loss orders active during pit trading hours? 31:15
    6. Is it possible to identify a false breakout before it occurs? 33:51
    7. My questions are $BTC related. 1) Will there possibly be a dead cat bounce and what will be the estimated range before it drops to 3k range? 2) Do you expect BTC to touch the 5700-6200 massive resistance before it bottoms? 34:44
    8. Often Peter talks about a low-risk entry. Can he go over a couple examples? I’d like to better understand what he takes into account to pull the trigger on a chart that has met his pattern criteria. 36:41
    9. Could Peter discuss the use of the hikkake pattern? When is it best used in terms of a technical setup? Or how does he use it? Is there a target price associated with it? 41:44
    10. I subscribe to Aksel's Tech Charts Service too. Can you tell us why you were not very interested in trading equities? Furthermore, what's the main difference and precautions one needs to take if trading global equities alongside with global futures markets? 44:34 
    11. You've described trading like throwing mud on the wall to see which one sticks. From that analogy, can one say the that more mud you throw the more successful ones one can find? In other words, if we don't loosen the standard, diligence in finding and monitoring more markets leads to better profitability? 46:00
    12. “N.Y. ‘C’ Markets from Hell” –  Coffee, Cocoa, Cotton and Copper you dislike. Can you elaborate? 47:15
    13. Does a 50 basis point risk refer to .5% risk of the particular position? Or of the trading portfolio? 48:25
    14. I read your blog post you brought up on Twitter yesterday and was wondering if you could provide more details on the stop-loss setting and adjustment techniques you employ that increase your gain-to-pain ratio. I have read your other posts about the 3-day trailing-stop-rule and was wondering if you could fill in some details. (Apologies, I haven't yet read "Diary" so you might answer this question there.) 49:17
    15. How does Peter enter orders? I know that he used to wait until the market closed but changed it in recent years. Does he have entry stops in the markets? Or does he have alerts and decides whenever he gets an alert? 50:31
    16. How do you handle patterns that are obvious where everyone is watching them, and potentially crowded? Would a trade like yields breakout be lower odds due to this? 52:12  
    17. If you had NOT had Pit Trading experience back then, how would you trade those markets today?  Many of us came into trading long after the Pits closed & those markets turned to Electronic trading. 54:08
    18. What qualities of a chart do you find have real predictive value? 55:28
    Reminder to access all archived Q&A webinars and past interviews go to Factor Members / Reports / Factor Multi-Media Room on the website. 
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Factor Member Webinar November 2018

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Factor Member Webinar and Q&A with Peter L. Brandt - Recorded live November 7 &10*, 2018  Opening discussion/presentation by Peter 
  • Market review 
Live questions from Members  
  1. I struggle to include trading activities into my daily schedule and I would like to know how Peter does it or suggests how to do it. I am not a full-time professional trader.That means I have full time job, however, at work I can usually manage to have access to my trading account within two hours. But, I also have business dinners, a small child which I take care of, play sports, and do activities with friends. What is the right thing to do from a trading perspective when a breakout happens or an alert pop ups when I am doing these activities? Should I finish them and then go to a computer? Should I always have my computer with me sneak out and do trading activities? Should I arrange my day that I have full time access to my trading computer? As far as I understand it Peter does not sit in front of the computer all the time. How does he manage his trading activities when he is at dinner or away for a few hours? 20:34 
  2. Peter often refers to his change to an Aggressive Risk Management - what are the parameters and details around this? 32:23
  3. Please show CCJ Comeco Uranium again. Where did you place your entry and where was your stop? After today - would you exit the trade, move your stop or wait? 37:09
  4. INDA 12wk H&S top, why 100BP? ITA 7 month rectangle, why 38BP? GE EURO DOLLAR 12wk rectangle and 4 mo descending triangle - why 44 BP? 38:41  
  5. Are there markets where it is fine to use GTC orders with execution possible outside of regular trading hours or does Peter re-enter orders for each market, each day.  It must get complicated when trading Asian, European and US contracts if entering orders daily for each market. 40:59
  6. Why do you advise traders to avoid day trading? 42:55
  7. USDZAR - Setting up a descending triangle, would you take it? Why or why not? 45:18
  8. This is a bit operational, but is there a service that you know of which constantly provides the next 2-3 futures contracts automatically rather than having to manually change watchlists to reflect current contracts? Or does Peter have to manually go through and update watchlists for new/expired contract. 46:39
  9. Describe your use of Bollinger Bands ... and compare the BB's with Keltner Channels, if you use them. I noticed your use of the BB's on a chart you pulled up when answering a question from your July webinar. 47:57
  10. Recently I was in a EURUSD trade with about 25 pip risk and got stopped with 10 point slippage (35 pips 10 extra = 40% extra risk).  I was using Interactive Brokers.  I am wondering if I could have avoided this had I traded the Euro futures contract. In your experience do brokers penalize with more slippage than the futures exchange would have? 50:31
  11. You mentioned in another webinar - you prefer to trade futures vs currency pairs when you have a choice and one reason was because “you know your counter party risk in futures market”.  What does that mean? 52:07   
  12. I would like to understand to what extent you follow fundamental factors and use them in your trading decisions. From the content online it seems that sometimes you do think about them in terms of finding a bias to a chart but at other times you say you ignore them completely. 54:20  
  13. Van Tharp stresses the importance of trying to achieve large R multiples on the winning side to compensate for all the small losses. And Van Tharp stresses letting your profits run. In contrast, Peter has price targets and takes his profit when the target is met. I would be interested in hearing Peter talk about this for a moment. 56:30  
  14. When do you consider a pattern backtest is no longer worthy of an entry. Let's say for example a pattern completed and broke through resistance. Let's say the price went 50% of the way to your target after you break through resistance but then comes back to test the previous resistance (which is now support). At what point do you consider the pattern complete? If it does come to backtest support after going 50% of the way to your target, do you consider this still a possible entry? How would your view change if it wasn't 50% but maybe 60%, 70% or 100% of the way to the target? Is there a time criteria that you might also use to consider a pattern a dud or complete? 58:46
  15. How do you determine if you should take profit at the measured move for that pattern, or if you should just build a position (with trailing stops)  because you think it has much more to run? 1:01:35 
  16. The biggest challenge I have seems to be managing stops, I get stopped out often and lose the opportunity to the gains. I have been trying to learn the way Factor is managing stops, but it is not yet clear to me about how to use the rules. When is the 3 Day Stop Rule applied and how to manage it? 1:02:10
  17. Why do you sometimes trade differed contracts further out vs current contract? Do you do this because the chart setup is cleaner or looks better? 1:04:19
  18. In his book, Schabacker talks about "The Complex Pattern" - head and multiple shoulders OR multiple head and shoulders. This is a more reliable reversal than normal H&S. I never see Peter mention this pattern, does he consider it valid? If so, does he see this pattern developing in Silver or Litecoin at the present moment? 1:05:57
  19. As most Futures Exchanges are imposing higher data fees, what is your advice for startup CTAs to manage costs effectively? 1:08:08 
  20. Completed patterns in years past, you stated could be “taken to the bank.” I do not find that the case today. Do you agree and what fundamental shift must a Classical Chartist make today? 1:10:53 
  21. As we are aware, Peter trades across markets (from Futures, Spot FX to Cash Equities); how does he manage his trading? Specifically, his signals and Order Management book 1) Aside from classical chart patterns, how does Trade Navigator augment his process to confirm buy/sell signals? 2) From past articles, he mentioned that most orders are manually entered and for certain markets he does not place stops (overnight). With recent volatility (mid-term elections), has there been exceptions to his rules? 3) Previously, my past understanding was CQG Trader (API Bridge) into ADM (for Futures); Interactive Brokers (for cash equities) and possibly Saxo/IB (Spot FX). Is this still the case? 4) Is Trade Navigator still the main tool to manage all orders? 1:12:43
  22. What are your current stop-raising protocols?  3DTSR on the 4-Hour chart? 1:16:57
  23. If one traded solely on the weekly close or Real Range for determining pattern boundary lines vs spindles is that a viable way or should spindles be more/= important? 1:17:31
  24. Beginning with equity of only $100,000, which often limits multiple contract etc., is it still worth the effort to trade due to the limi ted options of that amount? So what is the optimal initial equity amount to make significant trading progress…$200k? 1:17:55
  25. You said you don't trade volatility, long or short. Why is that? Does classical charting principle work in the vol space? 1:18:49
  26. What qualities of a chart have real predictive value? 1:19:37
  27. In years past you made many more trades in a week than now. That provided greater opportunities to increase your equity (with risks also, I know) but with fewer trades done today, it would appear a full time career in trading patterns is highly limited, do you agree? 1:19:53 
  28. There are QO and YG in mini gold contracts. Why do you prefer YG over QO? How about copper's mini contract? 1:21:45
  29. Can you explain the difference between continuous and near-by chart? How do you use them? 1:22:41 LINK to document Peter mentioned 
  30. Can you comment on HQY stock breakout, is that a trade you'd take?  Why or why not? 1:23:34
  31. Do you usually use the 55 or 57 charts for futures when using Trade Navigator? What do you prefer to use when getting an overview on a market? 1:23:52
  32. How did you quit trading big after your initial win that greatly helped you establish a portfolio in the proper size? 1:25:16
  33. Current thoughts on BTC?  1:27:04
Reminder to access all archived Q&A webinars and past interviews go to Factor Members / Reports / Factor Multi-Media Room on the website.  *Due to the length and detail Peter wanted to give on our first question followed by technical difficulties our webinar was recorded on two different days. Read More

PETER BRANDT CFA MAGAZINE interview October 2018

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Real Vision Think Tank One on One with Peter Brandt September 2018

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Factor Member Webinar August 2018

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Factor Member Webinar and Q&A with Peter L. Brandt - Recorded live August 16, 2018 Opening discussion/presentation by Peter 
  • Twitter
  • Public obsessions 
  • Market review 
Live questions from Members  
  1. Do you think fix bet size (risk per trade) can improve performance? 11:12
  2. What were the main challenges early in to your career between age of 32 to 35. 13:37   
  3. Do you consider Long USD trades and Long treasuries a positive corrected trade? 16:25
  4. How do you overcome the fear/hesitant when buy/sell signal is triggered? How to overcome the discipline to stay on the trade plan.  If the trade signal is rare, I start to take suboptimal (lesser quality) trade. I realize it after I took it and lost money. 17:03
  5. How do you typically trade/pyramid multiple contracts? 20:38
  6. When did you first get the confidence to apply such an aggressive stop style? 21:53
  7. How many basis points are you currently risking on the various patterns? 23:04
  8. Do you have any physical/mental exercise in the beginning of your career? 25:50
  9. You often reference that you are looking for an entry but are waiting to see an opportunity risk/reward entry.  Can you help me understand more precisely what you are looking for, specifically considering that you say that one shouldn't be constantly monitoring the market. 26:56
  10. Overnight risk - How do you protect yourself for the gap if you don't activate the stop in most of the markets overnight? What if in the overnight market your 60 basis points risk tolerance has become 150 basis point, and that creates a gap at the open for a big loss? At that point do you exit right at the open or do you wait and see? Is there a list of markets that you think overnight stop orders are OK. Is overnight order to be stopped into a position OK? 29:44
  11. I have been reading your book in depth (ever since the conference in May in FL).  I managed to get 5th and 6th Edition of Edwards & Magee's book "Technical analysis of stock trends" - I know you say to read first half of the book.  But which section is this.  Are you talking about the book being split into Part One and the chapters in it. Part 2 has some chart topics too...or should I only focus on Part 1 area and which is better book Edition 6 or 5? 32:48 
  12. Can you tell us your experience with limit up/limit down? Does it still happen? How would we prepare ourselves to be never caught up by them if/when it happens again? 34:20
  13. Thoughts on: 1. Dow - with yields expected to go lower and a rotation into industrials, do the charts support the thesis that YM would be the preferred long in US equities? 2. Platinum: positioning in PL is extreme and we seem to be close to capitulation. Are you watching this market? 35:28
  14. I understand the goal is to move stop to break even as soon as one can. But is there a rule to follow? Any systematic way to think about it? 4-hour chart support? Daily movement percentage? Can you show us some recent example? 37:38
  15. Can you give any advice on what brokers, etc. to use to trade cryptos? 40:07
  16. Right now, IF I want to short oil, is it better to go with Brent or WTI? Why? I'm more interested in your thinking and not really taking a shot right away. 41:39
  17. I'm a new trader and your "Introduction to Probability Theory and the Random Distribution of Results" really hit home with me. Where can I find the calculation details you used so I can run different scenarios? 42:44
  18. Where can we get more info on: 1. Volume in conjunction with H&S or other breakouts 2. interpretation of COT profile, Commercial long and Spec short 43:44 
  19. How would you rate the current environment in terms of trading richness? 44:35
  20. Who do you trade Cash FX with? 45:37
  21. Whats your decision process to long S&P500 vs Russel, NASDAQ100 or Dow? 47:05
  22. Can you elaborate more specifically on issues you have with calling H&S pattern in $EUR-USD? 48:21
  23. Can you show the NZD/USD trade, and where you would set stops along the way.  Also with the big margin $38K, contrast that to doing 6N futures instead. 49:42 
  24. Why it is difficult to make money in market? From your experience, why are the majority losing traders? 51:06
  25. Do you have a certain way of journaling each trade? Do you have an exact trading plan written down and referenced often? 54:55 
  26. Do you play any card games or have, that you may think helped you blackjack / poker? 55:36 
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Factor Member Webinar July 17, 2018

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Factor Member Q&A with Peter L. Brandt - Recorded live July 17, 2018 Opening discussion/presentation by Peter 
  • Factor Tracking Account Update
Live questions from Members  
  1. What are your thoughts on the current movement in gold? 11:06
  2. Does Peter think to have a macro perspective (for example, follow things like RealVision) is an advantage when trading Factor principles or a disadvantage? 13:39
  3. Wedges: preceding action - Sometimes wedges form after a strong move in the opposite direction. 15:32
  4. Would you have made more money if you had traded Stocks only? 16:29
  5. Do you trade the commission or non-commission forex pairs usually? 17:23
  6. This is a two part question. In one of your recent newsletters, you mentioned that you have changed to trade management approach during the last few years, namely selling half when reach 100bp in profit and raising stop to even as soon as possible. But that selling half into strength part is not always included in your Factor analysis. So my question is 1. Do you do this differently in your prop account, but not in the Factor account? 2. How do you reconcile that by selling half earlier, it will be much more difficult to get the "bottom liners"? 18:22 
  7. How much emphasis do you place on volume these days? Can you please speak a bit more how you view/use volume when trading futures/forex? 22:45
  8. Do you or have you ever looked at Fibonacci analysis? If so, which levels have you found to be most consistent (even though you might choose not to use them at this stage)? 25:00
  9. How you decide to move stops, did not understand the real tight move in the IWM based on volatility. 25:29
  10. I understand that Peter has been cutting down trade size dramatically since about the book "Diary" time. The main reason behind that is because Peter is approaching the retirement age or he simply believes the time has changed and trader shouldn't take 3% loss anymore. 27:54
  11. I’m curious to your average risk sizing YTD. Seems like LDR has been difficult to apply on $100k account size. Are you applying different initial risk tactics recently? 29:05
  12. You've mentioned that you don't trade single name equities and from what I recall that decision is driven by the leverage that can be applied. Am I correct in my recollection? If you could lever single name equities like futures would you trade them? 32:16 (Link to document referenced https://www.peterlbrandt.com/trading-futures-forex-related-etfs-foolish-use-capital/) 
  13. The death cross of the 30 week MA and the 50 week MA will happen in around 3 weeks. In case that the $5750 was the market bottom what are the possibles outcomes which the market could react when the death cross happens? Usually the market makes lower lows when this happens. 33:35
  14. How do balance aggressive risk management with "letting winners run”? 33:53
  15. Double tops / bottoms - I don't see many of these on your reports. Is there any particular reason for t his? 36:22
  16. Both E&M and Schabacker were written with single stocks in mind and with the Daily charts as primary tool of analysis. Your Q&A says (And this is clear from your reports) you don't generally follow single stocks. E&M and Schabacker were very confident that these methods work for single stocks. Do you think they work less well nowadays? Or do you think someone who applies your trading methods to liquid single stock should achieve similar returns to what you achieve on currencies, stock indices and commodities? E&M required a 3% margin of safety to accept a trading signal. Do you think that is still optimal for single stocks? 37:26 
  17. You've mentioned your experience of loneliness while trading - How do you address this? Outside of the Factor Community, how have you built and managed relationships as a lonely trader? 41:09
  18. When do you consider fundamentals or look at fundamentals? If you don't how do you manage the media/news/information around fundamentals? 42:58
  19. What makes you think your strategy needs adjustment and how often do you review your strategies for adjustment? 44:33
  20. If BTC has an INTRADAY WBB Candle breaking out above $6829 (completing the 5 Week H&S Bottom) combined with Volume Breakout and Diverging Bollinger Band s, how sure can we be that it does not come back under 6829 by 00:00 UTC (end of day)? What is the strategy for that? Stop-Loss at ~$6750? 46:38
  21. The H&S failure is the only failure that you actually trade. Since so many of the formations fail - by your own admission you expect a trade to fail at inception, as the winning percentage is below 50% - do those failures themselves present trading opportunities with manageable risk? 51:14
  22. Would you have traded Feeder Cattle Head and Shoulders. I did today and got stopped out. 52:26
  23. You mentioned the other week that over time you’ve added chart patterns to your library, and gave one example of “ottoman with chair”. Would you be able to share th e other with us over time/in a special piece. 53:18
  24. How do you determine how many bps of risk you will apply to each trade? For an account size of $250,000, trading only equities, how much do you recommend each position size be around? 53:53 
  25. Can you please speak to moving stops once position has gone your way? 55:05
  26. Do you trade BTC futures through an exchange and if so which one do you use? 56:40
Mentioned in webinar hikkake pattern 8:48 Read More

The Economic Times February 19, 2018

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The Economic Times February 14, 2018

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A Real Vision Video Series with Peter Brandt EPISODE FIVE – THE PROCESS OF TRADING

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CHARTING MASTERCLASSES FROM A TRADING LEGEND
Peter Brandt is a classical chartist and has been a trading legend in the foreign exchange and futures markets since 1975. In this exclusive five-part series, Peter shares his knowledge and the framework he has developed to trade successfully with chart-based analysis.
EPISODE FIVE – THE PROCESS OF TRADING
Our exclusive series chronicling the life and career of classical chartist and trading legend Peter Brandt concludes with Episode 5 – The Process of Trading. In this episode, Peter breaks down the “dead serious” business of trading, running through his process every step of the way in a typical week at Factor Trading. It’s a process that has been enduringly successful with a track record of 40% returns over a 40-plus year career.
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A Real Vision Video Series with Peter Brandt EPISODE FOUR – THE HUMAN ELEMENT

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CHARTING MASTERCLASSES FROM A TRADING LEGEND
Peter Brandt is a classical chartist and has been a trading legend in the foreign exchange and futures markets since 1975. In this exclusive five-part series, Peter shares his knowledge and the framework he has developed to trade successfully with chart-based analysis.
EPISODE FOUR – THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Peter Brandt examines the often ignored but crucial human element of trading, which plays such an important role in market speculation. Peter says, “If you want to really know yourself, become a trader.” Watch as he isolates the impact of emotions and how to manage them to give traders an edge.
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