OC, California, USA
Quantoholic
Experience: Advanced
Platform: IB/TWS, NinjaTrader, ToS
Broker: IB, ToS, Kinetick
Trading: stocks, options, futures, VIX
Posts: 1,976 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 533
Thanks Received: 3,710
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Someone from futures.io (formerly BMT) just emailed me and asked what I thought of MTG as I have been an on and off member with MTG for 3-4 years. I just typed him a long-winded email and thought I'd post it here to add to the conversation in case anybody else has any other questions.
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I learned a lot from Scott and Tim. They are honest guys and really try to teach people. It is said that successful traders need a good mentor, and I would consider them the closest thing I had to mentors that helped me really understand how I want to trade.
I was trading a really small account with them and while I was profitable overall, it just seemed too much work to make it worth my while + to pay their monthly fees. I even automated my gap trades so they would fire off automatically at the open, usually while I was asleep, but I still had to set that up every night and the small dollar amount of profit just didn't seem worth the effort when gap trades only fire 3-6 times a month. And the range breakout trades required me to be in front of the computer to enter and manage those trades and sometimes I would miss winning (and losing) trades and get frustrated that I missed it, our glad I missed a loser.
Also, trading for targets that are often smaller than my stop losses is hard because I've had it happen where I lost three months of gains get wiped out in 3 losing trades and, psychologically, that just wasn't for me. I’m more of a low win rate but hit a few home runs to pay for it kind of person. Scott admits that he needs a high win rate because he hates to be “wrong”. Tim, I’m not sure of. You have to figure out what style of trading best suits your personality.
So, in the end, my leaving MTG wasn't about them, it was about trying to trade in a way that suited my needs better, and that I didn't need to pay a monthly fee for.
Regarding their proclaimed 18% gains, you have to remember Scott is still very discretionary in his position sizing and how he bakes in “Risk Factors” that can override the gap guides. Supposedly Tim is very mechanical, as was I, so I guess it’s possible to be up 18% on the year for them. It’s certainly possible, and I was up 40% one time I was with them but I was using way too much leverage. Then I lost most of it in a string of losers, some of which was my fault and other times they were just MTG trades that didn't work out.
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I am no longer a member of MTG for the reasons mentioned above, but I wouldn't discourage anybody from joining them. And as far as Scott's discretionary trades, his discretionary trading used to be pretty iffy, but over the last 1-2 years he has definitely improved and uses his gap and range guide data to "pick his spots" for his discretionary trades. I don't watch his daily videos anymore but even after I cancelled I watched them for a while into this summer and he was nailing some really good discretionary day trades.
P.S. I guess MTG has a new set of data on how to trade the close coming out soon. And they've collaborated with Rob Hanna for an overnight trade set of data/probabilities. So, using all of those services you have data for the open, the opening range, the close, and the globex overnight session.
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