In the Advanced Video Series you will test your knowledge and trading plan over a series of 12 days. This exercise can not be completed unless you have a good knowledge of the manual and videos. The 1st test of this knowledge is the basic training video. If you have taken the test and understand the concepts, you are ready to take the advanced series.

If you have not taken the Basic Training video, take it now.

In order to successfully complete the Advanced Videos, you must have a trading plan. Without a trading plan the exercise videos will be of no use to you. The reason is simple. You will be given no information, except the news of the day and the trading chart. This is the strength of the ZoneTraderPro system. You do not need anything else. You will prove to yourself that if you develop a good set of trading rules, this will be the only set of information you will need.

Here are some of the questions you need to ask to develop a trading plan.

1. Where do you enter a trade?
2. Where do you exit a trade? Do you have a profit target? Did you review the web site information and the Excel worksheets to determine where to place a profit target and stop loss.
3. Where will you place stops?
4. Will you take countertrend trades?
5. Will you trade strong trend and strong reversals?
6. How will you handle typical trend reversals and strong trend reversals?
7. Will you reverse position to the opposite trend?
8. Will you move your stop after the trade has gone 4 ticks or more in the direction of the trade? Where do you adjust the stop loss to after the trade has moved in your favor? Is it moved to your breakeven, or the previous high/low plus or minus one tick.
9. Some of the strongest market moves occurs when the Federal Reserve is meeting or talking. Do you avoid trading when the comments are being made? These strong market moves occur not only when the Chairman is talking, but also when other voting members are giving speeches. Knowing when these speeches occur will eliminate losses from these strong initial market moves.
10. Do you trade just prior to news releases?
11. On 2-27-07 there was a very large market correction. The web site has a detailed section on the events of the day and how ZoneTraderPro handled the day. There was nothing really unusual about the day until the NYSE computer meltdown at 1500 hours. Watching the contracts trade in real time was an amazing realization about how fast and hard the markets can move. How would you trade after the market falls 20 S&P points in 7 minutes, and then trades up 20 points in the next 10-15 minutes? Would you have placed short trades before or after the start of the sell off? Would you have shorted (against the ZoneTraderPro arrows) as the market was regaining the 20 points? Would you have traded the next day (knowing the Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke was speaking to congress at 1000 hours)?
12. Will you trade multiple contracts and have multiple profit targets in a trade?

In the Advanced Video Series, you will first be given the times and types of news releases at the start of the video. The video will then advance and stop at the entry point for the first trade.

From there you will

1. Write the time of the trade, type of trade, and entry price of the trade. After you analyze the risk, would you have taken the trade according to your trading plan? If you deem the risk too high, continue to analyze the trade, to see if your risk evaluation was correct. Remember, there are high risk trades that will be profitable, but the point of the exercise is to recognize the risk potential. The entry price of the trade is where the video will pause for you to start your notes.
2. You will then write down the stop price and profit target that you have determined from your trading plan.
3. You will next determine the risk that is involved with the trade. The risk will either be normal or high. If you determine there is high risk, write down he explanation of the reason why.

You will then advance the video by clicking the start arrow in the lower right corner. The video will then advance to critical decision making points. At these critical decision making points, you will write down why the video stopped and what you did about it. For example, the video will pause when you reach 4 ticks of favorable excursion, to allow you to determine where your stop will now be. The video will also pause if the market appears to be making a typical reversal. You will be making the decision whether to take profit, move your stop, or do nothing. You may have already taken profit based on a profit target determined in your trading plan. Before moving on to your next trade, you will note the profit or loss from your decisions. You will then move on to the next trade.

After completing the video, you will review the answer video. The video will pause in the same positions as before, and the initial trade will be analyzed for what risk level was present. You will of course have already determined from your trading plan the other relevant data such as stops and targets. The video will then then proceed to the critical decision points and analyze them. There is one important point to note here about these critical decision points. These decision points will usually be at possible reversal points where the system has painted a blue "R" warning signal. The market may or may not reverse, that is not the point. The lesson is what you do about it.

After doing all 12 of the videos, you will be able to see where your trading plan succeeds or fails. Some of your trading plan might be strong, other parts of it might be weak. That is why it is import to take notes about where your plan succeeded and where it failed, trade by trade.

These days in the exercise were not chosen because they were favorable to the ZoneTraderPro system. They were 12 consecutive days starting in late September 2007 to mid October 2007 and represent all types of trades, all types of risks, and a great example of an unplanned news event that had a material effect on the market.

The production of the videos started on 10-12-07. As the training days are completed they will be posted here. Start working on your trading plan, if you do not have one now. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.