The 1st Annual Learning Curve Seminar (LCS) contained many of the same emotions and activities as a baseball pennant-league champion series. Next year we’re scheduling the F-15s to scramble overhead when we throw out the first pitch! But I’m getting ahead of myself. An enormous effort by the grounds crew at the Del Mar Hilton got everything in place – led by Moses himself. He, in turn, took orders from a higher authority: Heather, our event coordinator, who without her touch and deft hand at the details, this event could not have happened.

The free-wheeling sights and sounds from the San Diego Fair, installed at the Del Mar Racetrack across the street, enhanced the ‘Stadium Arcadium’ feeling around the LCS. The gorgeous weather consisting entirely of sunny, cloudless skies and cool breezes impressed even the natives among us who reminded each other of the usual “June Gloom” in San Diego marked by cloudy, hazy days and cold nights.

By the time it was ready to yell, “Play Ball!” attendees arrived from both coasts and points in between to soak up the plain spoken teachings of our fearless but ‘shiny’ leader, Dan Mirkin. Dan walked everyone to a clear understanding of Trade-Ideas and its many alerts and filters with ‘in the trenches’ explanations of real-world trading scenarios. Dan got many assists and a few slam dunks from our resident genius and technician, Philip Smolen. From the dugout I noticed that subscribers of all stripes – rookie and veternan alike – experienced several ‘Ah-ha’ moments. There was resolve among all to try some new things as a result of Dan’s performance. A lead-off home run to start the ballgame.

We took our seventh inning stretch on the patio to grab a lunch buffet and fuel up for a second, shorter session of guest speakers from the stellar bullpen. Attendees got to pepper the panel consisting of Steve Walkenbach and Kevin Dodson from Scottrade, Mike Kestler from Evolution Capital, and Brad ‘aka DiamondTrim’ Williams, with questions on trading tools, trading styles, and the need Trade-Ideas fills within their arsenal. We didn’t stop there. Our keynote speaker was saved for last – to give us alot to chew on during the cocktails that followed. That’s normally a tough time slot to be in but Julia Bussie, CMT, a portfolio manager for alternative investments and a hedge fund advisor for Western Pacific Capital Management in Del Mar, delivered the go-ahead runs of the game. She talked commodities, particularly relevant in this market, and offered some amazing correlations between the markets’ activity and key trends on the international macro-economic stage. Let’s just say that everyone will be keeping an eye on Japanese Money Supply numbers to predict where the U.S. markets go next.

It was a toss up among the group for the evening activities during our happy hours over cocktails: the San Diego Fair, a dash to the beach for a surfing lesson, or best locations to prepare for sunset. All of the above got done it seems, but what happens in Del Mar, stays in Del Mar!

The next day opened with some hands on demonstrations of getting every advantage out of Trade-Ideas PRO as possible. The tool was verbally disassembled and put back together again in front of the attendees. Anything that could be changed or modified in TI PRO for the best view was done to show how versatile the tool really is. Dan then got around to revealing what else is behind the curtain at Trade-Ideas: The Odds Maker. We already discussed this upcoming add-on feature to Trade-Ideas in a previous post. The full demonstration that shows a subscriber plainly what the odds are that a certain strategy will produce winning trades under current market conditions, left everyone visibly moved and excited at the possibilities. The rest of the second day was dedicated to requests from the attendees on two topics: new feature requests (the next version of TI PRO will be called the ‘Cash machine!’) and examples of how to model different strategies – topics that were back to back home runs.

We concluded the session with a universal feeling of gratitude. Everyone had come together, broken bread, shared some libations and shared a common experience – the first of more to come. This first class of Del Mar ’06 knew that it was special.

Heartfelt appreciation to everyone at LCS — Heather, Meyer, Moses, Philip, Shari—many thanks to our special keynotes—Julia Bessie, Steve Walkenbach, Kevin Dodson, Brad Williams—and professor Kestler—and, of course, many thanks to each attendee who found their way to Del Mar. It was an event beyond description and we look forward to exceeding your expectations again in 2007!

Want to see more photos? Take a look here.