zdo

bootstrap, Lately the 'gurus' around here have been saying put trading 'psychology' last on the list. In this different approach, would it now go first? thx, zdo Have a great weekend all

This has been the most fun and exciting trading I have had since the mid 80's My usual 'representations' / 'indicators' have been sufficiently adaptive (with understandable but consistent overruns of course)...and I dusted off a couple latent methods and styles from the old days Basically, I have been running wide open at pretty heavy size 5 to 6 hours a day for the almost a month now. Only losing day was Oct 3 - some days I can't actively trade my way out of a wet paper bag and that was one of them. Otherwise simply amazing, incredible. Was 'proud' the first few days - that has given way to feeling blessed and grateful... I could stand weeks and weeks more of this but am prepared for it to suddenly and / or gradually be over Major adjustments made - 1 went to one time frame only, 2 widened stops considerably 3 worked a little on being more patient to let moves complete before acting. ie no stepping in front of trains 4 in execution increasing reliance on market orders (eg in more 'normal' conditions would be concerned to keep an ES point - in these conditions willing to give up a point to keep 9 or more etc.)

Eiger has my admiration and appreciation for providing excellent VSA (and s&d ) posts. He has also 'pitched fits' when db provided the same kind of content he just posted...just calling him on double standard...

Thanks Eiger - but, in the past, when db put up similar 'wycoff' explanations in this thread you SCREAMed !!! Please watch the double standards...

crock part? BigBoys (hereinafter referred to as bb’s) . I don’t really know what Wycoff’s position is on bb’s. I do know he lived in a time of blatant ‘operators’, but whether he ‘controlled’ for that (in the scientific experiment use of the term) or participated / capitalized on it - I don’t know. We do know for sure that vsar Williams started with a strong ‘syndicate / operator’ campaign orientation. Might vsars, including Williams himself, have unconsciously turned what was to be a way of identifying ‘campaigns’ into a ‘simple’ trading technique? That gradually, users (both wetwired and computerized) are ‘crocking’ up the underlying premises of vsar ? In this forum; s&d posters, db in particular, have made a good case over and over that the “who” doesn’t matter – or more accurately perhaps, that knowing the ‘who’ is not necessary to trade s&d. For general trades, I can buy that. Activity is activity - especially for short holding periods. But having observed in real crazy people that there is some truth underlying each paranoia… I wonder ??? Here is a story… http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/39506

No. But we should understand - Commercial banks had no choice. “In a time of state-sponsored easy credit all projects get financed by incautious banks with cheap, centrally supplied money. There is no market for cautiously lent money, priced correctly for the risk involved. Why would anyone pay more for funds from a cautious bank when cheaper funds are available from easier sources?” Paul Tustain. Compound that with ‘bureaucratic’ / ‘legal’ pressures to make loans to anyone who wanted to own a house… Heck, under those circumstances, I can’t even blame top level execs for demanding ‘no – lose’ compensation packages.

First, 'get it' that (exit) orders are continously 'cancelled' and re-entered in TS. :doh: Then re multiple orders and linking exits to that position you can name posititions and use the names in the exits and / or you can use reserve words like SetStopContract and / or run separate / stand alone exit strategies and / or ... hth... this post only cost me $3000 so far...

If you KNOW you are going to be a full time independent trader and nothing else, take jock courses so you will have time for Screentime 101 - 401, PersonalEdgeFinding 101 - 401, Backtesting 101 - 401, PainManagement 101 - 401, Perseverence 101 - 401, and whatever other trading 'coursework' you will need If you have any leaning towards having a trading mentor - do it now. Pick a court game - tennis, raquetball, handball, even table tennis - and get good at it. Take fencing if it's available. If you don't understand programming - take courses until you do If you don't understand accounting - take 101 If you don't understand finance - ditto Same for economics, statistics, psychology, etc and ...these only if you have obvious gaps in understanding - otherwise don't waste your time. If you don't KNOW you are going to be a full time independent trader major in the field supportive of your most likely career and minor in liberal arts classics, subjects that over time you'll appreciate they really round out your 'brains' "Never let school get in the way of your education" Mark Twain

What happens if you pull SetProfitTarget(3000) ; SetStopLoss( 100); outside the block?

bb ... was not attacking or making you wrong ... was speaking very generally ... in this thread not required to adhere to wycoff threads jargon rules

sdoma, Excellent observations and description of that dynamic! Not that pertinent to classic / theoretical VSA bb operations but still I appreciate your insights. Btw, Bearbull, the following addresses your most recent comments. Not to the same extent but, imo, these following comments could apply to Wycoff patterns as well... My point was that the real ‘tracks’ of bb’s operations only put in an appearance on one time frame, all the other concurrent (or not) tracks that happen to show up on the timeframes above and below are incidental. So while VSA is as theoretically sound as, say, more generalized ‘Wycoff’, assuming and teaching that every ‘tell’ on every time frame is indicative of the current campaign in play is crock re your observations - What percentage of occurences do you find your volume studies on compressing range bars to be contrary to non volume based ‘indications’ on same compressing range bars? zdo

cw, That's not a bad idea - even though it wouldn't 'prove' anything. couple rule suggestions 1 all participants on the same timeframe 2 all participants go by same sizing rules

Crock pots (sp) Those who are of the persuasion that VSA is simultaneously working on all time frames, including those that think one can find a pattern on the daily, then drop to an hourly and find a pattern, then go line one up on a 5 min (common timeframes selected for example only) for an entry trigger may be deluding themselves. In my experience, the principles the bb ‘operators’ are applying are only functional for one time frame in each situation. The other patterns that show up above or below the ‘live’ time frame are as ‘random’ as any other indicator. Basically, an elite VSA trader will have to either be able to identify which time frame is ‘in play’ for the current campaign OR stick with one time frame and on that one learn to discern which of the setups have the ‘guns’ really behind it in real time. That is one of the crock pots of VSA imo Also, VSA’rs who say that the underlying bb phases are invariably operable are banking on a tendency that is simply not there and are creating another crock part… (got the spelling right this time). The bb’s must maintain a certain feeling of control within their risk parameters. Certain times are simply not business as usual. Market conditions (such as those we are in now) most likely have fewer bb’s looking for a place to accumulate, etc. ( not to say there aren’t great opportunities for those with a larger risk / drawdown tolerance yada yada). Basically in contagions, etc, more of them will step aside - so campaigns will have variable force, not invariable force as the ‘masters’ hint at. Finally (maybe), the method fits traders with certain mental processing propensities. Other traders with slightly different perceptual and processing propensities can and have developed the same abilities to ‘discern’ using obv, tick money flow, traditional wycoff, trin, vix, etc. etc. To some, any of the methods just listed are crock – even though others are doing just fine with them… just some thoughts…

Yes a good 'gaming' machine will do fine - but most of them are overpriced. 400 USD + for case and power supply prorated is ridiculus - most of that could be plowed into a better motherboard or more display real estate or UPS or etc... you end up paying too much premium for overclocking and bling imo TraderBG, sorry to hear about that. Did you purchase near top of the line components and check all the little compatability issues before ordering?

januson, you have given out far too much information if 730 is the strike it is deep in the money etc With all this information - you would be better off donating the premium to charity and paper trading it. In general though, you are better off selling premium than you are buying premium... just as over the long haul you are better off selling insurance than you are buying it...

...and erie has nailed another good point ---------- Dedicated! Trading wkstations dedicated to only trading - I allow only one trading platform per station and on my main ones other apps, browsers, emails, .docs, xls. are forbidden! hth

fast processor(s) MUCHO mucho Ram fast bus speed good video fast hard drive you don't need someone to design a 'trading' computer for you and 'test' it on you. Order 'almost state of the art' from Tiger Direct (or equivalent) (with XP still - Vista is almost there, but not quite) and save your self some hassle and money. I collaborated with a local hardware friend - consulting mostly on compatibility issues between desired components, and then when everything arrived he put it together and set up OS, etc. - voila! a great 'trading' computer! hth

Spread - Ratio indicator

BF, .coming over here from your other invitation post and this is the first thing I noticed... As far as pairs go you might consider substituting EurJpy for the UsdChf. EJ has plenty of bang for the buck / action, a reasonable spread, etc while UsdChf is almost perfectly (negatively) correlated with the EurUsd (so even if a setup occurs in the swissf it will follow what the EurUsd does.) hth zdo

MetalHead, I'm not familiar with zeroLag MA. If you have the Sierra code, please post it and we'll see what's going on with it. Thanks. zdo

Here is a comparison of JurikMA (cyan) and QuickMA (yellow) The arrows show spots where JMA beat QMA to the turn (Note, though, there may be instances off this chart where QMA leads JMA) Enjoy

Metal and all, see http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f46/quick-ma-4504.html#post48873 hth

And here is the source in readable text Indicator // // Plots a fractional-bar Quick Moving Average // with the option to select gapless daily opens. // // copyright 2008 John McCormick jmactrader.com // // feel free to copy and use this code royalty free // as long as it retains the above acknowledge // inputs: Price(Close), Quick_Length(9), displace(0), gapless(0); // set gap to a non-zero value to skip over opening daily gaps Var: Length(maxlist(1,Quick_Length)); // GapLess Vars: // gapless O,H,L,C where O=C[1] RelO(0), RelH(0), RelL(0), RelC(0), gap(0), Accum(0), WtMean(0); if date<>date[1] then begin gap = O-C[1]; Accum = Accum+gap; end; RelO = O-Accum; RelC = C-Accum; RelH = H-Accum; RelL = L-Accum; // Gapless bars - end WtMean = (RelH+RelL+RelC)/3; // End Gapless if gapless=0 then plot1[displace](FMA_Smooth(price,length),"FMA_Quick") else plot1[displace](FMA_Smooth(RelC,length)+accum,"FMA_Quick"); Function // generates very smooth and responsive moving average // copyright 2008 John McCormick jmactrader.com // feel free to copy and use this code royalty free // as long as you don't remove the above acknowledgement // Inputs: Price(numericseries), Length(numericsimple); Vars: j(0), workinglen(maxlist(1,absvalue(Length))), peak(workinglen/3), tot(0), divisor(0); Array: val[100](0); if workinglen>100 then workinglen=100; // use larger array to handle lengths over 100 tot=0; divisor=0; for j=1 to floor(workinglen+1) begin if j<=peak then val[j]=j/peak else val[j]=(workinglen+1-j)/(workinglen+1-peak); tot=tot+price[j-1]*val[j]; divisor=divisor+val[j]; end; if divisor<>0 then FMA_smooth=tot/divisor;

Here is a 'very inexpensive' alternative to Juriks Moving Average contributed in Easy Language by John D. McCormick (TS handle = JDM, see jmactrader.com). Full thread is at https://www.tradestation.com/Discussions/Topic.aspx?Topic_ID=77583&SearchTerm=a%20better%20moving%20average&txtExactMatch= Posted with his permission. Please retain his 'copyright' info in the code. Many thanks to JDM. QUICK.ELD

Trader333 JMA‘s ( and adaptive MA’s in general) main advantage is improved smoothness without introducing significantly more lag… mostly a benefit to automated systems to produce fewer 'false' setups or triggers… JMA's weaknesses include a tendency to overshoot... For years the only use I have of JMA is that it quickly gets flat in congestion and stays more stable and flat (relative to other measures) and thus is a better indicator to build congestion bands around... yada yada A comparison is attached of 1 min YM with (c,4) settings. Red is EMA, White is JMA… up arrows show some of the extra jiggles in ema….hth. zdo