karim0028

Well, so allow me to clarify...... Its not really just about taxes... I'm looking at some big pic fundamentals... Looking at the US, i am convinced that taxes wil go up (govt is broke), over the long term dollar will go down and i would like to be able to trade in a more viable currency like CHF or something similar that is not being inflated away (at least as fast as the dollar, make no mistake, all govt favors inflation)... With the debts being accumulated at the govt level, there is no more palatable solution that i can ascertain than inflating the debt away.... But, there is is no way that i can see to protect my business (ie. trading capital), aside from going overseas (as any diligent business owner would do to protect their business and lively hood)... I am already noticing that inflation is picking up, it may not be apparent in things getting more "expensive" but i do see packages getting smaller while prices remain the same (defacto expensive)..... Another form of invisible inflation..... Has anyone thought about it that way?

Has anyone in the US/Europe thought about setting up a foreign entity and trading through that or trading fully offshore (ie. outside your own domicile) through that for tax reasons? I'm curious if the folks trading larger accounts have ever contemplated it and if you did, did you go ahead and do it? If not, why did you decide against it?

Hey Guys, Im on IB and they dont have a continuous contract as far as i can tell for the ES.... But, im with Investor/RT and DTN so i can carry the historic data... Just curious, how many of you guys trade of a continuous contract? Do you simply plug in the ES and grab all the historic 2 years of data for the ES contract (ESM8, U8, etc..) ? Or do you keep on looking only at the quarterly contract (ie. ESU8)? I cant really see much of difference... Am i missing some important data here? Thanks, Karim0028

Thanks DB! Your charts and input are as always greatly appreciated! I am growing more and more influenced/cognicent of the midpoints.... In the chart posted below (todays chart up until ~12:30 PST), i just wanted to show another example of how "I" percieve that price seems to be sensitive to midpoints of previous ranges.... Interesting thing about this is that this is in pre-market movement... Usually, i never paid attention to premarket... I would usually remove it from the chart and not look at it.... Db, Curious, do you pay much attention to pre-market?

Attaching the boxes i will be watching Just to give you an example of where the significance of the midpoint/top/bottoms comes in.... You will notice that the midpoints/top/bottom end up support or resistance in the future.... Those lines are areas i will be watching if price travels down.... Hopefully this begins to make sense....

Hey Upthrust, I was like you a couple of months (4-5) ago so i will attempt to explain... Ive been following DB's writings, blogs, etc for the last 5-6 months... Db, if i am mistaken anywhere please dont hesitate to correct me... First off, just try and draw the boxes around areas of congestion where you see alot of trades taking place; back and forth areas.... Then find the midpoint of the range/box... You will find that the top, bottom and midpoint areas of previous trading days/ranges/boxes tend to become areas of importance later on... They will at most times be either tentative support or resistance in future days... Do that and then (until you being to see it) just sit and watch the price action as it comes close to those areas.... When i first did that it was a moment of enlightenment... Midpoint areas really do seem to have significance... Watch as they either act as support in a strong market or act as resistance in a weak market.... You see alot of boxes in DB's post but you only need to pay attention to the boxes/midpoints/S/R that are in the range the price is currently in! The rest will be useful later on if price ever reaches that area in the future.... Its simply there as a reference..... Now, again, dont make the mistake of thinking that bc you drew the line there that anything will necessarily happen there... As DB says again and again, simply be available (ie. pay attention to what happens).... Look again at the charts DB posted... Notice that the midpoint almost always acts as support or resistance or sort of a "stepping stone" in a climbing market and vice versa.... I have literally seen prices come within a tick of the midpoint and jump up or fly down..... Trading is really nothing more than psychology.. Humans have memories, when they buy at a certain price and price goes up and they make money they are elated... If price comes down again to that area they see it as a bargain and "tend" to buy again at that area... That is why support or resistance tends to work.... Again, remember NONE of this is set in stone; after all when trading you really are just trying to understand the most unpredictable beast of all; human behavior... The key is, It just has a higher probability than pointing at any other point on the chart and buying or selling there...... Again, these boxes help give you context... If its a trending day then any one of those lines can act as S/R... So, look at the big picture first to see if the trend is up or down... Then decide how you wanna enter OR if you wanna enter at all.... You gotta understand that this method/view point is simply a way to lower your risk! Like any business there are no guarantees... For instance say you open a bar; are you guaranteed to make money? NO! But, if you do your homework; find the location with the most foot traffic, get the hottest waitresses in town and serve the best beer in town and market the living crap out of it.... You have a better shot at making money.... This is nothing more than a probabilities game... Again like any business its all about probablities... If you do your homework you tip the odds in your favor... Now, all of this without a system and rules does no good... As per the above example its like running a business and not knowing how to manage your inventory... If you give away too much free food (lose too much) you go BROKE! A couple of months ago i used to draw all these boxes and find the S/R and then be too afraid to pull the trigger so i would SEE that the price was bouncing off support but i would say " i will wait just a little longer till it proves itself"... By that time i would find myself in the middle of the range then freak out when i found it retraced and i would almost always get out with a loss and then it would ride back up again with out me.... I didn't understand the nature of retracments and how they worked... Read DB's post on "Riding the Wyckoff Wave". My System: Again this is my system and you have to see what works for you... The key is consistency... Follow your rules, ALWAYS! Now, i learned to use the TICK to help me... If i see the price at support and tick is way negative like -500 or so (meaning the market has lots of stocks having a downtick) and the price is still hanging on i view that as strength and i go ahead and enter at support with a tight stop (perhaps 1/2 - 3/4 point) below support... Same thing when im shorting... If price for instance opens up underneath resistance and we are in a recognizable down trend and the TICK is above +200-500+ (lots of stocks having an uptick) and the price just doesnt seem to budge up then i view that as weakness and take the short (again with a tight stop above resistance)... I view the market as opposing forces a push/pull between the bulls and bears and the TICK as a crowd cheering/egging them on... If the crowd is cheering really hard and the bulls just dont have it in them to push up through then most likely as soon as the crowd stops cheering the bulls will get tired and let go of the rope and bears will take charge and conversely vice versa.... Next is trade managment: Once im in a trade i do my very best to manage via trendlines and let natural retracements (wyckoff waves) take their course... I am still working on that part of my trading... It takes development/restraint to see yourself up 4-5 points on the ES and let it slip down to 3 points But, i am still developing my strategy for how to deal with that... I am working on no fear; cut your losses early and let your profits run! Cliche, i know... But, it takes time to internalize it and to disassociate yourself from your profits/losses... With this method i really feel the key is not being afraid to go in at support or resistance.. If you miss it, wait for another setup... If your wrong get out early... Dont get caught in the middle (at least for me).... I have been keeping track (a log) and every time i lost money it was bc i didnt follow my own rules.. I got cocky and thought i understood it all and entered farther from support or resistance... Each and every time i got screwed! Weird thing is that i tried trading with all the oscillators, stochastic's, etc.. Buy when the red line crosses the black line, sell when this falls below that, blah blah blah... I could never understand them... It was like being in class and someone giving you the answers, you never knew how to do it yourself.. You tend to become dependent; and i don't like being dependent on anything... I like understanding concepts, not just being told what to do... To me, they were all derivatives of the thing i should be watching... PRICE.... I tend to learn by internalizing concepts and after watching this for several months and reading DB's posts over and over this way just started making more sense..... Again, without risk there is no reward, just find the way that works best for you and like any good business plan; work on minimizing your risk... You can never eliminate risk, but you can definitely lower it.... Again, i am still learning so if i made a mistake somewhere; someone (Db or anyone with more experience than I) dont hesitate to correct me..... This is simply my opinion/interpretation of Wyckoff/DB's teachings.... -Karim0028

Hi Chad, Is there a way to see the price level of the cursor? I have it on cross hair mode and would like to be able to see the vertical price level i am point at with my cursor.... Is there a way to see it as i see the price level on the right side? Thanks, Karim0028

Hi Chad, I recently joined IRT and have been extremely frustrated with the box drawing capability. I have been talking to support and not really getting anywhere... I keep getting the same response "it works as intended".... I apologize if i sound a little curt as ive been going back and forth with support for the better part of 3 weeks and it doesnt make sense to me how it works as expected.... I rely on boxes and support/resistance to trade... Everytime i draw boxes on a 3 min frame and switch the timeframe to 5 or 15 or whatever the boxes go crazy and are all over the screen and very distracting (they definitely dont help).... I believe that the boxes i draw should be positioned based on price/time not what i currently believe they are based on position or some other non constant.... I also believe that i shouldnt have to mess with scale or pixels/bar for the boxes to look right.... While trading i dont have time to do that! I attempted to say/show this to support via pics from other charting SW such as prophetcharts but keep getting the "it works as expected"... I am attaching pics from IRT and Prophet charts to better explain what i am referring to... I would really appreciate your help on this as it is extremly frustrating to trade with boxes all over the screen (in areas i didnt put them).... Please see attached pics.... Here is what your charts look like on a 3 min time frame.... The time frame in which i drew the boxes... It looks good... (picture 3) NOW i change the timeframe to 10 min when i look at the bigger picture... AS you should be able to see; it looks unreadable.... (picture 4) If i change to 15 min it looks even worse... NOW here is my chart with Prophet charts.... Notice that its at 60 days/60 min..... The boxes are where they are.... (picture 5) NOW Again picture 6 of the same chart in a 5 min interval with prophet charts.... The boxes are well behaved and stay put... (picture 6) Here is another pic of a completely diff view period/time frame (30 days and 30min). Notice the box stays where i put it based on time and price, not physical position.... (picture 7) Now, the way i see it... When you move periodicity or view period the boxes should still stay within their time/price zone (regardless of pixels/bar or view period or periodicity).... My point is that i SHOULDNT HAVE to change anything with the scale (i dont have to do anything with prophet charts, it just works).... BTW, i didnt change the pixels/bar (by pushing the up/down arrow) so that really isnt the issue.... If its some configuration issue please let me know! BUT, as you can see i rely on boxes and Support/resistance for my trading and at this point im finding it pretty tough.... I would really like to be able to continue to use IRT so PLEASE help me! Thanks! Karim0028

Yeah, i gotta say i appreciate these charts as well... As i am beginning to find the importance of midpoints. Its eerie how price/traders pay attention to the midpoints.... Now i just sort of plot and watch... Great stuff!

Hey Guys, I am dumbfounded by the fact that i cant get IB/TWS to connect via my work proxy..... Has anyone been able to get this to work? It gives you the option to connect via your proxy and the port you tell it.... I then call support and they then tell me that it needs ports 4000 & 4001 to connect to their servers.... Then why the hell tell me that i can access through a proxy..... Has anyone been able to get this working behind a corporate proxy.... The company i work at is pretty big and dont usually open up ports for anyone.... Yet all of my programs work through the proxy.... Thinkorswim, Skype, MSN, all of them work through our proxy... Any help would be appreciated Thanks Karim

Hi Guys, Im new here.... I am looking at joining IB (im on a mac and i love my mac I am currently on Thinkorswim (great broker) but their commission for futures is $7 roundtrip (pretty high).... Ive heard horror stories of IB's TWS and their sorry ass charts.... So, i am thinking of using them simply as a broker (good commissions) with autotrader (free) front end along with Investor/RT for charting.... Thinkorswim is great but with the almost 30-40% higher commissions i feel i can easily cover the cost of top notch charting software while actually trading... Does this seem like a good setup? Can anyone comment with a better setup? Ive been reviewing it for the last couple of days and this seems to be the best for the price point.... I am planning on using IB's free live US market data feed and just pay for the standard charting with Investor/RT ($39/month).... Am i missing anything? Is there anything else i would need? Thanks guys, Karim0028