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They actually are. A very quick skim of their site yields that they are the counter-party to trades. Additionally, they offer no swap accounts, which is impossible if they were truly routing your order. In general, almost all retail forex brokers are bucket shops. If you insist on trading forex, and not regulated currency futures, look for a broker with ECN access. Few do, it's expensive.

Take from this what you will... Since you've switched to trading patterns (with confirmation), you're entering later in the move and on a breakout. I'm assuming you got the 910 level from price action on 6/19-6/20, which also came into play yesterday (6/25). So, correct me if I'm mistaken, your setup is taking breakouts of S/R after a chart pattern, such as a double top. The double top occurred, as price congested between the 918 level and 910. If you entered at the top, you'd have the most information risk (ie, you have little to no confirmation), but your price risk is the smallest. Assuming a good fill, your stop loss is simply the buffer you want past the top in case the squiggles test a tick or couple higher. Notice that yesterday, price found demand right above 910, and later tested a little below that (909.50). So, heading into today, that whole zone is a possible area of support. Sure enough, ES found demand again at 910.50 (09:33 edt) and again at 909.75 (10:15 edt). If you want to enter on the breakout of this larger congestion area, you want price to leave this support zone completely. However, your entry was smack in the middle of support, and (as it appears on your chart) on a small pullback. How it played out was that price peaked slightly out, didn't find the supply to keep it down there, and returned to the congestion (value). You were going short when the stronger hands were buying. Retrospect, I know, but read on. Additionally, since you're trading the breakout, you really don't have S/R to protect you as you did before. Yes, you have a level drawn on the chart, but for your entry to work, that level has to break. If it doesn't, it sure as hell isn't going to protect your short. The purpose of price action based stops is to take you out of the trade once price has passed a "danger point". Unfortunately, breakouts don't have convenient points, so your stop is either fixed (ie, 2 pts) or based on some micro local swing high/low. Notice how price just waddles around the 910.50 area. This is exactly what I meant earlier when I said that these kinds of trades have more price risk. You have less protection, so either are using sub-par stops locations, or wider stops. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking pattern trading, breakouts, or wanting confirmation. I used to trade a lot of breakouts as well, and did so successfully. However, think about exactly what you want to see in a breakout. What are the shorts thinking? What are the longs thinking? When will people start to puke (which, incidentally, is when you'll be cashing in)? Just some things to think about. Also, make sure your confidence is coming from a strong plan with a bias, and not the idea of patterns. Looking at a couple month's worth of trades wouldn't hurt. If/when you do, don't just see if it works. Look at what happens when it works, and when it doesn't. You'll pick up things, such as the fight the buyers gave right before your entry on the lows (instead of giving up and stopping out, propelling price downward). But first, you'll need a solid plan.

I use a 5 sec chart (and I don't scalp either!). I didn't trade most of today, but I'll try to remember to save some charts with my trades next week. I thought it was insane the first time I pulled it up too, but it grows on you.

You conceptually know this, but try to internalize it: With a proper edge and plan, the difference between a trade that works or doesn't is only the outcome. If you leave whether to move a stop to b/e after 2pts to your intuition, then you're always on the hook for the result. Make a plan, be consistent about it, and it gets a whole lot easier. Trades become an exploitation of an edge, and the outcome of any one trade is meaningless.

So does this mean you're going live (or anyone soon)? Also, how about you post your charts with s/r levels? Might give us something to follow along with. You entering on stops, or limits?

I found this post on "Re: How Do You Start Trading?" interesting and have nominated it accordingly for "Topic Of The Month June, 2009"

Support and Resistance works the same. Another alternative is currency futures, which do have volume (and are exchange traded, so you know you're getting a fair deal).

I don't know EasyLanguage (assuming that's what it is), but where are you measuring from (the high, low, median, something else)? Ret768 is just .768 * the spread, so "if Close < Ret768" will practically always be false (example, if ES closed at 900.00 and the spread is 10.00, you're asking "is 900.00 less than 7.68?"). If you're wanting .768*spread from the High, try something like this (again, I know nothing of this language): ... if Close < High-Ret768 then ...

Regardless of Spyder's (and Hershey's) reputation elsewhere, founded or not, he has been rather amicable and salutary here at TL, which is probably due to the lack of trolling and hostility. As long as that continues, if people find value in his contributions, good for them. If not, they can move on peacefully.

Yeah, that was the hardest logically, but I really wanted it to work that way. Still trading now, and I need to fix a couple things, then I'll post it. Here's how the trade journal section looks (and you might get an idea how I managed scaleouts and adds): The data entered is Date/Time, Instrument (entered or selected from a menu that's easy to set up), size, and price. The rest is calculated: position (showing the total position on that instrument) and profit (in pts and $, taking into account the average entry price). Cumulative profit, Drawdown, and some other stats are also kept track of.

I found this post on "Re: Volume Splitter" interesting and have nominated it accordingly for "Topic Of The Month June, 2009"

On the upside, he gets a pretty cool trading journal. Fair trade imho. ihm, added. I'll upload a new copy tomorrow.

There's some bug, I'll fix it tonight. For now, put =TODAY() into that first cell, and it'll all work. Yeah, I can label the plots. It's P/L and drawdown.

I have a good spreadsheet that I've used and improved for a while that allows you to keep track of scaleouts, add-ins, etc., and calculates pts profit, $ profit, and so on based on entry/exit prices. I've given it to a few people to play around with and test, and will post it when I'm certain enough that it's bug free.

New version. Fixed a couple bugs, and added Daily Statistics functionality. Everything is automatically populated (it starts with today, and moves back in time). Weekends are optionally excluded from reporting. Two versions again, no idea how well the .xls version holds up. Everything you need to know should be on the Info worksheet. Could someone let me know what doesn't work as it should? What features should I add? tradejournal2.zip

Welcome to TL. Sounds like you have a good understanding of Wyckoff. I'd personally love more Wyckoff P&F discussion around here, but there hasn't been a lot of interest. You might be able to share some of your observations or trades.

That's pretty cool with your daughter. From personal experience working with someone, it's quite interesting how fast someone can learn when given decent instruction with no distractions. Best of luck to you two

Stops are used for several reasons, and all the confidence and discipline in the world won't afford the protection stops provide. In fact, it has little to do with discipline and confidence. Wyckoff advised placing stops at logical places (below S, or above R) to protect oneself from an adverse move. Trading without stops leaves you wide open to market action past "danger points". In addition, stops give protection from unplanned predicaments, such as loss of internet connection or data feed. Even if you plan on manually exiting losing trades, you should also have a stop order in place. Unplanned dangers aside, mental stops also breed perilous behavior, such as adding to a losing position, or rationalizing the loss ("I'll make this a long term play now", "It's only a loss on paper"). When the market stops you out, it is telling you something.

This is updated from what I posted earlier today in chat. There was some interest in chat over my Trading Journal. I've had it for a while, and have modified and improved it over time. I cleaned up a large portion of it, and am almost to the point where I'd be fine for others to use it. You guys are free to play around with it and let me know what you think. If there's any problems, let me know. It's designed for Excel 2007, so the .xls version does not work quite as well, but I'm leaving it here because several of you don't have Excel 2007 (a free alternative is OpenOffice). I think my instructions included are clear, but let me know if you have any issues. Once you guys play around with this enough and I iron out some kinks, I'll post it for the general TL public. As a visual comparison, this is how it should look (Excel 2007): The spreadsheet calculates most of that data. Only date, time, instrument, size, and price are required (but the REAL reason this is here is for the Setup / Reason and the Comments). Note: The Stats is dirty and not complete (daily/weekly tracking isn't included yet). I'm working on it. tradejournal.zip

In your example, you're offering higher and higher, but he can keep refusing forever. Price is simply the last traded price. Until a transaction takes place, there is no price.

Update on your FDAX hinge.

Here we are on NQ. The daily looks rather weak imho, and the Up Dn volume divergence continues.

Head, good point. My reply was more geared towards the way he currently trades. Being aware of one's place in the larger trend is extremely important. Since it's not a double bottom to the tick, where's your entry? Where do you place the initial stop? What's the trade management plan (are you moving the initial stop)? Where's the exit(s)? It's easy to spot those in retrospect, and concoct a plan that would work for that trade. It's harder to design a plan that you'll stick to every time (that has an edge!).

Keep in mind that the more confirmation you have, the higher your price risk will be. If you've read The Nature of Risk by Justin Mamis (link), you know all about this. One of the greatest insights of my past year's trading is the purpose of stops (and thus, the purpose of risk). As I've told you before, if you trade on support/resistance, your stop's location should not be dependent on your entry. Wyckoff's 1930-1931 analysis sheds light on this. If you want to use price patterns (and there's nothing wrong with that), know that if you intend to hold to this tenant, your risk will generally be greater. If you enter on the neckline break, you have to decide: do you put your stops at the low, or elsewhere? I do agree that your previous trades have been often stabbing in the dark (with little local confirmation of a reversal). I'm sure you have a list of several patterns that you're working on, but remember this: a price pattern's value lies in what it represents, not because price happened to fit some criteria. For example, Hinges represent a condition between the suppliers and demanders. When one side takes charge and breaks the "pattern", a directional move usually follows. I applaud your diligence and dedication so far in your adventure.

Exactly. Simulator results are not reliable, so you need to assume that price went past your entry. Rarely will you get a live fill at low or high tick. A small word of wisdom: when your entry setup works perfectly, you might not get filled on a limit. When it doesn't, you'll always get filled. If your entry strategy nails low or high tick often, consider using market orders (or stops).