trader273

I use 2ma's in my day trading and I use them very effectively. So to say they are of no use is just not even close to being correct.

Draw a horizontal line on your chart. Double click the line to bring up the formatting. Left tab "Alerts" enable alert for whatever you want. The rest is pretty much straight forward.

Ok, Ill play devil's advocate here. What is so special about 15 minutes. Why not 12 or 23 or 5. Is 15 just picked out of the air. Also, the word "Around" is open to interpretation. Is it 1 or 2 ticks in either direction of your entry. Or is it 3 ticks. No offense is intended, but just because you read it in a book, doesn't make it a sound strategy.

I guess it is how you define that your trade is wrong. The OP thought his trade was "Wrong" and got out. Then it went to deliver to his price objective. So in essence, he got out a whole 1 tick, instead of what he should have gotten if he let the trade be. So, if trading is an odds game, which it is, the OP just reduced his odds of making money since this was a "winner" ( it delivered the price objective w/o the stop being hit) the next one or two trades could be losers, but since he cut his winner short to 1 tick he will be down instead of up or breakeven. True cutting loses short is good. But it seems that if a trade doesn't instantly go your way you get out. That might work for you, but not for me. I think of it as a restaurant analogy. Say you run one of the best steakhouses around. You get a huge delivery of steaks ( t-bones, porterhouse,etc). You know you must sell them all before they go bad in a week. So on monday you go to look at the reservations for the the weekend and you see you have very little. You get scared that all those expensive steaks you just bought are going to spoil and you have a loss. So you call the other local steakhouse and sell them the steaks for a marginal gain to you. You feel better because you know you wont have a loss. But when the weekend comes around you find your restaurant packed. However, you don't have any steaks to sell these customers. So the money you could have and should have made, is much more then you got. So in the end you would have been better to risk the steaks spoiling rather then sell them early for a small profit.

Stops are there for a reason. Cutting a winner short out of fear is detrimental to the long run. The only time I know my trade is wrong is when my stop is hit. I know it sounds so simple, but in the heat of battle it can be hard. That is why I try to keep in mind that this is a business and businesses have expenses.

If you have the newest TS ( i believe 8.2) you can now apply paint bars to candlesticks now. Just an FYI.

Wouldn't the commissions for the $10 Dow be more then the ym, thus negating any savings? I think the $10 is the pit traded contract, but I could be wrong. I would check the commission schedule though. I know that the mini's are generally cheaper then the full counter-part ( eg take a look at the Euro-Fx (full contract vs the euro mini).

I personally think price action ( I use candle patterns as I dont know or how to read tape) along with moving average. I try to go with the trend, the path of least resistance is where I want to be.

I agree with that comment as well. It just make sense to me. If I'm going for 4 pts on the es, the chances of price traveling 4pts w/o my stop being hit ( where ever that may be, thats an entirely different topic:) ) is a lot less likely to deliver when comparing it to a smaller 2pt profit target. So its a trade off in my view. A bigger profit objective and lower win % or smaller profit objective with a higher win %. You could have the best RR ratio, but if the reward is hardly hit then what you have a just a theoretical RR ratio since your targets aren't generally hit. So what might start of as a 2 or 3 RR ratio, might just turn out to be a 1 or below by the time the trade is said and done. Therefore, a trader would need to compare the initial RR ratio with what actually happened. I found that my targets were ambitious. When I put the trade on I was happy since I had a 2 or even 3 RR ratio. But watching price move in my favor and then retracing back so I get 1 or 2 ticks, reality sets in that my actual RR ratio isn't the same as my theoretical or initial RR ratio. So I brought in my targets, my initial RR ratio is lower, but the targets are being hit more often. In turn, my actual RR ratio is congruent with the initial or theoretical RR ratio. I thought about RR ratios from a lot of angles. I hope this helps, and not confuses anyone:cool:

Ive been using TS for about a year now, and I love it. Very reliable and very good pricing. Ive been using 8.2 for a while now and I haven't had any problems with it. They roll out new versions slowly ( eg, people with acct #'s 1-100 are first, then say 1 or 2 weeks later 101-200, etc--this is just a crude example I'm really not sure how they decided who gets to the new version.) The point is that there are people before you who have had the platform and hopefully by the time it gets to you most of the bugs have been worked out. Eventually, you'll be forced to upgrade to stay compatible with their servers. So I would, and have, use the newest version. Cant help you with the other questions since I dont use that stuff. -t273

I know that Ninja Trader and Open e-cry have charts with there demos. If you really want the data you can just keeping creating hotmail email accounts and when your demo is up, just register again. Just an idea.

I mainly look at the eur/usd, though trading the cme equivalent (Euro-Fx) i like the regulation. Ive heard too many horror stories of forex bucketshops. I thought about the idea of setting alarms, but getting constantly woken up almost seems worse then just getting up and staying up. Thanks for the input though:)

This is for the people that trade forex in the am session. I am on the east coast, and looking at the charts, it looks like a lot of action happens at the London open, about 3am EST. Im just wondering if there are people that are up to trade this. It seems like I miss a lot of setups because I'm still asleep. Just want to see how your quality of life is. Since I would be on London time, I would be basically sleeping during the day and trading at night. How long can a person go on like that. Any input is appreciated:)

Mine is simple as they come. A moving average and candlestick patterns. I dont use candlestick patterns as they are taught in books (eg reversals). I use them in a way to trend follow. I did use candles as reversals and getting run over by the train (trend) over and over again isnt really a good feeling. So i figured why not get on the train (trend) instead of getting in front of it and hoping for a reversal. Not to say reversals dont work, they just didnt fit my personality.

I use candles in my trading as well. i tried the fixed stop, the atr stop, etc. I constantly found that if i was getting stopped out too quick, and then proceed to watch it move in my favor. If you want to use candles, I would highly recommend placing the stop at the high plus one or 2 ticks ( if going long, opposite for shorts). I don't know your exit procedure,but yes, some trades will have wide stops and then you have to decide if you want to risk that much. I have max that I'm willing to lose and that means some trades I must pass on. I would suggest, if you haven't already, pick up one or 2 of Steve Nison's books. He talks about all the patterns and stops. Though he doesn't go into how to take profits, as candles dont give profit targets.