firewalker

I see I picked the right day to be MIA

Thanks, I appreciate the effort. True, the reasons for entering off that level are obvious. I was looking for the same thing (40-42 support zone), but didn't want to jump in straight away. There's a fine line between actually pulling the trade and having a small hesitation, in this case I think my bias "blocked" me from taking a long. And like you said in the room, the trade was only there for a dozen of seconds. But that's outside of the market, and the volume was there... What I found particularly nice on the 5sec chart is the sharp entry. 1 minute people entered around 45-46 and 5 minute people, well... they were definitely far behind in the queue. It's also a nice illustration of how entering on a smaller bar interval doesn't mean you can't stay in. On the tick chart the highest volume is actually just at the lowest point of the day. After that, I found 52-53 to be a safe (but already 9 points later) entry (at demandline + volume + higher low), after breaking higher to 60 first. Imho first 15 minutes of the day definitely worth watching in replay...

Db, if you have some time, could you post a 5 sec chart of your entry yesterday on NQ? Thanks in advance.

New record today: 37 users online Just a shame only 5 are talking...

I would not use them to provide possible countertrend longs. However, at the moment price starts to fall, you have no other option then to draw a supplyline which is similar to the first one, it's only after another swing and a new low and the bigger lines can come into play. But at the time of trade, you don't know if there'll be a new low. So, on your 5s chart, would you not have scaled out at the break of the first of my stalking lines?

Is this an example of a stalking husband or just a healthy form a jealousy?

Anyone seen the second episode? I had hoped for some more insight, but all I'm seeing is a bunch of people reacting to news and looking for explanations why the market is going this or that way. It's surprising some of the group are actually making a profit imo.

First link is loading but freezes at 91%, the second link says "Page not found"... Edit: I've managed to log in to the new one now... but anyway don't wait up for me, I have the flu and might not be trading today :-(

Unfortunately not, those are some quotes I picked up along the line, from various people on forums, chatrooms, perhaps books also,... Sorry that I can't be more specific, but afaik these are not really famous quotes of well-known authors. But they aren't mine either

Ah yeah, Freakonomics, fun read as well I think the author kind of stole his title from Levitt in this came! Most important from the 'free' point of view, is that it will come without an additional cost for the consumer, at least not a monetary cost. But I think that's something that has been going along for a while. Take webmail for example, for as long as I can remember most popular webmail providers have been free, with the possibility of paying for a premium version (more storage, pop3 connectivity, SSL...). But nowadays the premium has also turned free (unlimited email storage), so I wonder how far can we go? Also interesting, was this interview: http://globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080505.wranderson05/GIStory/

"The newly developed strategy works every time until starting to trade with real money." "A profitable strategy everyone uses will be unprofitable." "We don't see patterns as they want them to be; We see patterns as we want them to be." "The truth is recognising a profitable pattern is not in your eyes, but in your mind." "The best profitable experience is losing money." "Many predictions in trading have a chance of success greater than zero; but very close to it."

Surprising how much difference one overnight makes... we've already climbed above 90, tested it and rallied up to 1200. I don't know how much importance people give to premarket or overnight trading, but this is one V-reversal that is difficult to overlook.

I'm afraid people will actually get the wrong impression by watching that. But only one out of three episodes has been aired yet, so I'll keep my final verdict in deliberation

I'd call it lazy! But after 10 years (or more?) in the business, who can blaim him

Yeah, I was kind of scratching my head on that too. They received some "complex technical analysis", but I don't really see any of that in their trading decisions... Also beats me why anyone needs to be in the office two hours before the markets open. Unless they need to go through all the newspapers, which seems to be the case ...

You can always use an IP proxy so it will look as though you are behind a UK ISP. Anyway, I thought the guys in the show were looking to much at the newspapers and too little at their screens

The number of contracts bought and sold was equal, but the number of people need not be the same. But I take it that's what you meant

talk of the week again... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/opinion/13herbert.html?_r=2

Instead of exiting as soon as possible, you could protect your risk by moving your stop closer or to breakeven. Just a thought. Sometimes there are no swingpoints on the bar interval you've chosen, and price can move in a straight line reversing sharply too. As always, context is what matters and I can't say there's a one-fit-all solution. You'll have to find a compromise between risk and potential reward. If you want to catch the big swing, you'll have to sit through some retracements. My stops aren't affected that much by volatility.

Stops and targets are different for everybody. It's probably difficult for anybody to tell you what you should do, let alone give specifics about stops & targets since you haven't told us much about your style other that you're scalping. But this is my 2c: stops should be placed at a technical level, and not be a result of "ah this is how much money I'm willing to risk on this trade". If the trade carries too much risk, lower your size or skip the entry. If you're scalping then you'll miss out on big moves. If you want to catch big trending moves, you'll have to stay in longer. That might not be suited to your style of trading... You might also want to use the search feature, since there are plenty of threads dealing with the subject you raise and you might find some more answers there.

........... charts from the chatroom (for possible discussion later on)

The book 'Free' isn't published yet, so how come you've already read it? Nowhere in the article does Anderson deny there is a cost of doing business (for example technology, bandwidth, storage*), but what he's talking about is that these costs are being carried by a third agent. And from the consumer's point of view, he is getting a free lunch. Just look at the websites of newspapers; here in Belgium we might not be early adopters, but the biggest national newspapers have all made 75% of their printed version available online for free in the last couple of years. Apple threw DRM away just couple of weeks ago. Google Books, Scribd, ipaper,... But examples are abundant really. What logical fallacies are you talking about? (* As for storage in everyday use, look at the prices of SD memory cards the last couple of years...)

A recent report out of MIT, analyzing world oil production and consumption, also concluded that the basic fundamentals of supply and demand could not have been responsible for last year's run-up in oil prices. And Michael Masters says the U.S. Department of Energy's own statistics show that if the markets had been working properly, the price of oil should have been going down, not up. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/08/60minutes/main4707770.shtml Comments?

First we had freakonomics, now we have freeconomics "The rise of "freeconomics" is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web. Just as Moore's law dictates that a unit of processing power halves in price every 18 months, the price of bandwidth and storage is dropping even faster. Which is to say, the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero." http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free What happened to the classic TANSTAAFL?

We are all doing real time analysis & trading in the chat room these days...