Kiwi

The other thing is that the "third" commission isn't entirely right either. Because you are not forced to close the same size you opened you can often zero a non-base currency. Or you can choose to leave your winnings in a higher interest currency as the base is less "real" in the IB world (you can effectively maintain balances as you wish). If you traded EUR.USD and GBP.USD and GBP.JPY and your base was USD then a build up of any of the currencies could be cleared through the other trades. When you choose to do it though you have to figure out the closing sizes. I suspect most people set up a little converter in excel so that they can change balances when they need to do so. On commissions: when the size is small (25k or so) the commission+spread effect is similar to a low cost bucket shop but as size rises then IB gets more and more attractive. Also as MK says, because its an ECN the games around news are not as pronounced and resolve more quickly.

Maybe, maybe not. If you watch ecn futures vs ecn forex vs bucketshop forex you find that there are various ways around the issue (forex may become much jumpier at key point, stretches may be applied, etc). In reality forex liquidity will also decline during those periods so in all cases due diligence is needed to find out what is "really" happening. Personally I quite like Interactive Broker's forex offering. The commissions are similar to the futures commissions. You can scale from 25k usd up. The liquidity is actually better and for the majors we get 1/2 tick spreads so they're cheaper to trade. But with everything there are tricks. If your fills drop below the idealpro minimum size (25kusd) you drop automatically to a fill on ideal which has a higher commission per unit size - not that this should be a frequent occurrence, just illustrating that nothing is perfect. The only reason I'd ever trade a bucket shop was if I was too small to use IB (so I'd go to Oanda) or I was trading a multi-entry strategy that could make me too small by way of the worst case averaging down in the strategy.

If you are for real (and I doubt it based on your posts so far) then when you post these wonderful setups specify your target or profit capture mechanism and your stops as well. FWIW, the fakey you show there doesn't match Nialls earlier videos particularly well.

Why does Nial feel a need to sleeze it up here by having a lickspittle promoting him. Are there not enough suckers out there without spamming the site?

If you want a forex pair that trends then GBP.JPY is the one to beat. The spread is 3-4 points on IB's forex so you wouldn't want to trade sub 5 min timeframes but on 15/60/240 the quality of moves overcomes the higher spread. The nice thing is that it has no underlying correlation to 6E either.

You can stop Ninja autoscrunching by moving to Sierra Chart

Agreed. Its a choice and the choice depends on what your goals are and they include how you feel. I learned this testing systems years ago. One of the few really good eod systems I bought waited with a $1500 stop until a substantial profit existed before it even started to tighten. It usually exited on a reversal signal. I added different capture processes but it never helped to tighten early. However, optimum profit is rarely the key goal for a discretionary trader. Whichever approach one takes ... the 100%, must do, important thing is "Do the same thing EVERY time." The thing that kills you is either trying to optimize the trade or reacting to the last trade(s). Following your !@####@! rules

Interactive Brokers provide bid and ask and my charting platform Sierra Chart is set to chart the midpoint. They also provide all the standard order types. I put in an entry stop at 0.5 ticks past the bar with a stop limit order and the limit set to price+0.5+spread/2 spread/2 is based on the maximum acceptable spread for a fill. So the spread on GU normally runs from 5 to 6 half ticks (or 2.5 to 3 standard ticks) and I set my max acceptable spread to 3 ticks thus I get price +2 ticks as the fill point.

You don't really mean to wish him good luck. Given his country of origin and the likely source of any funds he has you should wish anyone stupid enough to contact him a great deal of luck - because they'll need it.

Is long term trend up? Or is it the end of a daily pullback? I don't actually know either I just point out that my charts have variable views so maybe the risks are worth a shot. If I had to bet I'd guess down was the higher probability though given the ma. .

On this subject I'd add to Thales comment. Ask yourself why a pattern works. And ask "what are other traders seeing and doing here?" In an ascending tightening flag people are saying "three little indians" and " the thrust is weakening" and stochs are flattening and macd's are showing divergence. So people are starting to dump to take profit or go short. So, what happens if the pattern either fails to trigger or ticks the trigger then breaks back? A much more powerful situation! Now the profit takers think about reentry and the shorts must exit. So all the people who saw pattern a) are wrong-sided and the ones who move back fuel the move up. Which is why, when they fail, obvious patterns can be strong ... and the better the R:R of the failure the stronger they are likely to be. Ask not what the market will do for you ... but what you will do if it does.

I note that forrestang has already clarified understandings of anticipate and predict. I'd just like to add another one. In our brains, when we say a word to ourselves it has linkages (groups of neurons fire). Predict has some very strong linkages and because primitive hunters were biased towards recognizing weak patterns (tiger in the grass) because spotting them 15 times wrongly didn't hurt much and 1x right saved your life, predict generates a sense of certainty that we logically know to be invalid. But the brain still has it. So choosing words that the brain doesn't trigger on is important (humans are not logical especially when risk is involved). I now use anticipate or "think it might" or state odds like: I think theres a 60/40 chance of a move in this direction ... and I can stop it there if it triggers so if it does move the win is likely to be X times the loss.

The other thing is to get a feel for market behaviour and structure. Wyckoff's stuff is old but the basics are still as relevant today. dbPhoenix seems to be the web's leading proponent and you can find his best stuff here. The Wyckoff Forum - Traders Laboratory - Professional Traders Community There is no one way to make or lose money in trading but you'll do well to start with an understanding of trend, and support and resistance.

Richard, What were/are you teaching? I ask because you seem to be talking about one style of teaching/learning and its not necessarily completely applicable to trading. Years back I learned to ski. And over time I improved my skiing and like many applied the 1-2 lesson per year approach. Like traders, skiers arrived at instructors with their own baggage (the pain of large crashes, broken bones, the impact of previous styles of skiing and teaching). When we started the Austrians held sway and teaching was as you described. Over time we went through french, american, and even zen influences. Over time, less intellectual and more effective techniques were developed and an important element was less talk and more modeling and shaping. Watch, do, "try pressing down a little with your big toe", wow. Very personal and very effective. Discretionary trading is not unlike skiing. Good days truly flow down a slope of unending opportunity.

Gabe, you got it right on trend degree. Gabe, confrontations, handled well are important on the net because with the poor interpersonal feedback, without confrontations, we can go on in the wrong direction for ages. I think some clarity came from this one that will be helpful. Thales, I may well have expressed that view. I struggle to understand and reunderstand the markets and swing a little with the breeze in my views of certain things. Its interesting that I have recently discovered new understandings while trying to systematize things. Talking about Peewee again (note: this will never be for sale so I'm not advertising) and stage of the trend. It has a simple main entry pattern that corresponds to an L2 pattern in the FTM. It also has a second abc/double like pattern that might be called an L3 pattern in FTM. L1, L2, and L3 are patterns applied later and later in a trend and each requires greater return to value before risking an entry with the trend. So, I built a basic Peewee forex - getting a couple of mas that seemed to represent trend well in USDJPY. Then I added my two entries from HSI Peewee. And got quite reasonable results despite not having yet applied any measure of "how far has this trend progressed?" And to my pleasant surprise they were pretty robust for longer periods. Then I realised my error and removed the L3 pattern. And the results improved. So I messed with stop processes a bit (profit capture) using just the L2 entry. Then I checked GJ and EJ. GJ fairly rocked and EJ was ok too. Then after a few days getting the software right I stopped the L2 pattern being applied too late in the trends (I just cut it off after 20 bars). The profit factor rose (quality) and number of trades fell. Good. Then I added the old L3 trade from hsi back in, expecting to have to modify it to suit forex (different tradable and 15x different timeframe so abit of tuning could be expected). But, without modification the number of trades rose and the profit factor rose. So, what's the point? First, a robust trend aware method can work in radically different tradables on radically different timeframes. Second, simple trend age (how many bars since it turned) plus trades suited to that trend age are a winning formula. Its over to the reader how and if they can use this Edit: Trader Vic's first book discussed dow theory, trend age etc at length. A useful read if one has nothing much else to do at the time.

Yes, but Zoso's point "do you believe in the thing at all" is an interesting one. One of my favourite Wizard's Eckhardt, suggested that many traders made a mistake in paying too much attention to S&R (correct me if I'm wrong please).

LOL. Why should you be popular. And why shouldn't I annoy you a little: Stereotyping gets a bad rap. Its actually the application of applied statistics and probability. So when we see an overly aggressive fast driver we say "probably a young male" and that is applied statistics ... and "probably" right. The error in stereotyping is when its used lazily or ignorantly with the assumption that "young male = fast aggressive driver." The same applies to S&R. Probabilities based on observed statistics are key - but errors in pattern matching and the stereotyping error above can create problems.

Note: I see Thales used the term degree of trend. FWIW I take trends (periods of flow in one direction) to take place at all timeframes. As you work up from 1m to 5m to 1H to 4H to 1D to 1W the trend degree rises. But the nature of trends remains. For a period at that degree, price tends to flow in one direction before the trend runs out of energy. During the flow it retraces from time to time. But after X retracements, or So long, or reaching resistance for a higher degree of trend it is exhausted. When exhausted it either runs out and reverses or it just does a larger retracement. We all play within trends ... and my personal recommendation is that one be aware of the trend one is trading (and its degree; and how far it is extended) and also the trend and s&r at the next degree (or timeframe). Trends tend to continue until they run into S&R at the next higher degree. Does that make sense Gabe?

Now, that was an interesting post Thales. And, yes, if I was programming them into a computer I would call them filters - most would all contribute to a variable that I use that included time of day and the time since the last trade that in Peewee and Peeweefx is called "CanEnterNow." I've got a couple of comments in general about training that I made in a pm to one of the other guys that I think hold. First I agree that Thalesdata (I use the Scandinavian form) benefited from no preconceptions. Then you added a few pattern preconceptions from the books you recommended and I don't believe that the people trying to learn from you here have read those books. Then the training was personal with immediate and real feedback. The damned internet isn't like that ... the teacher doesn't know what the student does ... etc etc. So, what happens is that MK takes what he reads and sees "the important elements" and starts to execute. They may not be the important elements. He might have emphasized something you saw as relatively more minor. He (and pretty much everyone else) might have missed something that you saw as major. But because the feedback loops are so awful the misunderstandings take weeks to become fully apparent. I don't think anyone got the one market component but I agree with you that its really important. IMHO, the internet is a b awful media for training in trading - and might well contribute to the overall success problem. The final comment is maybe more interesting. In this post you talk about what I call the stage of the trend or something like that. You alluded to it in your posting of elliott material. Its key to me in what I do because I was influenced ages ago by something called the Floor Trader Method. It is a "trend progression = more demanding entry" strategy and was explored for a bit by NQoos. It is the basis of Peewee and has been the basis of my trading for the last 4 or 5 years. The idea that you want to get in early in the trend is important because eventually each trend at each timeframe will bend. The trick is to be early but not so early that you buy too many abcs in the opposite trend! I attach the floor traders method (save file and directory somewhere then open the file with firefox or ie; the rtf is a summary). This is an old method but works on hsi (peewee) and is about to work on forex (peeweefx) so it is a robust approach. It can be used with its own entries but the thing that I think it offers those following Thales and the exploits of Thalesdata is a concept of trend and trend stage on any timeframe. For what its worth. (A note for those who take the time to read the FTM ... you might think of applying FTM on a 1 hour or 4H basis in which case the bar break might well occur at the same time as a 123break on 15m ... and the 123 break might be superior ... or maybe you want both (I haven't explored this, I'm just trying to tie the approaches together). FTM.zip

Its just a market. And with forex there isn't a trade. All it needs is for one party to pull their bid or ask to stretch the midpoint (if that's what you're triggering from).

Agreed BlowFish, We do seem to have adopted a "send us your hungry, unwashed, and unwanted" approach given some of the posters here. As long as they stay in their threads and don't keep starting new ones in bursts of self-promotion they can be as mad as hatters or as honest as Chicago politicians and it really doesn't affect their welcome much.

IMO, if this is the beginning of the second leg of the big bear market then it will have nothing to do with the 123. Just go back and see how many 123s have already happened in this rise. I have enjoyed the number of tops called in this sucker over at ET. Its not until people stop calling them that they actually happen - but you've only got to be right once (or have a short memory like Prechter). I really like the 123 except for one thing - it seduces people with the call of the countertrend.

I was following Thales links and thought that something I wrote this morning might also apply to the magnet conception: Why Does Support Turn into Resistance and Vice Versa? On the question - which S&R is important I suggest thinking about the following things: - the more people that can see something the more important its likely to be (can it be seen on hourly, 4H, and daily charts? weekly?) - if two areas are close together, is it the closer, middle or more extreme that's effective in your market? - here are some odds enhancers for s&r creating a bounce (and maybe, thus, for attracting price in the first place (maybe)) -- did price move strongly out of the area in the first place (there was lots of supply or demand so some might be left over) -- is a bounce supported by what longer term players would perceive to be current trend/flow (4H, daily?) -- is this the first or second time S&R is tested (third and fourth tests are much more likely to break) -- does it arrive cleanly (straight in rather than pausing and retracing just before which is more likely to generate a break and even if it doesnt will provide s&r against the move back). S&R is a probability. So you never know. At most, you can look for things that say the probability is higher. Happy Thanksgiving Americans :thumbs up:

The reason it can be accurate to the tick is that people know its likely to be accurate to the tick in that market. I trade in markets like that but also in markets that never reach it in a strong move and markets that usually break it by 5-10. So, the basics are: - people who wanted to get short wait as long as possible and the big guys scale in as price is retracing back to the break point - people who are long and big scale out as price pulls back to the break point - if the market is very strong or has typical behaviour then the observant money knows its not likely to get further than xxxx so thats as far as they wait - when it starts to move away from that point and down again, even a few ticks perhaps, those who, hopefully, waited to see if it might break through this time give up and jump on it. Crowd behaviour in a repeating scenario.

Cool. Yes, you got it. And his reference to the stochs in a similar test. Leonardo does something similar to what Thales does - similar kind of. .