torero

Ouch! Strong rallies (bull or bear) are hard to swallow when you're on the wrong side.

I recently had ooppsy daisy. It was a good trade, got my profits for the day. I was in a hurry happy to end the day and shutdown my computer. Well, a few hours later I opened up to check my mail, guess what, I was in position!!!!! I had forgotten to cancel my stops from positions earlier! Damn! At least it wasn't blown open, I still ended the day in black, but still, could have been worse. Duh for me! Is there a book called "Cancel your stops for dummies" out there?!!!!

Although I don't subscribe to his newsletter, his book and method I enjoyed and still refer from time to time for ideas and confirmations of sound methods. Good stuff.

I commend on your ability to not withstand these cheatin' varmins. I can't explain these fine prints that explains their justification of their way to calculating interest to your benefit and interest to their benefit. You have to talk to them directly. If they can dupe the smartest of us, then anyone can be a sucker. If you feel insulted by their robbing right in front of you, take that money and go elsewhere. Feeling cheated is not the right frame of mind to trade. Good luck.

As a general rule: you place a trailing stop when there's a runaway market such as fed news, etc. where there is little chance of pullbacks. In other market conditions, a normal stop loss order would be advised. Of course the trick on using trailing stop is how far a distant do you put? Another puzzle indeed.

A word of caution: I don't think you should be concentrating on getting interest as a way of making money from forex (banks can give you that but then again, all fees added up + inflation, we're screwed anyway). Finding a profit from speculative trading makes more sense, wouldn't you agree?

Sorry, S/R is support resistance areas; basically lows and highs of importance (weekly, monthly, and sometimes daily charts). I use tick charts but it's not as a volume but as a speed and movements of the price change that gives me the clue of the action increasing or decreasing. It's like a floor trader listening to the intensity of the noise level to tell him if there's more action that leads to rapidity of price change. I use it gauge but not as a volume indicator.

My point was 1 pt (or 4 ticks) is acceptable, but moving to breakeven after such a small push forward is too close, and from my experience trading ES (and I tried scalping it and failed miserably at it) in the past, there will tendencies to hit breakeven alot. But others seem to do ok, go for it. What I am saying is let the market dictate where the stop level is and not choosing to breakeven you determine; the area you choose to by a fixed amount will have a likelihood of get hit is high. If this is the case and you're scalping, you'll be paying lots of commissions and little profits. Just my opinion and experience.

This won't fly. The market does what it does and won't move to your rhythm at 4 or 6 ticks and expecting it not hit your breakeven. This is what price action is all about: reading what the price tells you where the nearest low is and nearest high and respect these level. You should be putting your stops above or below and not a fixed tick number then use S/R as your target and/or stop loss levels. The 2 go hand in hand S/R and price action.

Right now, I only trade on price action with S/R, no problem without volume. I use volume with index futures though. Somehow, forex just seems to be ok without volume since practically everyone is without volume info, so an exemplary level playing field I must say.

I use mainly price action with S/R areas and chart patterns, sometimes with volume and Fibonacci to trade. It's the right way to learn to trade without too many indicators. Price action tells alot more than indicators since they are derived from price. You're on the right track but that's just me. I'm sure others have their own opinions on this.

Welcome to the world of retail forex! This scam has been going on for a while and no regulation budge on protecting traders' rights. Check if you have a dealing desk broker or not. They are like night and day if you want to make money in this game. Hard enough these bucket shops trade against you, worst they find all the reason to drain your account with other methods (they call it FEES). Read the fine print and ask all the questions before funding the account. Check out this forum: http://nondealingdesk.com/ I always recommend to newcomers to read this before going further.

One problem with VSA is finding volume in forex to use it. As Anna-Marie mentioned, volume is not complete, it's based on price ticks, not pure volume as we define it.

Here's my take on the use of speed in trading practice. The biggest problem a trader has is patience. By speeding up the replay mode, it's fine, when the real trade comes in, he needs patience to let the market play itself out. Markets can come in fast and slow. So speed is not a deciding factor to improve performance. Worst, you wait and can't wait you exit, then re-enter again, exit again, leading to overtrading. One thing something might work is using the maximum noise and distractions level possible and practice trading in that environment. Like being on a trading floor. Like having a CNBC on, squawk box on, news tickers going by, baby screaming in the background, heavy metal music (or muzak for those who hate them) on, etc. If you can handle these types of distractions and headaches, you're ahead of the crowd on that. Another one is to do drills. Like back in school when we all had to do fire drills. If the internet or software goes berserk and you have an open position, what do you do?! Where do you exit? What's the next step to take control again? I think drills are the best way to achieve automatic and become subconscious acts. Drill entries only, then exits only, then holding, then put them all together for the final drilling. This should be an good way to get in your head once and for all.

ok, looks like OT may have back fill. http://www.opentick.com/index.php?app=content&event=market_data I guess it's not a bad option.

The most important point everyone seems to miss here is back fill. These are live feed which is excellent but to do some testing, you need some back fill when the internet or connection goes down. Unless I'm wrong, I couldn't find this answer in opentick website nor did I see non-data feed orgs covering this. What about IB?

I used to trade GBPUSD more often but eventually got attracted to JPY based pairs. Not sure why other than the fact that it moves more than the others. I mainly trade GBPJPY, EURJPY, and USDJPY.

Good for you, nautilus? What software do you use to automate your strategy?

ok, folks, I need a little help here. I know this is a little off topic but I was having a discussion with my wife about celebrities and if they make good traders. Since she loves follow their triumphs and disasters and I on trading, I thought it would be fun to start a wacky topic and get your opinion on this. I started a few examples already. Go here to post: http://torero.vecino.com/modules/smartsection/submit.php?op=add I apologize but due to possible spam and unwelcome obscene comments, you have to register and sign in. Thanks.

This week GBPJPY has been behaving much better, none of that erratic whip and pull stuff like end of Jan. It fits my style better to just pyramid positions nice and slow. I can do this all life!

Wow, was it really him who posted this article? "We're not worthy!!!!". Great to see you back walterw! Thought you went on a long vacation.

Might want to check out this site as well; wealth of info about trading and taxes. http://www.tradersaccounting.com

You've hit it right on the nail! Consistency is the biggest hurdle for everyone to overcome, it takes a long time to get it and keep it. For us humans, no day is the same (cat shit on your shoe one day, then you get big promotion the next day). Staying with the same mentality day after day is no easy feat. The only recommendation is the work it into a routine one day at a time, like the dunkin' donuts guy "time to make the donuts" without thought, without emotion (remember him just getting out of bed without a moan or smile or nothing, just those 5 words all the way to work. If you don't know it, youtube it). Routine is the key to make it mechanical. Write down the plan, 10-, 20- or 30-min to memorize it and internalize it. Then meditate or go over charts, whatever, make sure it becomes a routine for days, then weeks, then months, time precision routine before the market rolls in. Once you have that down, it's like... well, making donuts, no thoughts into it. That's how my mentor taught me and it's how i started out. This is the reason why money and winning should not be a part of the scenery, just carrying out the strategy perfectly. Once the routine is in and the strategy perfected, then sizing up position is just a matter of adding another number in.

The quiz is lengthy but I assume it's to make sure there is consistency in our response to get a true sense of who we are. I think it's interesting and I'll take it just for the heck of it. The only thing is that it still doesn't tell us in the end what we are capable or not capable of. The real question is: when we become successful in trading, does it also reflect the way we behave around us, among friends and family? If this is true, then the quiz may give an indication our potential to succeed or not. But we are the same outside trading, then there is no sense in taking the test. I, for one, have noticed change in me around others. The perception is somehow just different from the time before I started trading. But it could be age, becoming parents, etc. Who knows. It's still difficult to gauge with this quiz though.

TRO, banned again! Wow, how many are there left for him?!!!