playafh69

tucciotrader, if you want proof that they filter ticks, ask your broker. He'll tell you himself that its filtered.

I beg to differ. I trade using Bid/ask, and it actually works quite well. Its true that you need to have a quality data feed, but most people don't realize that you have to use it on the right instrument. Bid/ask does not work well at all on the YM or TF, simply because there isn't enough institutional activity. Also, i hear a lot of people complaining about how HFT messes everything up. But, again, I fail to see the validity in this. If a bank buys 2 x1000 lots or 2000 x1 lots, they're still buying 2000 contracts, and you will see that regardless. HFT is simply the speed or rate that the trades occur, thats it. There might be increased momentum because of it, but they're still buying and selling 2000 contracts, and you will see that. Banks and institutions don't do HFT trading to compete with newbie day traders, they do it to compete with other banks and institutions to get better price improvement.

What i did was compare the Time and Sales of my TOS platform to zen and TT individually, and I noticed that the Thinkorswim time and sales would print for example 1+,1+,1+,1+,12+... while the TT would just print 3+,13+ which leads me to believe that TT aggregates the data( big no no since I base my trades from tape reading). I guess I have to use two different computers for the Ninja and Zen comparison since I can't have both datafeeds on Ninja on the same computer. On the other hand I do agree with you that Ninja is a bit faulty, I think that transact is more stable, however, i really dislike the data feed, slower than esignal and horrible fills. There was a time when their new V3 platform was lagging esignals by a whopping 20 seconds(and yes i was on the right month). When I called in they told me I either had a slow connection or the markets are fast. "It happens" was his reply. So I wired all my money out the next day, when he asked me why, I told him "it happens". I'm not going back to Transact and I don't think that Xtrader is worth the price. I guess ill open up an account with both of em and see what happens. If others want to give their input, I would still appreciate it. Also, I noticed that Zen clears through both dorman and RCG. I wouldn't mind hearing some experiences from them as well. Thanks Everyone

This has probably been asked before but I can't seem to get a straight answer. I was using transact, but after testing ninja I believe its far superior(specially the data feed). Top two choices are velocity TT feed or AMP Zenfire feed. Has anyone had any experience with the two data feeds. Its hard to compare the two side by side, but it seems that zenfire is faster, while pro's swear TT feed saying that its faster and more reliable. Is the TT feed filtered or unfiltered data. Also, if anyone can give me some input with the two different brokers as well. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.

I think i gave enough details about how i trade, im not going to give away my method. I said that all my trades start out as a scalp, meaning that i wanna get rid of half as soon as it goes in my favor to lesson risk, but i hold some for the bigger moves. Im guessing your saying that you prefer to use the last swing high or low instead of volatility based stops. Any others????

Ive been trading for a while( and profitable), and I keep running to the same two problems. One is stops. All my trades start as scalps, but i hold 1 or 2 cars depending on my size to swing with to try to capture larger gains. My average time in the markets are about 10 min(including swings). I want to know peoples opinions about stops. One is placing them around swing points (like 15 ticks above or below last high/low, not one tick) or just using volatility based stops, like 3xATR on a 3 min chart(which is what i currently use). Second is targets. I am a discretionary trader, and I try to read the markets when i wanna decide targets. If its a trending market, I usually go in heavier size with larger targets(methods of trying to decide trend strength is price action, expanding volume, AD line and trend.....) I also wanna get opinions on this as well, do you trail stops using ATR method like above, or do you just get out no matter what when it hits your target???? Is it better to always trail or have defined stops. Remember, my stops are always larger than my initial profit targets, thats why im asking. I currently trail but get out when tape starts to weaken. This method works great in choppy markets since i can literally get out near swing points, but I miss out on big moves when its trending(old habits and mainly because i hate getting burned when i give back profits). Example of stops and targets is risk $120, first target is $60, second target is around $200. But again, i do get out sometimes even at first target when i notice tape starting to weaken(great advantage which really helps me become profitable)... Im not going to get into what i mean by tape reading.

so basically your saying its kind of like capitulation. WHen you see a huge spike in volume price usually moves the other way, is that correct dougr?

Anybody else.... I remember something about someone saying that the cme reports trades differently then the cbot.... does that have anything to do with it??

reading tape as in looking at the time and sales... order flow. For example you can watch tape go up and you can see newbie's buying(all one's and two's ).. and then it gets slammed down with big orders, meaning that the pro's are selling into it.

I have been reading tape on the Ym pretty well, but for some reason have a hard time reading it on the nq. Has anyone had this problem or have an answer to this. When I ask other people they all say the same thing, if you can read tape on the ym you can read tape on anything. But for some reason its not working.