MidKnight

Hi Soultrader, I used to use several current day volume based studies on the Nikkei but found that the opening print often ends up distorting the information for most of the morning as you have commented on above. I ended up changing the studies to tick based or time based. Maybe take a look at those for alternatives. My best regards, MK

Sorry for the late response dwt....I don't understand your question. The Nikkei is based off the stock market which trades in Japan local time from 0900 - 1510 with a lunch break from 1100 - 1230. Due to the lunch break, this creates 2 sessions every day. If you are referring to the CME contract that trades in US trading hours, then I would not recommend that product as this is an after hours market and is not really any different from trading the US futs outside of RTH. My best regards, MK

hi dwt1020, I use IB for broker and esignal for data. Many charts of various timeframes. I don't consider myself to be scalping, but i'll do typically 2-4 trades per day. My best regards, MK

Darth, where are you getting your PREM data from. You are aware that not all PREMs are equal? http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/Daytrading/commentary/lftw/09302005-46122.cfm Here is a quote from the interview: " Dave: I know different data feeds use different symbols for the PREM. What are the 3 main symbols and their corresponding service provider? Hank: All PREMs are calculated by the individual data vendors. Unlike stock quotes, the PREM is not calculated or fed to the data vendor by any of the exchanges. Most data vendors either do not do PREM calculations at all,or do a horrible job with the calculations. Only a handful of data vendors do the PREMs correctly and accurately. With DTN, all of the PREM's are good. The PREM is SP-PREM.Z. The E-mini PREM is EM-PREM.Z. They also have the Nasdaq PREM. The symbol is ND-PREM.Z and NQ-PREM.Z for the mini contract. They recently began calculation for the Russell 2000 PREM. The symbol is RL-PREM.Z and RM-PREM.Z for the mini contract. eSignal does a good job too, especially with the E-mini PREM. Their ticker symbol for PREM is PREM A0 (zero not O) and the E-mini PREM is EPREM A0. Most traders that have eSignal do not know that. If they look at the PREM at all, they look at $PREM. That symbol is not correct. It is a snapshot every 6 seconds and therefore is usually wrong. The same is true for $EPREM. It is almost never correct, since the ES contract is so active. eSignal does not have the Nasdaq or Russell PREM. Comstock does a good job. Their symbol is PREM.X and EPREM.X. They do not have the other PREMs. Quote.com buys their data from Comstock. TradeStation used to buy their data from Comstock too, but now calculates all of their own PREMs. Their symbols are $SPINX and $ESINX, $NDIQX and $NQIQX, and $RLIUX and $ERSIUX. "

Hi Boony, While the futures price can at times mirror the underlying cash index it generally does not. There is typically a premium attached to the futures which simplistically, includes cost of carry and any dividends due for the duration of the contract. Guys, do not bother with the CME contract, my understanding is it is pretty much an after hours market. Focus on the OSE or SGX IMHO. I prefer the mini on OSE. With kind regards, MK

I am in full agreement with what you are saying here Jerry. I came to the same realization in my own trading not more than a couple months ago. Now the problem is how do I get bigger on those trades when I only get my first entry before the market takes off. Unsure about that one so far...enjoying the discussion, sorry if this detracts from the original posters topic. Best regards, MK

G'day Don, I'd maybe start by examining more about the scenario you previously mentioned is annoying. How close do they come to your target. How much time has elapsed on them. Maybe even add some context, like how are they in relation to the daily chart. Basically just hunting for common data. Won't be 100% of course, but might be enough to smooth out the curve a little. Just some ideas...All the best on your journey, things are generally going well for you. Out of curiosity, have things become more difficult since we stopped trending so hard (on the daily chart)? My best regards, MK

Hi Don, One possible idea, is that you have a unit of time that triggers a different way to handle your exits. Do you have any stats to do with trade length? Perhaps you find that the ones that end up coming close to profit target and then reversing for a full stop out are the ones that at their maximum in your favor are the longest in time. If that is the case, then one might consider adding a time switch that allows you to scale out, and possibly adjust stop loss levels. Or keep it where it is and take the full hit on the reduced position. I can't come up with too many ideas without seeing statistics. Best regards, MK

IB have a great ECN style offering. I personally will stay well clear of MBTrading after reading a thread on ET with which the president of MBTrading (at least he said he was the president) was replying to posts. IB have had an ECN model for over 2 years now. I highly recommend them. Best regards, MK

Hi Pyenner, You said: "How many lots must be traded to move the price one pip?" AFAIK, the answer to that is zero. All we see on the charts is typically a moving bid and for all practical purposes, no transactions have to occur for that bid to move. Price strictly a means of advertising, and the banks like to advertise, it is how they get business Best regards, MK

I personally found very very little value in markets in profile over MOM. MIP was poorly edited. Several of the charts are incorrectly subtitled and referred to in the writing which makes it hard to follow a long. That is a minor nitpick though. I honestly didn't find a lot of extra value over MOM. It just said a few things more succinctly but it said the same things. With kind regards, MK

Hi notouch, A pretty key point you make here I think which borders on trade psychology. When day trading the margins are so much smaller, I always felt like I had to get a perfect entry, missing out on a few ticks could be the difference of an R multiple or more. Letting that mentality go is probably the key. It's interesting to discuss. Only in the past few weeks I have been changing my timeframe as an experiment. I have been exploring short-term trading with multi-day holds, sometimes a week if conditions warrant. One thing I noticed in this experiment is that I'm less concerned with getting perfect entries, thus I've been finding the market generated information has become clearer and more useful. I'm trading a lot less, catching bigger moves, and am less concerned about perfect entries. Your point above is a key point to me. Thank you. Kind regards, MK

Thx TinGull. I have seen the alexandertrading dude say the same thing with regards to avg daily range. I used to have IRT but had to get rid of it due to its unfriendliness with non USA timezones. Now I just use volume profile in neoticker. Kind regards, MK

Hi notouch, I agree those are a great opportunities. May I ask some specifics though? Single print buying tails of course are not there until some time after has passed. How soon do you recognize them? Or, are you anticipating them? The ideal location would be anywhere below DVAL, which brings up trade mgmt specifics. While I do find locating excess to be ideal when I look at the charts in hindsight, I have a much harder time to positioning in those areas in real-time mainly because I haven't recognized it as excess yet. Know what I mean? Best regards, MK

"It takes courage to be a pig" -- George Soros

Excellent results Don. I've read all of your journal and find your discipline admirable. Keep up the good work. Best regards, MK

Hi DarthTrader, I gave the marketdelta (at the time it was called IRT) footprint and MP charts a good hard try. I stuck with it for just over a year. I totally agree with notouch above stating that the marketdelta website is overly simplistic and he is trying to sell it like some sort of 'no brainer' system. The original market delta Trevor sold even had those fancy buy/sell arrows that really boosts sales. He makes it sound like you just buy when the column delta is green and sell when the column delta is red. That sort of trading will make you broke in a very short time. Very often you can get extremely high/low delta readings but it is passively being absorbed. I also find this level of detail is more confusing with a heavily arb'd market. You can get a more generalized view, and I believe more useful view with a simple net buy/sell summary per bar. In marketdelta they call this volume breakdown indicator. In closing, after trying hard to make the marketdelta tools (primarily the footprint charting) work for me, I had to admit that it wasn't adding to my bottom line and was instead hindering my performance by keeping me off many really good trades. I like the concept and the theory but could not turn it into more $$$s in my account. Because of this, I dumped it last month and switched over to neoticker to pursue a simplier version of what I was doing with market delta tools centered around the same theme -- supply and demand. Best regards, MK

That is true Soultrader, is does about 1/2 of the mini volumes on a daily basis. But you must remember, it is worth 5 times the value....Great points on pre-market trading, very useful indeed. Best regards, MK

Hi SoulTrader, I have been trading the Nikkei225 for a while now. Started with the singapore contract but now use the mini. I'm charting the Singapore contract (because I'm with DTN IQFeed who only offer Singapore for Asian markets) and trading the mini. Works great! Best regards, MK