Soultrader

I believe the guys over at Trade The Markets use a 5 minute squeeze more often than the others. I personally do not use this indicator but I have seen the 5 minute squeeze give off nice signals before an actual breakdown or breakout.

The symbol for TICK is $TICK on Tradestation. I believe it is pretty much the same for most platforms. The TICK is number of upticking stocks minus the downticking stocks on the NYSE. So if you have 1000 stocks upticking versus 600 stocks downticking, you will have a TICK reading of +600.

MrPaul brought up an interesting chart the other day in the chat room and I decided to take a closer look. The same stuff can be found at Stock Timing, but I have recreated the charts to post them here. The charts below show a daily chart of the followig: S&P 500 Index, Nasdaq Composite, Dow Jones Index and the Institutional Holdings Index. Let's take a look at the stronger links. We are still in an uptrend on the S&P 500 Index with higher lows and higher highs. Notice the current channel we are in. We could in fact pullback to test the lower channel. The Dow is still very strong technically as well. The 12700 marker will be key to watch for support. The charts show that the S&P and Dow are still in an uptrend at the moment. Let's take a look at the weaker links: The Nasdaq Composite Index seems to be uptrend/chop. It has been trading all over the place ever since the break above 2400. Now here is the most interesting chart: This chart shows that the big money are no longer adding to their positions. It has been consolidating ever since the beginning of 2007. Any break above the range and the markets should follow to the upside. But we do not know for certain which way this will go. Is the Nasdaq leading the pack and giving us a heads up signal? Or is it lagging? Should longs be worried? A couple of interesting questions that traders should keep in mind. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and inputs.

Thank you ant for this data. I really need to learn how to do this in TS.

I am back to Windows XP. Vista officially sucks.

Many thanks to Leroy Rushing for this great chat seminar. Below is transcript from Feb. 15, 2007 on market cycles. Leroy Rushing is a former Excecutive Risk Manager for several Fortune 500 financial insitutions and a current day trader and trading mentor for Trading Everyday. Leroy: Many traders begin the journey looking for lots of materials, books, seminars, chat rooms, newsletters to help them find the edge. Leroy: But what I want to share with you, I have found to be overlooked and very few books, seminars, and traders focus on! Leroy: It's simple, yet very important! Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart0.png'>http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart0.png Leroy: Every one looks at the market, but do you see what really happens consistently. Everyone knows that the market goes in cycles, right? Leroy: But do you use this as the foundation for your trading? Do you realize that this is some of the missing pieces for some of your trade setups? Leroy: Let's look at some examples http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart1.png Leroy: The QQQQ are a proxy for some traders who day trade, while others look at the e-mini's! We will look at both. Do you see the market cycle in this chart? Tingull: y Soultrader: yes MrPaul: yes Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart1a.png Leroy: How about now? MrPaul: yes keymoo: i don't see much sideways bottoming action Leroy: What stage is the QQQQ's in? MrPaul: Ill go with top for 500 Leroy Budman: sideways traderwilliam: 3 keymoo: sideways top Leroy: Use chart0 to identify? Good answer, only 30, sorry, smile Leroy: Lets look at a high flyer today. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart1b.png Leroy: What stage is this one in? It gapped up today, that's not on the chart. MrPaul: 4? Tingull: Looks like 1 keymoo: i would say 1, but there's no reason it could not go lower, right? budman: sideways bottom Leroy: Can you see the market cycle on this chart? Soultrader: 1 Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart1c.png Leroy: Do you see so far how if you use the market cycle as the beginning guide, it will help you with what is next? Tingull: I can see that Leroy: So lets quickly look at DIA. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart2.png Leroy: What stage is this one in, this is a proxy for the DOW. Tingull: 2 keymoo: 2? Soultrader: 2 Leroy: good MrPaul: dos Leroy: What stage comes after 2? Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart3.png Leroy: This is a proxy for S&P500. You with me so far, if you know what stage the bigger trend is in, when you drill down, you have a better chance of the odds being in your favor. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart4.png keymoo: how does this help the intra-day trader? Tingull: ok Leroy: This is the mid-caps, can be used as a proxy for the Russell. So lets get to the good stuff. Soultrader: keymoo if the market is rangebound in the bigger timeframe you will be applying more rangebound strategies to your daytrading. keymoo: well during a rangebound daily market, you can have some strong trending intra-day days Leroy: If we call the bigger trend a MAJOR trend, then when we drop down to lower timeframes, we will see the market cycle also, right? Tingull: Leroy, how can the midcaps be a proxy for the Russell? When the Russell is small caps. Leroy: It's just a larger base of stocks for this example. Leroy: So if we put all the pictures together what do we have as a overall market trend? Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart5.png Tingull: up Leroy: Sometimes, someone is ahead of the pack, and someone is lagging, is that the case here? keymoo: bullish/topping Soultrader: we are still trending upwards.. but topping Leroy: So I know how much you love the futures, lets look at a few of them. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart6.png Leroy: So lets look in more detail at the NQ emini on a 15 min chart. Do you see the market cycle? Soultrader: 3 keymoo: oh yeah! nice Leroy: Notice how if you were for example using technical indicators such as the stochastic to buy/sell the NQ, would your trades be good or bad? Leroy: If you used the market cycles, you would see that you are about go up, while the stochastic is oversold. Leroy: Stochastic is a indicator that moves up & down. Oscillating, so the first shaded box would signal to some to sell, while the market cycle is indicating the trend to start going up, you see that? Leroy: See once the emini breaks down and starts stage 4, what did the stochastics say to do? traderwilliam: oversold Soultrader: sell keymoo: I dont know stochastics Soultrader: haha yea same here traderwilliam: I am indicator king :p. Because its oversold, so its a buy. Leroy: That's ok, the point here is that if you use indicators, they may provide a different result that does not concide with price action, see that? kingking: yeah traderwilliam: yeah Soultrader: yes Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart7.png Budman: Price is king. Leroy: Here is Russell emini, what do you see? traderwilliam: nice Soultrader: 4? MrPaul: possible double top? kingking: topping? Tingull: a bunch of garbage. HAH...jk Leroy: Again, we are looking at a 15 min timeframe, remember that! keymoo: there's a downtrending channel looking like a flag on right of chart. Soultrader: very interesting charts Leroy: Similar to the last chart, the indicators say one thing, but the market cyle approach says something different, see that? MrPaul: yeah I see it Leroy: The potential flag pattern is just that, a pattern. If you look at the market cycle chart again, we are cycling up and down at the top. traderwilliam: if it goes under the dot yellow line, then it's a signal..*wild guess* :P Leroy: No, the dotted yellow line is just a 200 ma. Its used to see the macro trend on a 15 min chart.The red line is a 20 ma used to see the minor trend on the chart. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart8.png Leroy: Here is the Dow emini. What do you see using market cycles? Tingull: bull rally keymoo: bull rally Leroy: Remember your market stages. kingking: do you use the indicators according to market cycles e.g. trend period, indicaotr not reliable; non-trend period more reliable. Soultrader: 2-3 Leroy: If you use the market cycles as a foundation, then you have a good idea of what direction the market will be considering next, right? Soultrader: Indeed MrPaul: Agreed Leroy: So, what I have showed you so far is only half the picture. Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart9.png Leroy: If we look at the bigger picture, for example we might really see something different! So what do we have for the Russell? MrPaul: there are cycles within cycles. Leroy: Great MrPaul. But what stage is it in? Leroy: Remember, I showed you that little area with the magenta lines? keymoo: topping stage Leroy: good keymoo Leroy: So which is it for professional traders? We buy tops and sell bottoms or we short tops and buy bottoms? keymoo: don't know, haven't got that far yet. :-) Tingull: LOL keymoo Leroy: So if you went back and grabbed any slice of time you can apply the market cycles to it to see what happens next. keymoo: so if the russell went to 830, that would be the start of a new bull rally? Leroy: Don't focus on the numbers, remember the market cycles first. If you are at the top and retesting a prior resistance area, what would you do, buy or short it? budman: short tops, buy bots keymoo: if it breaks out we get stopped out. how do we know that it won't break out? budman: Key, we're never sure. that's what stops are for. MrPaul: This question may be premature but how do you decide to trade these? what is defining a breakdown from a 3 or a breakout from a 1? S/R lines? Leroy: The market is not going to make it easy for us to see which stage its in, thats why 80+ of traders lose, right? MrPaul: okay Leroy: MrPaul, all we are doing is ready the charts, appling the market cycles to them, understanding that a market must follow them exactly in sequence, 1,2,3,4 Leroy: Now how long a market stays in a stage is a good question. keymoo: so the russell must come down before going to new all-time highs? Leroy: We are trying to determine direction first. Wouldn't you want to know the direction of your next potential trade before you took it?Everyone with me so far? Soultrader: yes keymoo: interesting Leroy: So if looking at a 15 min and we are at the top, we know that the 15 will lead to the 30, which will lead to the daily and so on. Soby using a simple market cycle approach, you can start to really understand what direction the market is trending right? Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart9a.png keymoo: i usually use 2min and 50,89 ticks charts, i'm wondering how this is going to help on the very small time frames. Leroy: Try a couple of examples. The market cycle works on any timeframe and on any tick. Leroy: The simple saying "the trend is your...."? keymoo: cool, so the probabilities are in your favour if you start from say, the weekly, down to the daily, 30min, 5min, 2min, 50tick. Leroy: Yes, Well, if we know the 4 stages and can consistently identify them, doesn't that help us tremendously? keymoo: no doubt Soultrader: trend is your best friend keymoo: yes i've been spanked going against the trend, this very week! Leroy: So some traders will use fibs to buy and sell. But if we combine our analysis using fibs and the market cycles, see how much more easier it is to follow the professionals? MrPaul: yeah keymoo: how do pivots fit into this? Leroy: You see how the Russell is trading sideways in the upper 38% fib? Leroy: Pivots are just that, some traders rely on pivots more heavily than others, but if you use pivots and are trading against the trend, thats not good! keymoo: ah i see now, use the pivots to trade with the trend. nice Leroy: So any questions so far? keymoo: could you help me see the 38% fib on the russell? which chart? Leroy: The last chart, the oval area Soultrader: Leroy, I have one question Leroy: You see we have a lot going on in the Russell. . We can apply the same approach to the other emini's also, you see that? Leroy: Soultrader, what's your ? Soultrader: when trading small caps or lets say the Russell emini... how much weight do you put into the big caps or the bigger indexes like the dow and S&P. intraday movements between the dow futs and russell futs seem to be never in sync. Leroy: Right, the market not being in sync is natural. The objective is to know the major trend, and then drill down to find the opportunity to get on board and follow the trend, right? Soultrader: if the dow is in cycle 4 but the russell is in cycle 2, would you be more careful with the russell? Leroy: That's our objective.... keymoo: very good Soultrader: yes i agree Leroy: You don't need to worry about putting more weight on one emini vs the next if you know what stages each is in. keymoo: do you pay much attention to divergences to confirm a play? for instance now on the 15min chart the russell is moving up in price on decreasing volume. keymoo: so, price must come down, right? Leroy: One all the stages line up for all the emini's you can go cha-ching, right? Soultrader: ok thank you Leroy: I pay a lot of attention to divergences in price action and volume. That is a great area to focus on eliminating some of the bad trades we make. keymoo: great, what are the small dots on your chart? Leroy: So let me go over the first slide in more details. If you are trending sideways and very little volatility exist, once you breakout, you know what to do, right? keymoo: sure would you set up buy stops for this? Leroy: If it breaks out to the upside, your in a stage 2. If it breaks to the downside, your continuing the stage 4 that you were in, you see that? Soultrader: y Leroy: You can put buy stop order, yes, but you need to practice scaling in first to learn the movements keymoo: ok, so you can get 4,1 then a 4 Leroy: We have all seen the breakouts that come back into the range, right? MrPaul: So Leroy above all else these stages are the core of your strategy? keymoo: interesting, i've noticed the big banks on the SP always scale in Leroy: This is the foundation of the market. Lots of principle are built around this. Leroy: It just seems too easy for a lot of traders MrPaul: ok keymoo: easy? what to the pros? Leroy: Elliott waves occur in stage 2 and 4, right? Leroy: 3 legs or 5 legs, doesn't matter, the market has to be trending upward or downward for the price action to move keymoo: what's that? i've heard of it Leroy: Keymoo, elliott wave is a mathematical approach that some traders use to time their trading strategies for entry and exits. keymoo: do you use it? Leroy: So if you look at that last chart of the Russell, we are at the top of the range using fibs, we are in a stage 3 using market cycles, and if you look at the market right this minute we are trending sideways Soultrader: interesting Leroy:We either break to the upside, or we retest the low of the range, right? MrPaul: So knowing this...Where is the level in which you say...This is weakening. A breakdown from the lows? Leroy: If you can pull up the last slide next to this next one! keymoo: yes my question also, MrP Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart9b.png Leroy: MrPaul, one minute and I will answer that, ok? MrPaul: okay take your time Leroy: Can everyone see how we are in the upper third of the first fib on the chart? Soultrader: yes MrPaul: yeah Leroy: Now looking inside of that first fib, we were in the upper third of a smaller fib also, can you see that? keymoo: y Soultrader: y MrPaul: yeah Leroy: So, the first signal of weakness might be on this little fib, we breakdown. The next signal of weakness might be we on the first fib below the 38%, you with me so far? MrPaul: yea Soultrader: alot of professionals like to buy pullbacks on the 61.8% keymoo: yup MrPaul: near 815 keymoo: 61.8 is a big pullback Leroy: So if we break the little fib, then break the bigger fib, you can see how you could be scaling in to a position, so if we breakdown on the daily (remember the sideways trending) you would already be in a position that was profitable? Leroy: You guys with me? keymoo: ok, if the bigger fib acted as support, would you then get out of your position? Leroy: Just depends on the if you have all the emini's breaking down or just one of them, see the difference? keymoo: ok keymoo: the NQ seems to be the odd one out at the moment Leroy:One breaking down, you might start to take a little profit, all of them breaking down, you might back up the dump truck, just depends on your risk tolerence. Leroy: Odd one, or the first one to way his hand and say I'm tired! smile Leroy: Soultrader, did I answer your question? Leroy: MrPaul, did I answer your question? MrPaul: yes very well, thanks Leroy: ok Soultrader: yes thank you Leroy: So if you use multilpe timeframes, and a top down approach, you can see how the odds start to lean in your favor as you setup your trades Leroy: Did everyone see that? keymoo: i like it Leroy: Indeed Soultrader: yes very interesting keymoo: for instance on the ES right now price is ranging, the higher prob. play would be to short the top of the range because that coincides with the top of a larger range - is that it? Leroy: It seems like a simple approach, but once you add chart patterns to it and constantly look for congruency, it make it more challenging keymoo also volume increases when it comes down, and decreases when it goes up in the range Leroy: Yes, you expect volume to increase as you transition from one stage to the next, everyone see that? MrPaul: yeah Soultrader: y Leroy: Eveyone, look at the first chart again, lets look at the green oval and the red oval Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/Chart0.png Leroy: These are the optimal buying and shorting areas on the market cycle. Leroy: As a stock transitions from sideways with little volatility, buyers step in and volume increases and the breakout occurs keymoo: sounds easy now. lol Leroy: When we are in stage 3 trading sideways, volatility is high and sellers step in and over power buyers to the point that price drops Leroy: In this session, I only covered the basic for what goes into the market cycle. Leroy: Everyone see that? Soultrader: y keymoo: yes Leroy: So the market has changed, when transistioning from stage 4 to stage 1, we see a lot of 2X bottoms . Leroy: How many have see the second bottom over shoot the first one and then come back into the range? Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/ntri.png Leroy: Look at how the market over shot the bottom at 42.51 and if you pulled up the chart right now, what do you see? keymoo: a big gap up Leroy: This is a good swing trade for those who bought once price action cam back up above 42.51 keymoo: high vol on first bottom, and lower vol on second bottom - does that tell you anything? Leroy: You see how that second bottom is a shakeout Leroy: Good keymoo Leroy: shakeouts have that nice characteristic sometimes keymoo: thanks leroy, i feel like i'm learning a lot, i hope i am Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/ma.png Leroy: what do you see here, what stage is the stock in? Soultrader: 2 MrPaul: 2 or 3? Leroy: good keymoo: stage 2? Leroy: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/Chart%20Pictures/Leroy/ma2.png MrPaul: 2 going into 3 Leroy: How about now? Soultrader: 4? keymoo: topping Leroy: Potentially? Leroy: Definitely, topping Soultrader: yea potential 4 Leroy: So, you see how looking at the 15 only might get you in trouble if your entry is late, while the daily is potentially transitioning to a different stage? keymoo: yes, do you look at longer timeframes, such as a monthly? Leroy: Only for long term trades, and right now with the market being in a 2 for so long, I think its too late, what comes after 2? MrPaul: 3 Leroy: Little note, using the market cycles, I am sure you all see that you don't have to trend sideways very long. keymoo: so a good trade here might be to start scaling in around 114-115? Leroy: Some refer to these as V-tops and V-bottoms Leroy: If it gets back to that area! smile Leroy: notice on the daily the price increasing and volume decreasing keymoo if not, then get in with a market short order when it breaks? Leroy: Careful! You want to trade according to your trading plan! Leroy: If you don't have a plan, then that's dangerous, right? Soultrader: definitely keymoo: for sure Soultrader: having a plan is everything Leroy: You might practice paper trading it with a different approach first, learn the approach, then use real money Leroy: So we introduced some concepts for charting by combining market cycles and fibs. Did this help any? MrPaul: sure, it was refreshing Leroy: Good MrPaul keymoo: looks very powerful, thanks for sharing leroy budman: Thanks Leroy. those TS charts? Leroy: The basics will stay with you always, and keep you out of trouble if you trust and rely on them! Leroy: budman, yes keymoo: leroy what are the dots on your charts? Leroy: The dots on which chart, keymoo? Soultrader: great stuff Leroy. Thank you very much Leroy: The futures charts, keymoo? keymoo: on all the charts, you have little dots on top of some and under some candles Leroy:ok, those are pivot highs and lows that can be label in Tradestation using showme(s) keymoo: right, what are they saying to you? Leroy: They are easy reference for pivots, the more in an area, the more support or resistance in that area, etc... keymoo: cool, i found it in TS, what inputs do you use? Leroy: If you let the system take care of some of the mechanical task, as a trader, you can focus on more important stuff! Leroy: You can use pivot definitions of 2 bars to the left and 2 to the right MrPaul: Leroy do you focus on any aspects of Market Profile? Leroy: Last year I ran across the concepts in TS forum, downloaded the files and started looking at it Leroy: As a statistician, I understand the concepts completely Leroy: Each time frame used is a normal distribution turned on its side,... keymoo: i'm trying to digest Mind over Markets right now, and i like the idea of combining price, volume and time Soultrader: yea i just had the new MP book shipped Leroy: Every approach, tool, technique and indicator can be a good approach if it works for you! Tingull: Market Profile is amazing Leroy: The key is that you learn it, absorb it, understand it, and clearly know how you use it in your trading and include all of this in your trading plan! Soultrader: gotta have an edge keymoo: as a new trader i do find the various methods and techniques a little overwhelming, there seems to be so much information to learn Leroy: Any questions? keymoo: so you would use the market cycle as the foundation of looking for signals in your plan? Leroy: The best kept secret for learning to trade is to focus on 1 and only 1 thing, get good at, I mean really good at it, and the rest takes care of itself Leroy: keymoo, yes Soultrader: i totally agreee Leroy Leroy: I buy when I see the uptrends and short when I see the down trends, and try to stay away from the sideways trends. Leroy: Its like have a small store and you buy a bunch of stuff and put it on the shelfs and it just sits there, customers look at, but keep going. Leroy: Great, guys, I am going to take a break, an be back in a few minutes! MrPaul: cool keymoo: great stuff Leroy, thanks for spending the time with us Soultrader: Thank you very much Leroy. Amazing stuff And thank you for your time today. Leroy: Sure, no problem, we will setup something again soon Soultrader: I enjoyed it very much. Alot of new ideas came into my mind afer reviewing your stuff. Leroy: good,Soultrader, we can talk tomorrow or next week Soultrader: Sounds good Leroy. I'll have this transcript setup in the forums by tomorrow.

Thought I'de jump in here to tell you guys that this is an amazing thread! Some really great stuff guys. "The battle is won before it is fought" - Sun Tzu - Build a trading plan and trade the plan. Also know when to break it or else you will be sitting duck when the markets do the unexpected. Enter only at price levels that you feel comfortable with the risk. Think risk only.. profits will handle itself alone. Observe, observe, observe!! Program your brain to recognize market patterns. Not candle patterns... but the overall pattern on a bigger picture. Learn to read what the market is telling you. This will significantly increase your odds for short term setups. It took me 2 years to be able to read the language of the markets (though I am learning EVERY single day). It's actually quite simple but takes alot of time to understand this simplicity.

No clue Freddie. Youre asking a Tradestation guy

ahhh yes completely. They made it so annoying. It was taking me more than 30min to figure out a small function in excel that out of frustration I switched back to my old office. Although the new Word is nice.... even outlook was annoying. On a quick note: The only thing good about Vista is the new sidebar gadgets.

Here is an interesting trade I took the other day. Thought I'de share this strategy. The chart below shows Feb. 14th, 2007, the day Bernanke spoke at 10:00am EST. Now the markets did absolutely nothing until 10am. Everyone was waiting for Bernie to speak. On Fed days the markets usually do 1-2-3 move. (1-2-3 moves are... initial move up/down, reversal, and then third wave back in the original direction). However on Bernie speeches, the markets tend to just GO. The key to playing these moments is to get in early and not chase. Moves are usually very fast on the YM and they can take off over 30+pts in a matter of seconds. Okay.... lets get back to the chart. Price stalls right above value high pivot using it as support twice. The YM is pretty much stuck in a 15pt range from 12685 to 12700. Now what I did was use a bracket order with a buy stop at 12705 and a sell stop at 12680. The strategy is to get in asap in the direction of the move. The important part is in this strategy is to pick your buy and sell levels carefully. Why 12680 and 12705?? 12683 is value high. My sell stop is placed 3 ticks below this value high pivot. The play would be to ride it down to value low at 12651. Now, take a look at the chart below. 12703 is 2/9/07, Fridays high. 12700 is also a key psych level making this mark extra key. So my buy stop is placed at 12705. The markets did go and rally for about 30pts after the Bernie momo breakout and another 30pts in the afternoon. Take a look at your past charts, practice it, and tweak it. It's a pretty easy strategy but the key is picking your two buy/sell levels.

Spent over 6 hours today saving files, moving them, etc.. to upgrade to a Vista Business Edition. Such a junkie to new tech gadgets and software I had high hopes for this one. WRONG!! For those looking to purchase Vista, I highly recommend you stick with XP. Vista is extremely slow and not ideal for traders who want a fast machine. I would say you need at least 2gb of RAM to run this thing smoothly. Now with Office 2007.... I couldnt even understand how to use excel that I had to switch back to Office 2003. grrrrrrrrrr.....

Just a quick reminder for members about the chat seminar today. Seminar will start at 11:00am so please join us in the chat room. Thanks

Market internal tools work in phases. The TRINQ was a tool traders used before... now I think its pretty useless. The TRIN worked wonders last year. We have been very rangebound this year so the TRIN is not the greatest market internal tool to rely on. I wouldnt say that it is completely useless.. you just need to find something that is in sync with price. I used to rely alot on the TRIN. But starting this year I actually removed it off my main charts. I do watch the PC Ratio though.. its a great indicator to give you a heads up. The TICK's are still very reliable in my opinion also. If TRIN doesnt work, stick with the PC Ratio and TICK's. If none of them work... well you always have price and volume.

Here is a site I use to get all my audio alerts: AT&T Labs Text-to-Speech: Demo I have audio for program buy/sell, extreme TICK readings, 0.6 and 1.0 on the PC ration, etc...

Interesting point GCB and Pivotprofiler, I think its similar to the players in a casino. How many players go home with profits? Majority of the people seek entertainment while the very few professionals are only there for one reason: to make money. Same with a game of poker. There are players who enjoy playing and players who find poker tremendously boring but play because they can make money. The 95% stats count in every single player regardless of their motives for participation. It would be particularily interesting to see additional stats for traders who actually went through some trading. Perhaps we can take a look at the records of traders in prop firms. I remember reading in a book once that out of 20 prop traders only 2-3 were the only ones profitable. Of course this is just from one sample. They say trading is a risky career and many people view starting a small business as less riskier. WRONG! My folks also own a company which is approx 30 years old now and they have also told me that those that make it pass the second year are the minority.. roughly 10%. If you dont know who you are... the markets is definitely an expensive place to find out. I have learned alot about myself ever since I started trading. Unfortunately traders who go bust and never return fail to look within themselves. I do think traders have a higher probability of success compared to musicians, artists, or actors though. That 95% is just a number to scare ppl off. I knew about the 95% failure rate before I started trading.. but I was actually attracted to it instead. Gotta love the challenge in this game.

I agree Everyone is very helpful here to help one another improve as a trader.

Hi walterw, Just wanted to thank you again for the TTM Volume Delta add-on. Its working like a charm and I am very amazed how easy it is visually to spot reversals. I'll post some charts soon on it. Thanks!

We had a very interesting continuation gap on Tuesday. Feb 13th, 2007. YM gapped approx 40pts and took off to close at 12687. Here is an interesting YM 10 minute chart using fibs: YM gapped and tested the 50%-61.8% zone which held as support. This tells me that the decline from Friday is no longer valid. However, this could actually be a short squeeze. The next line of resistance will be Fridays high at 12703. This will be a key price level.... if it can not break, it will probably reverse back down to fill the gap at 12585ish or at least to the VPOC at 12595. Now to the upside, the ceiling gets thin and I find it hard to design a trading plan when it starts making new record highs. We have a VPOC at 12722 and also the high from 2/7/07 at 12736. Anything above this level and.... I would start looking at daily, weekly, and monthly pivots. Couple key levels to watch for at the open: Resistance 12703: watch for reversal here.. will be BIG 12725 - 12735: I may fade the first attempt to 12735. But any valid breakout above this will be strong. Support 12663: as always the POC 12640: any break below this will probably take it to the VPOC at 12595 or a possible gap fill

Thank you for the concern guys. The forum belongs to the members on the board and would hate to see the reputation here go down because of these things. I am looking to resolve this asap.

When I first started trading, I made a little money. It was the worst way to start off because it boosted up my ego. Within 6 months I blew out my first account. I agree with Paul and the K.I.S.S. method. I am a strong advocate of keeping things extremely simple. The only thing that matters in price movement is supply vs demand. As long as you are able to read this you can capture short term movements in the market constantly. I dont use much indicators... but the ones I do use on my price chart are tools to help me gauge supply vs demand. One of the most important thing that helped me turn my trading around was market knowledge. It wasnt money management at all. I realized that trading was not about being in the markets every 10 minutes. It was about being patient and identifying good opportunities. It was about having trading setups that you felt comfortable and would take 100% of the time. However, a newbie trader could take Step A,B, and C and still lose money. This is because they lack market knowledge of the market they trade. An intraday trader needs to be able to read what the market is trying to do. He needs to be able to combine the various pieces of market clues together and come up with one decision. Experienced traders are able to somewhat tell the short term direction of the markets looking at price, volume, and internals. New traders usually have no idea. The other thing is to have a plan and to trade the plan. BUT.... also know when to break it. How many new traders build a trading plan or even know how to design one? I say this because for the first 10 months I did not know how to make a trading plan. I didnt even know how to come up with valid S&R levels that I can trust. This is the other important thing.... traders are researchers. Which is why I called the site Traders Laboratory.. because we are scientists in a way. Our premarket homework requires us to know the various price levels for the day. After the closing bell, its back to the lab. Alot of new traders seek help through methodology and indicators. But what they do not realize is that the answer lies in front of the mirror.

rooky, I want to make sure you take the right path for your trading. Take a look at this article here first: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f43/absolute-trading-good-ol-market-wisdom-633.html Day trading requires a min of 25k for stocks and usually around 5k for futures. The leverage on Forex is insane that I never recommend anyone with a small account to attempt trading the Forex markets. What you need to do is to grab a few books and understand how the markets work including all the technical stuff about brokers, margins, etc.. After that you need to study the mechanics of trading. Strategies, tools, methods, etc.. After that is picking what works for you and adapting to fit your trading style. You also need to pick the right market for you.

This is an add-on for the Heikin Ashii and Volume Delta I requested and created by Walterw. All credits go out to Walterw for coding this up. What this does is it spots the color divergence on the TTM and the Volume Delta. Whenever the TTM is blue but Volume Delta stays red, it will plot a dot on top of the price bar and vice versa. What is important to remember is that this indicator should only be used to spot support and resistance at your predefined levels. I have attached a snapshot showing how this indicator works. Notice the yellow line (daily pivot). We see more sellers there indicated by the red dots leading to a 30pt reversal. DELTA TTM DIV.ELD

Interesting video on selling vs buying at key levels. In order to understand this you will need to be familiar with the Heikin Ashii and Volume Delta indicator available here in the Indicator Forum. Basically I am trying to see when there is a color divergence between the TTM and the Volume Delta. 99% of the color divergence is noise... what is important is to focus at a key price level. In this case this was the daily pivot or PP at the opening. We see more sellers at this level. CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO Charts created by Tradestation Presented by Traders Laboratory

Very good point Ant.

Seeing alot of activity and popularity in the Forex forum I decided to do a similar thread starting with Week #7 for the emini futures. I want to begin with the YM starting from a daily chart. On the daily, we are still in a uptrend but the steam is clearly running out. We are still respecting the trendline and the 12600 level will be extra key. What concerns me is the decreasing volume on the past couple rallies. We are seeing more volume on the sell-offs. This is a warning signal. The chart below is a 30min YM chart. We did see a nice double top around the 12730 level. Friday met resistance at a key level of 12700, also a gap fill from 2/7/07. A couple of levels I will be looking for from Fridays sell-off. The chart below shows the fib retracement levels. 12633 shows the 50% retracement and 12648 shows the 61.8% retracement. Also want to point out a few VPOC from a market profile chart. These areas will be ultra key to watch until they get violated. Open VPOC's 12722, 12687, 12547, 12501, 12450 My reference point for the week will be the key 12580 level. This was a VPOC from January 31st, 2007 which got filled last Friday. The monthly pivot is also at 12583 and will be a good level to watch. Quick plays at the open for the YM: Overnight session meet resistance at the PP/daily pivot at 12630ish. The weekly pivot is at 12640. Anything to the upside will need to take out this 12640 level. I will most likely go long above this level as I do not see any resistance until the POC and R1 level at 12687 - 12688.