Soultrader

Hi Walter, I have found the biggest clue to be when there is an inverse relationship between the Asian and US markets. (except Shanghai) The US markets it the leader so when the Nikkei moves up when the US fell the day before, this will bring optimism into the US session. Im watching for anything that is outside of the normal market behavior. (does not happen often)

It has been the case lately. Over the past 2 years up until around September of 2007 the Nikkei trended roughly 23% of the time intraday. However, since the credit crisis and the high volatility it has been trending at approx 35% intraday. (Taking September - Present 2007) I havent done enough study on this yet but just from my observation for the past few months trends tend to occur more often when the gap is not that significant. The larger the gap, the less likely the Nikkei will move intraday. Here is a snapshot of todays morning session on the Nikkei. It shows approx 150yen gap up and then a complete range. Below is the Dow chart showing the Tokyo session. Notice the similarities? The Nikkei is constantly on a leash by the US markets in my opinion.

Nikkei trades from 9:00am to 11:00am and then from 12:30pm to 3:10pm. Evening session begins at 4:30pm to 7:00pm but the liquidity is very low.

Hi Walter, Thanks. Asian markets did gap up today. Usually on a big gap day the Nikkei does nothing but trade in a tight range. This is the reason this contract can be one of the most boring contract in the world. Last year, most of the movements came in the form of gaps. Intraday movements were minimal. Will see it plays out and will post a few thoughts for todays upcoming US session.

Hi Leecifer, We do this to prevent private message spamming which seems to be a common technique by spammers now.

For retail trading, third party vendors are getting so competitive that they need to keep making their charting platforms better. Majority of the trading tools in insitutions are built in-house or use Bloomberg or Reuters. These two platforms are great for data and news but can not compete with top industry charting platforms. However, systems that insitutions build for automation, arbitrage, etc... can not be built by a retail trader. The more money you are trying to generate out of the markets, the more tools you will need imo. But I think the typical retail trader has all the tools that he needs to trade successfully.

Should be fixed now Walter. Thanks for pointing it out.

Brief follow up on my expectations and key levels on the YM. Chart below shows Dow and Nikkei in comparison. Dow traded in a range most of yesterday but a close in the lower range of the bracket. Key resistance was 13337 - 13340 and will continue to be a key pivot level. Premarket shows a little resistance right now as well. Today, Nikkei trended nicely to the upside to recover all the losses from the previous session. Evening session Nikkei is trading above previous day high. There is a close correlation with the US markets and the Nikkei. On most occasions, the US markets will lead the Nikkei. If Dow, S&P closes positive... Nikkei is likely to gap up the next day and end positive as well. However, yesterday was a range day with slight weakness. Nikkei gapped down slightly then broke out of its morning range to trend up all throughout the remainder of the day. This inverse relationship makes it interesting. Todays Asian Markets: Hange Seng +1.61%, TOPIX +0.73%, Singapore +0.91%, Shanghai +2.58% There is a good chance the Dow will break yesterdays high and move into higher value placement. Key pivot will remain at 13340. My bias is a potential rotation towards 13380's. However, most importantly will be to see how price reacts at the US open around the 13340 area. (do not want to see prices retrace back below 13300)

Hi Walter, Could you tell me the forum this happens in when you spot it again? I have been investigating this problem but its never occurred to me so I cant seem to figure it out. We do have a editing time limit different for each forum. This may be causing the problem. I will look into this. Thanks

welcome aboard frets. To view some of the videos, you will need Adobe Flash Player installed. (its free) You may want to download a useful little program called Irfanview. It will let you play .swf files and view images as well.

This thread is dedicated for classic and recently released GOOD movies. If you have any recommendations, please post them here. It will also help if members can hyperlink their movie titles to www.imdb.com. Recently watched: The Kingdom "When a terrorist bomb detonates inside a Western housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an international incident is ignited. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury quickly assembles an elite team and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the madman behind the bombing. Upon landing in the desert kingdom, however, Fleury and his team discover Saudi authorities suspicious and unwelcoming of American interlopers into what they consider a local matter. Hamstrung by protocol-and with the clock ticking on their five days-the FBI agents find their expertise worthless without the trust of their Saudi counterparts, who want to locate the terrorist in their homeland on their own terms. Fleury's crew finds a like-minded partner in Saudi Colonel Al-Ghazi, who helps them navigate royal politics and unlock the secrets of the crime scene and the workings of an extremist cell bent on further destruction. With these unlikely allies sharing a propulsive commitment to crack the case, the team is led to the killer's front door in a blistering do-or-die confrontation. Now in a fight for thei r own lives, strangers united by one mission won't stop until justice is found in The Kingdom." I thought the movie was pretty decent and worth a watch. American Gangster "Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. As a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of a dedicated and honest policeman, Richie Roberts, who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Based on a true story " This is a must watch especially for Denzel fans. Denzel and Russell Crowe did an amazing job in my opinion. Movie was equally good as Training Day. Any other late recommendations?

Sierra chart is like $20 a month I think. Or try http://www.futuresource.com for free but delayed charts.

Here ya go James: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

We had casual Fridays also and our dress code was extremely casual during the rest of the days. It makes you wonder why do we even have casual Fridays? But this is only for the trading floor. However, I chose to go in a suit everyday. And yes, we had the typical Gordon Gecko suspender looking managers as well.

Thanks Abe. Traders here have a mutual respect for each other and posts making the environment suited for learning and sharing. There is definitely something special here and always look to keep it this way.

Hi JWhite, For the US futures, the internals are a handy tool in my opinion. Especially the TICK and TRIN which lets you see shifts in market sentiment throughout the day. I guess it is trader preference, but I had a few strategies based on S&R with internals so it was useful for me. In the Japanese futures market, there is absolutely no internals so had to build one based on several sectors such as: electric machinery, banks, securities, transports, etc... From my experience, simple tools like the TICK and TRIN win hands down. It really depends on how you use the internal tools. I dont expect traders to win by trading purely off internals but I think should be used as a way to better understand the strength vs weakness of the current market situation. Market profile for me better helps me illustrate a potential scenario for todays trading while internals help me time my entries or make instant decisions on whether to enter or not.

So true... lol

Interesting thread Paul, I will add a few comments from my exprience. Advantages of a retail trader: - Flexibility of trading tools. Insititutions require traders to use tools that they have only. Third party add-ons are unlikely to get approved. - The level of noise. Retail traders can enjoy their choice of dead silence or loud noise such as listening to pit noise. - I found this to be most important. The FLEXIBILITY OF TRADES. A retail trader can easily call it a day after 2 morning trades. Insitutional trading requires you to sit there and trade all day. (leads to poor setups) - The flexibility of the financial instruments and markets you choose to trade. - Politics as usual. With the current technology and information retail traders have sufficient tools and knowledge to compete evenly in this game. Although there are definitely disadvantages for retail traders (mainly information distribution), retail traders have an edge in terms of flexibility. I think trading tools and equipment retail traders now use are more sophisticated than insitutional traders. Also due to the size of the trades, retail traders are able to get in and out easily.

Please feel free to join us. A few traders in here today

Hi all, I am thinking of dropping by the chat room today to take a look at the YM for the morning session only. Please feel free to join me today.

I made a small change to it. I think this should do the trick.

Sparrow, Can you try to see if anything has changed? I added a line of coding to the mime type.

Sparrow, What sort of fix do I need to implement? Is the sizing the problem with png formats?

Welcome to the forums SMW and many thanks for the warm compliments. Looking forward to your posts here.

Hi Maverick, The threads and vidoes using pivots and value areas is a methodology and style I used to use for the YM. I have not kept track of this ever since I switched over to trading the Nikkei so do not know how effective they are now. When I used to trade like this, pivot point and market profile clusters was my bread and butter. I had also combined volume and tape at these levels to determine whether price was going to hold or break. Combine that will market internals like the TRIN and TICK and you have a much better picture of price action. I dont recommend using the value high and low pivots as S&R religiously. Yes, you take the previous day value area for todays trading. They should be used more as a reference point because price can easily hover back and forth within and out of value. I never really used a developing profile besides knowing whether the POC was moving up or down. And yes, playing retracements back to value high/low pivots is a good strategy. (one of my own still for the Nikkei and I find it highly effective) For resources, you should obtain market profile charting package and then study them until you are tired of seeing charts Its best to pour over them and understand how to read market profile charts fluently before applying them in your methodology. The last thing you want to do is to use a methodology with real money without completely understanding it. Are you able to determine what type of day we may have just by looking at the initial balance? Can you spot good trade locations based on market profile? etc... Grab a hold of Mind over Markets for starters. Then grab his second book and perhaps Steidlmayer's as well. The only way for me to understand market profile was to pour over charts and recognize patterns. I no longer use certain techniques like I did for the YM with the Nikkei because of its characteristics. However, I apply the same concepts but work with different strategies around it. The Value Area Rule for example is a classic strategy that should be studied. Also value area is 70% of price action. Which means the extremes on both the up/down side of the value area is only roughly 13-15%. Therefore buying breaks put the odds against you. Which is why I like to play rejection patterns using market profile as well.