sevensa

Good luck in your trading and search for better entry points. I wish you the best.

I wouldn't be so sure that you wouldn't be any better off that way without more investigation. Increasing your accuracy might also increase your expectancy and smooth out your equity curve. A smoother equity curve and higher expectancy will allow you to trade a bigger number of contracts for similar risk by increasing contracts, which will increase your overall profit. With higher profit targets, your average trade might be $2, but with a lower profit target, higher expectancy and smoother equity curve, you might be able to trade 2 contracts for similar risk as in the first scenario and earn $1.5 per contract, resulting in $3 total profit per trade. Not to sound like I am picking on you today, but this appears that you are making a couple of assumptions and believe them to be correct without really running the numbers to verify that they are really correct.

Are you sure? Have you tested it? Looks to me that your assumption is that this is your entry points that allow you to have the results you do, but without comparing them against random entries how do you know that they are really better than random? Look at it another way.... If your entry points were really that good, why are they only 20% accurate? I am not sure how you did your backtesting, but this might be an interesting excercise to test your system with random entries with the same risk/reward to see if the results are much different than what you get now. It's been a while since I read the book, but from what I recall in one of Van Tharp's books he showed how even a random entry system was profitable with proper money management and risk/reward. The reason not everyone is doing that might be because not many people will accept 20% accuracy and have the discipline to hold on for the 9x reward.

Hi Jon Something I have been wondering for while, but didn't want to sound like I am negative about what you are doing as you clearly is putting a lot of effort and thought into this... I think you mentioned that your accuracy is in the mid 20%? If this is still the case, are you sure your results are based on your entry points and not on your rather big risk:reward ratio? I think you risk something like 1.25 points for 10 to 12 points rewardon the ES? My gut feeling is that you might get the same results with random entries with risk:reward ratio like that. Have you maybe did some testing that you indeed get better results because of your entry points over random entries?

Be careful to look too much into stats like that. For example looking at the 1 point stat showing a 93% probability. I am pretty sure if you pick a random point during the day, that the ES will have very high probability to move 1 point in a specific direction before the end of the day also. Also, just calculating that there is a 54% chance to fill half the gap before the end of the day is just looking at one side of the equation. It doesn't help much if this move twice that much in the opposite direction first. That mean you will risk 2 to make 1 which in my mind is not a very tradable strategy. You cannot just look at reward and ignore risk. However, if you feel that is a tradable strategy, go for it. This is not for me to tell you how to trade. I'd just be careful to trade something based on stats calculated by someone else without verifying it myself. I'd also be careful trading on my assumptions and what something look like based on a couple of casual observations without verifying them.

If you stop your charts at noon EST every day and start them again an hour later, you will have a gap then also most of the time. Would you also then think this is significant when the gap gets filled and that it is not part of normal market action? This is easy to say that the gap gets filled "often", but what does "often" means? Why not run a test fading the gap every day and see if you get any statistical significant results to justify your assumption that the gap gets filled often and that you can design a trading strategy around then?

Try reading the Undeclared secrets book mentioned numerous times in the VSA threads, or just read through the threads. When you try to learn something, you need to start at the beginning.

I have his book and is reading it the second time now. There is some valuable information in it, but the book is reading very difficult. He is talking about patterns early in the book which he only explains in later parts of the book. He also explains many things without showing a chart or picture for more clarification, so it is a bit difficult at times to really folllow what he is saying. When you read the book the 2nd time, things make a little more sense and I still think this is a pretty good book. I get the impression that he really is a trader unlike so many other people writing books and knows what he talk about, but is maybe not that great a teacher or explaining concepts. On the other hand, I could be just a bit slow and take a little bit longer to grasp things, which is probably the more likely explanation.

This assumes you are using indicators. Besides, indicators are trying to tell you what the market is doing, so if the market is forming small bars, going nowhere, this should affect the indicator as this is the whole point of using an indicator. For example if you are using a moving average, a series of small bars going nowhere would flatten the moving average telling you that the market is going nowhere, to stay out and a potential breakout might be coming. Indicators will look different based on the type of bars you use, but that doesn't mean one type is more correct than the other. One can probably see this with volume as well. Fast bars, normally are on higher volume, so on your 1 minute chart you will see the volume spikes. I don't think you can say one type of bar is better than others. Any bars are formed on arbitrary numbers you select, whether they are ticks, volume, range, or time. The best type is the one that fits you, but there is no magic type of bar that is the holy grail.

Bold added by me to reference what I am commenting on. Why do you think bars based on an arbitrary number of ticks would be more accurate on a technical basis than bars created based on an arbitrary time period?

He means opening in the top/bottom 20% of the day's range.

In your first sentence you say: " YOu seriously believe I expect to know exactly how much a stock can trade against me when halted?" and then you proceed to ask (even bold it): "How much CAN a halted stock reopen against me?" You are answering your first question yourself in bold. This is exactly what you are asking. How about taking a moment to reflect about what you really are asking. And I mean, really think. I know you are itching right now to just bang out another insult on your keyboard and start with the name calling again, but take a moment and think about it. Just because you don't like an answer in a reply, doesn't mean it is stupid. If you pay more attention to what people are telling you and less effort to insult people, you actually might learn something. I think trading stocks is obviously too risky for you and best to be avoided. Coming to think of it, some maniacs might fly a plane into a building again, closing the exchanges for several days, so futures trading is probably too risky as well. You might resort to FX trading but could end up with another Refco, so FX is out also. As you can see, there are just too many risks with trading, so it is probably best to burry your money in several locations in fire, water and rust proof containers and avoid trading at all cost. For that matter, crossing a street too. You never know when some driver will ignore the stop sign. And don't even get me started on shark attacks... PS: Aren't you the guy who offered to provide some free psychological advice a while back in another thread? Maybe time to take yourself up on the offer and figure out what the real issue is...

You seriously expect anyone to be able to tell you exactly how much a stock can trade against you when halted? Really? BTW, this was not an ultimatum; Just common sense...

Why can't you do the same thing with a stock? You can hedge it with another stock in the same industry, or with a ETF. Bottom line, trading has risks. If you are not comfortable with the risks, then don't do it.

I am using TS 2000i and thought its backtesting is decent, but have not used any of the newer versions of TS. Why do you say it is terrible? Is it calculate results incorrectly, lacking features, or what? Can you provide a bit more detail what you find terrible about it?

James, when does Kospi futures typically roll-over? I can find the expirations dates on KRX's website, but cannot figure out when they roll over.

Why do you say that more likely you would lose more than gain because of the nature of the trades and volatily? Can you maybe provide some examples of what you mean by the nature of the trades? Wouldn't your profit/loss depend on your stops/profit targets?

Thank you for your kind words. I am by no means an expert and know just enough to get by and to do something that works for me. Also don't assume that when my view disagree with yours, that I am right and you are wrong. There are many ways to be "right" and you don't have to do what I, or anyone else is doing. Just do what make sense and feel right to you. If the trades you called out make sense to you and is something you can detect in real time, then by all means don't change your view of them just because I wouldn't have selected them for my trading patterns.

I have given up trying to trade on 1 mintue charts a long time ago. For me, they have too much noise and generate too many meaningless patterns. Bars 3 and 12 are both down bars and are not no demand bars. No demand bars are up bars, not down bars. I don't trade strictly based on VSA, don't have all the VSA terms memorized and my trading is based on several bits and pieces of things I have picked up and incorporated into my trading plan, so I hope I would not be offending anyone with my analysis, but if I was forced to trade of this chart, the entries I would have taken is bar 5, 7, 8 and 11. Bar 5: Entry: Short Why:The two bars before bar 5 broke through a mini congestion zone before that on decent volume showing weakness and then a no demand bar which would have been a high probability trade for me. Exit: Close at the bar right after bar 6 for a small loss. (High probability doesn't mean they always work out. ) Bar 7: Entry: Short Why: No demand bar in the same area of bar 5 after declining volume in the little rally up to that point showing that there is potential for further downside, or at least a test of the low at bar right before 6. Exit: Stop and reverse at bar 8. Bar 8: Entry: Long Why: I wouldn't call bar 8 stopping volume though. The bar right before 8 made a new low on lower volume than the previous low before bar 6 and together with bar 8 formed a two bar reversal. Exit: Stopped out just below the low of the two bars before 10, which together with 10 formed three bars with the same high against the previous mini support area around bars 3 to 4. Bar 11: Entry: Long Why: I don't know if I really can make a case per VSA for bar 11 as volume is not low enough for a test and not high enough for a shakeout and not nearly high enough and the bar is not at the right place for stopping volume. I would consider it a test bar though, even with volume higher than the previous bars. Combining the strong close, the dip below the apparent support at .8860 and strength in the background, would have been good enough for me to go long. Exit: After the bump into apparent resistance at .8870 and the low volume bar (no demand) right before 12, I would have been stopped out just below the low of the two bars before 12. With small spreads of the 1 minute bars and combining with comissions, I don't think this would have been highly profitable trades and probably closer to break-even. For my way of trading, the profit potenitial is not there on 1 minute bars. Why I would have not taken the other patterns: Bar 1: Not an upthrust. An upthrust have a higher high than the bars before and have a close in the lower portion of the bar. Looks more like a strong reversal bar, but without seeing what happened before, there is not enough information for me to make a decision. Bar 2: Also not an upthrust. A fairly wide range bar, but inside the range of the bar 1 and this look more like a congestion area to me. I would not trade inside such an area. Bar 3: This is not a no demand bar since it have a higher close. That bar would meant nothing to me. Bar 4: Also not an upthrust and another meaningless bar to me, other than that it is confirming my suspicion that a trading range is forming. Bar 6: Warning sign to me that the bar before might have been climactic action and that a bottom was put in place. Not a bar I would place a trade on and I would wait for more confirmation or a test. Bar 9: The two bars before 9 seems to be running into resistance in the same area as 5 and 7, but then 9 and the bar in front of them form test bars, telling me that there aren't any supply below and to hold my long after 8 a little bit longer. However, if I was not long already, I would not have entered a long, because it was so close to the congestion aread between .8862 and .8870. Bar 10: Doesn't mean anything to me, other that it was the 3rd bar in a row which couldn't break through .8865. Not a bar I would have considered any kind of entry on. Bar 12: Not a no demand bar as the close is lower. Other than using it as part of the background and see that it appears to be stalling out at the previous top, not a bar that provide any signifance for an entry. Bar 13: Technically a no demand bar as well as the one before it, but we appear to be back in the congestion zone of .8862 and .8870 from earlier and for this reason not a bar I would have acted on. Bar 14: Technically probably a no supply bar, but at that point in time, without the benefit of hindsight and seeing the bars after 14, this would have looked to me at best range bound to some weakness in the background after the double top at 12. However one could also see that it is into the range formed around bars 5, 7 and 9. There is just no clear picture for me in the background and I would not have looked for entries until the background was clearer. If I maybe so bold to hand out advice in this thread where there are clearly much more knowledgable people than me... I think you need to be careful to look at a chart in hindsight and try to explain all the up/down runs with VSA or any other type of method. Whatever method you use, will not pick all the rallies and doesn't have to to be profitable. Trying to force them to do that in hindsight, will just lead to frustration during real time trading as you will not be able to do so. You don't have to be able to get on board any trend; just a few.

Hi Eiger I've been hesitant to post the volume indicator I am using because I am not a very efficient programmer and also don't really want to start supporting indicators, but here it goes... Maybe someone can use this as a building block, or optimize the code. The colors used are: Green = Regular up bar Dark Green = No Demand Red = Regular down bar Dark Red = No Supply White = Same close than previous bar on higher volume Yellow = Same close than previous bar on lowest volume in two bars Magenta = Highest Volume of last two bars, smallest range of last two bar and at a 5 bar high or low. I also plot the 20 bar moving average of volume and 1.5 and 2 times the average volume. I am using MultiCharts, but the code should compile on TradeStation. inputs: PlotAvg(True), AvgLength(20 ), Val1(1.5), Val2(2), UpColor(Green), DownColor(Red), NoDemandColor(DarkGreen), NoSupplyColor(DarkRed), ChurnColor(magenta); variables: Vol( 0 ), VolAvg( 0 ), StdVal(0), Body(0); If BarType >= 2 then Vol = Volume else Vol = Ticks; VolAvg = AverageFC(Vol, AvgLength ) ; StdVal = StandardDev(Vol, AvgLength, 1) ; Plot1(Vol, "Vol" ); If PlotAvg then begin Plot2(VolAvg, "VolAvg" ) ; Plot3(VolAvg * Val1,"SDV1"); Plot4(VolAvg * Val2,"SDV2"); end; if C > C[1] then begin SetPlotColor( 1, UpColor ); If Vol < Lowest(Vol,2)[1] then SetPlotColor(1,NoDemandColor); end else if C < C[1] then begin SetPlotColor( 1, DownColor ) ; If Vol < Lowest(Vol,2)[1] then SetPlotColor(1,NoSupplyColor); end else begin if C = C[1] then SetPlotColor(1,White); If Vol < Lowest(Vol,2)[1] then SetPlotColor(1,Yellow); end; If (Vol > Vol[1] and Vol > Vol[2]) and Range <= Lowest(Range,2)[1] and (High = Highest(High,5) or Low = Lowest(low,5)) then SetPlotColor(1,ChurnColor);

Some people will say yes, some people will say no. You would be much better off testing it and see for yourself.

Care to expand why to avoid everything but TS?

What are your intentions with this thread? To get subscribers for your subscription based newsletter or to educate people in your method of trading? I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now, but this look very much like you are using this as free advertising for your for fee services.

Don't get too excited just yet. Read through the thread what others have already pointed out and watch it live to see it only plots the highlighted bars several bars after they have formed. On static behind the fact charts, it looks amazing. Not so much on live charts.

My advise would be that your only goal should be to be positive over several months. This is pointless to come up with daily goals if you don't even know what markets and methodology you are going to use. This is like asking how big a house you can buy after you sell your hollywood script to a producer, without even having an idea what your script is going to be about or if you even can write one. Figure out what you want to trade and how you want to trade and only then will you have a better idea of what targets you can realistically expect from the market and methodology you use. You also keep saying that you want this timeframe to be quick. Forget about that. This is not going to be quick. This is going to take you years to learn the profession. Keep in mind that if you are going to treat this as a part time hobby, then you should expect the results to be like a part time hobby. I am not aware of many hobbies actually being profitable and most of them cost money and this is what you should expect from a part time hobby.