eurotrader

I've probably experimented and tinkered with untold types of moving averages of various lengths, etc. not to mention indicators. At the end of the day I came to the conclusion that it is all a waste of time. My recommendation, take everything off the chart except the price bars and stick with pure price action and how it reacts around previous S&R areas. If you must have a moving average then you are far better off sticking to one that everybody else is watching, like the 20 or 50 SMA.

Since this was suppose to be a day trade with no real plan you either cut & run or... I like SuriNotes AB reply, look to ride it back up to a better exit price. Alternatively you could reevaluate the trade as a longer term trade. If there is reason to hold the trade you could continue to hold and buy an ATM put as insurance.

I can highly recommend Infinity Futures. Excellent service, low commissions, and very nice trade platform. Any problems you can always reach somebody on the other end of the phone; very important if things go pear-shape.

Seems like this thread has come to a sudden halt. FT71 does a blog at Simplicity in Trading you might be interested in in which he has discusses what he does in detail. Also in Twitter.

Thanks electroniclocal. I've haven't really looked at range based charts closely but will experiment with them to see how they compare with tick and minute charts. Had a quick squint at your blog. Looks very interesting and will have a much closer read through this coming week. Cheers.

Many thanks BlowFish. I scalp the first third at a set target, take the next third off at the second target, and let the remainder ride. I haven't found a tick setting, or a minute based chart under 5, that gives the flow as it use to. At the moment I've settled on the 5 minute while I continue the search. Will also have to have a look at range charts as per electroniclogical's reply. Cheers.

Many thanks for that, big help. I keep meaning to subscribe to Futures mag but never seem to actually get around to it. Will have to pull my finger out and do it. Seems like they always some very good articles in it. Cheers!

Markets have their own rhythms as I'm sure you are aware. A couple of years ago the FESX seemed to have nice flow or rhythm on a 199 or 233 tick chart (we are obviously talking intraday here). Since the market crash this flow seems to have shifted dramatically, if not disappeared. I have yet to find a time period in which this flow is evident so was looking for input from other Euro Stoxx 50 traders.

Thanks. Gave it a try but doesn't appear to be working.

I've been looking at a multitude of differnt time periods from time based to tick, volume, etc. with out coming to any firm conclusion. I would appreciate any advice or feedback from other Euro Stoxx 50 traders as to an intraday time period that seems to work best on a consistent sort of basis for the Stoxx, i.e. 5 min, 233 tick, etc. Many thanks.

I've been looking at a multitude of differnt time periods from time based to tick, volume, etc. with out coming to any firm conclusion. I would appreciate any advice or feedback from other Euro Stoxx 50 traders as to an intraday time period that seems to work best on a consistent sort of basis for the Stoxx, i.e. 5 min, 233 tick, etc. Many thanks.

Yes, that's fairly basic and understood. The crux of the issue is dealing with swing high/lows consisting of multiple consecutive bars all with identical prices for the high/low.

Yes, I agree with you here and have found the same with regards to breaks of trendlines. In fact don't trade breaks of trendlines at all. I also don't use DeMark's trade setups using TD Lines as looking back over time they don't seem to be overly reliable. However, I do find the TD Lines to be of value for staying on the right side of trend and monitoring changing momentum. They also help solve the issue of swing points defined by multiple bars with identical highs/lows.

Thanks clmacdougall. Went back and pulled out my book on DeMark's indicators and had a good read back over the section on TD Lines. I'd completely forgotten about them. Programmed them into Investor/RT and can definitely say it has been a big help in eliminating the guess work of which points to use. Cheers!

I've been having a closer look at the drawing of trendlines of late and, Trader Vic aside, would like to canvas others opinions on how they would draw a trendline in the following scenario. Market is an uptrend from a prior swing low and has finished retracing to form a higher swing low. However, the second swing low is composed of 2 or more bars all with the same low (effectively a double/triple/etc. bottom). Drawing your trendline up from the first swing low, which of these bars with the same lows would you choose as the second point in your trendline? What if the origin of the trendline has two or more bars with equal lows, which would you choose as the origin? Would you go from the first to set the swing low to the one that started the next up-move? You can see the variables. It may seem like a silly question but it can affect effect your trendline substantially depending on the distance between the two swings? I''m sure there is no correct answer to this question, like so many things in trading, but it will be interesting to see how other traders approach this scenario. Cheers.

Thanks Sunilrohira. Yes, unfortunately if you have a Mac Pro older than 2 years and made the mistake of kitting it out with the Radeon cards at the time you are basically stuck. Newer model Macs (younger than 24-18 months) seem not to have the video card driver issues which only seemed to affect the Radeon cards anyway. Interesting to note that there are no video card options on the latest iMacs; its either Radeon or Radeon. Since it will probably be a long time into the future before the software writers get off their butts and start writing Mac/Universal code for trading software, maybe having a dedicated PC for trading isn't so bad (as much as it sticks in my throat to say it). I've loaded Windows 7 onto this one so will be interesting to see if Microsoft has actually learned anything when it comes to OS stability, etc. The Macs are dedicated to everything else.

Hi Sevensa. Yep thought of that. Unfortunately upon researching this idea I found that I can not use the new Nvidea cards in a Mac Pro over 2 years old - bummer. So, that leaves me with a Mac which is sub-standard in running either VMWare or Parallels. So, I've decided to trade in the old MacPro for a new i7 iMac to everything with the exception of trading. For trading I have a built a new Windows PC, as much as I hate Windows!

You have been very fortunate v101. I am curious, what video cards do you have in your Mac and how old is it? I have a Mac Pro with 8gb of ram and dual Radeon X1900XT video cards which is around 21/2 years old now . I also run VMWare with Windows XP Pro. Unfortunately my experience has been less than satisfactory. I have 4 monitors and run the charting software on the Mac side on 3 with no problems. Unfortunately the performance on the remaining monitor running in Windows XP has been crap. After much research it appears that there is a driver issue with the Radeon X1900XT cards which basically aren't supported by either VMWare or Parallels. No drivers have been provided to correct the problem. None of this is a problem if you have Nvidea cards installed. I also have the exact same problem on my Mac Book Pro laptop which unfortunately also has a Radeon video card. If anyone has a solution to this I would certain be interested to hear.

I honestly would not worry about the PPS indicator or any indicators. The methodology he teaches is very good and you can do well with it without the various indicators. Even in his trading room the indicators are only secondary, if mentioned at all. Only exception being the Comas. Hope this helps.

I definitely wouldn't trash my Mac as strtedat22 recommends. Mac OSX beats the pants off Windows any day with none of Windows inherent problems. Unfortunately very very few of the brokers/charting software providers are bothered enough to provide software versions for the growing number of Mac users. The only exception, as mention by Tradr Mike, is IB and Investor RT by Linnsoft. Linnsoft is also in the process of adding additional brokers over the coming months. This is what I am currently using and I can say the IRT software for Mac us very good.

Is anyone aware of a European version of the NYSE TICK statistic, particularly for the FTSE for Stoxx? Thanks.

Agree 100%, there is definitely no holy grail in trading and you are better served by not wasting valuable time looking for it. Hopefully through this topic traders will share their views on various chart types and provide some food for thought to others. The biggest service I think a trader can do for his/herself is find a simple system that works for them and use it as the foundation. Then keep an open mind for ideas that come their way and improve the basic system. Hence this topic. Cheers.

Thanks for the replies guys. Sevensa you commented "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?" You are correct in saying "arbitrary". I think any interval chosen by a trader can be pretty much arbitrary since it is based on the preference of the trader. My only thought on accuracy would be the case of a slow market where there are minimal or no trades during a given time period. A time based chart would print as a succession of dojis or very small range bars which would have an effect on any indicators or moving averages the trader uses. A tick chart could help alleviate that. I noticed that a tick based chart can give a much smoother presentation during these times. Just my thoughts. Tams, I trade the Euro Stoxx 50 which can be very slow during the first hour so I have noticed a difference between a tick chart and a time based chart. What you might want to do, which might be easiest, is to look at whatever time-based chart you are using next to a tick chart. In particular during what you know to be a slow time of day or during the globex session. Also look at the regular session so you can compare both. Play around with various tick intervals and compare to the time period you use. This way it will be your charts with your indicators, if any, on your software and give you a much better picture. HAL9000 and brownsfan019, the topic is open ended so would definitely be interested in your views on range and volume based charts vs. time or tick based charts. The idea behind the topic is to get people to share their experiences and pros/cons of different type charts. So would definitely be interested to hear your views on these. Oh, I've also noticed that with a tick based chart it is can be easier to gauge the pace of the market. When the market is fast the bars form much quicker, vice-versa when slow. Can't get that with a time based chart since 1 minute is always 1 minute regardless of pace. Cheers.

I'd like to open a topic for discussion and to see what various traders opinions, pros and cons, are of tick vs. time interval based charts. For example a 144T vs. a 2 minute chart. One view is that a tick based chart can present a smoother presentation of price. This is particularly true during quieter periods of trading. A tick based chart will form a bar upon completion of the selected number of trades. A time interval based chart will complete a bar at the end of the time period irrespective of whether any trades have taken place or not. A tick chart could therefore present a smoother flowing chart as well as be more accurate on a technical basis. Would the above necessarily be the case during faster markets? Would a time based chart be better? Combinations of the two, for example short term chart on a tick chart, long term on a time based chart? I've noticed that sometimes it is easier to pick up patterns or S&R areas on a 5 minute chart and base entries/exits off an 89T chart.

I believe in the May issue of "Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities" magazine Bulkowski has an article discussing exactly this. He went back and ran some analysis on some of his previous patterns to see if their reliability had drop off in today's markets. I believe he was very surprised to find that their reliability was not what they once used to be and found far more failures than previously. You might want to have a read of the article to see exactly what he had to say about it.