thalestrader

Hi Bathrobe, She finished with a bit less than 1k. We were going to fund another bucket shop account for she and I to team trade during the school year, but I decided to stay out of the buckets for now. Instead, I am going to be funding a small (just $5k) futures account at Infinity for she and I to play in - we're calling it our "Sand Box." Best Wishes, Thales

Yes Hal, I meant 1.45.. and not 1.44.. I did take the long entry at 1.4549, initial stop 1.4432, and I should have closed it before Globex break, but I didn't. My profit target is 1.4485. I'll see what happens when Globex re-opens. Best Wishes, Thales

Brian, I'm not going to try to disuade you from using your indicators. Eventually you will either wean yourself from them or hang yourself with them. Here is what I think you should learn from today: As Bathrobe said, you should look at a somewhat larger view to identify support and resistance levels. Once you have identified these levels, then a tick chart such as you are using is fine. DbPhoenix makes excellent use of a single tick chart, if I'm not mistaken. But he uses it, I believe, primarily to manage risk on his entries. You are using it to generate trades. hink about it like this: You have selected an arbitrary bar size (466 tick) and then applied arbitrarily selected moving averages of those bars (24,14) and you now expect price to behave in an orderly and predictable manner based upon wholly arbitrary its suppossed interaction with these artificial constructs. I suspect, over time, your results will be wholly arbitrary, and they will be predictable only in the degree to which you wil be disappointed in them. I have attached a 15 minute chart (I use the 5 minute for daytrading, but the 15 minute also has a useful story to tell). The blue line shows price testing a prior pulback low at 1923.25. Go back to your 466 tick chart, and you will see that price tested 1023.25, bounced slightly, retested 1023.25, and then resumed its rally. At the moment price was about to confirm that the rally was resuming by breaking above 1025 basis your 466 chart, you shorted. You sold support. You do not want to sell support. You want to buy support. You want to sell resistance. You can also sell breaks of support. For example, a sell stop below 1023.25 would have been, in my opinion, a sensible entry. You can also buy breaks of resistance. Use higher time frame charts to identify S/R. Then, plan for what action you will take when price reaches those levels. By all means, use your 466 tick chart if it works for you, but use it to help manage risk on your entries based on identifiable areas of S/R. For example, today, based on your tick chart and 1023.25 being possible support, you could have placed a buy limit at 1023.25/50 with a stop just a few ticks below. You could have had a sell stop at 1023 or so to go short, with a stop loss a few ticks above. You could have made the conservative entry, whcih to me would have been a buy stop to go long at 1025.25, with a stoploss at 1023, risking 2.25 points/contract, with profit targets at 1028, 1031, 1034, 1036, 1038, etc. based upon previous S/R. That's it for me. Now, I am pirating a post from our friend Forrest that he made yesterday in the Wyckoff forum. It is a good post, and my hope is that it will make you curious enough to go and visit and possibly study and learn in the Wyckoff forum. I am not a contributor there. There are a number of very intelligent and worth folks who are contributors and from whom you will learn much. We hope to see more of you both here in the P/L thread and elsewhere. Best Wishes, Thales PS To answer Forrest's question, yes, areas of consolidation, support & resistance, are the most important, in my opinion. I do not use volume at all. Others of course disagree with my view, and that is fine.

If this were 8AM and not after 3PM ...

Busy morning for me and no time to post. Here is a possible late day trade for me on the 6E futures: Sell stop 1.4432, stop loss 1.4449, profit target 1.4385

I thought that was interesting also. I found it comes from the book How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer Best Wishes, Thales

I'm not sure if you are asking me about the 6B long paper trade I posted or not, but if you are, I would have moved the stop loss when I did because of the hour of the day. About an hour after the Tokyo open, liquidity tends to dry up until Frankfurt and then London opens. I keep my stops tighter during Asia trading hours than at other times.

I cannot see it either.

If I had traded this, stop loss would be a a few ticks (-3) below entry.

Looks even better right now. If you are trading S/R, it will be fairly common that your properly selected stop loss is a good "stop and reverse" point as well. Not always, of course, but it is not unusual, by any means. Again, I did not take this trade, and it is merely an interesting "paper trade" for me. Best Wishes, Thales

Out at +24 on remaining 50% EDIT: 6B actually looks like a good long here - buy @ 16523, profit target 1.6584, stop loss 1.6496, so risk -27 and profit target +62; I'm not trading it, but I would if this were anytime after the Frankfurt open.

First off, this ES trade is nothing I would recommend to anyone. As I explained last night, 1018 basis the cash S&P was anticipated resistance. I suspected that the rally in the futures would not stick at the open. Rather than do as I would normally do, i.e. rather than wait for the open and let price prove me right or wrong, and then place my bet, I decided I was smarter than that and opened a position last evening. When I entered the position, my daughter heard the audible alert that I use on my trading platform to signal that a new short position has been opened. So, being curious, and knowing a thing or two now about trading, she asked what I just did. I told her, and showed her the chart. She cocked her head at me, and with more than a trace of sarcasm in both her smile and her voice, asked, "Are you sure you want to do that?" I said that already did it. She said, "It looks like it is going up. Maybe you should undo it." What can I say? I chalk it up to having been out of the markets for most of August, and the loss, should it come to that (an increasingly likely outcome) I will consider tuition in my "continuing education" program. None of which will make me feel any better, by the way. I really do not mind the loss. But I really am disappointed in my lack of discipline in entering this trade. My stop loss is 1028 basis the futures. I'm sure you can figure out why that would be so if you look an ES chart (in an earleier post I have a horizontal line at that level more or less). Best Wishes, Thales

Well it took all day to get there, but closed 50% at 1.6485 for +62 ticks. Stop loss on remaining 50% is 1.6523, which would be +24 ticks if stopped there. Still holding for 1.6422, or +122 ticks on remaining contracts. And I'm still getting smoked on my short ES. Best Wishes, Thales

Stop is now 1.6523 I have attached a chart showing the price action relevant to my decision to short highlighted by the blue ellipse. Had price dropped more impulsively toward my targets, then you would likely not find yourself nearly so "vexed" as to the basis of the trade. However, since price has done more of a slow drift sideways to down rather than a dharp decline, the basis of the trade tends to become somewhat obscured. I also attached a screenshot that backs out the price action subsequent to the entry, and in so doing, I have highlighted a similar opportunity from the prior day. Best Wishes, Thales

Not much has changed other than another lower low so another adjustment to the stop on the 6B trade. Best Wishes, Thales

Well, then question is now that it was filled and you booked your loss, how does the broker proceed? Will the broker correct the trade? Do you want it corrected? Or would you have to file a complaint with the NFA to get action? I do not know how often these things happen at MB, though if MB is really an STP platform, then it should not happen at all. From the look of the spreads at MB, I would not want to be paying a commission on top of that spread. Like I said, my daughter traded at FXCM. If her stop loss, based on the chart, was 133.15, then she would place a stop loss at 133.162-133.174 (typical EURJPY spread at FXCM was 1.2 ticks). If her take profit, based upon her reading of the chart, should be 132.50, then her limit order would have been 132.512-132.524 And for profit targets, she would usually +/- 5 ticks from S/R and then add the spread to make sure she'd get a fill if price got close to her target.

I do not usually sell against a resistance level without first waiting for price to show me a reaction against that level, then a rally to a lower high. Today (or rather, yesterday) I did not wait, and instead sold, and that is the trade that is giving me heat. In the end, either way of trading S/R should work well over time so long as the trader is consistent in his or her application. Best Wishes, Thales

ES still stuck between S/R levels, so I am leaving it alone and waiting for the market to decide which way it wishes to go. 6B retraced back above short entry, and has now declined to a slightly lower low than that made soon after thismorning's entry, so the stop loss has been adjusted accordingly. Best Wishes, Thales

My understanding is that it is now possible for ad banners to add tracking cookies to a users computer by simply being viewed, i.e. no click through is necessary. But I am not a programmer, and that information is based on what I have "heard," so unless it is verified by someone or some source that is more technologically knowledgable than I, I'd take it with the proverbial grain of salt. I was simply conjecturing as to why it was only when those particular ads were displayed that my computer cpu spiked so high.

I have never seen anything like it anywhere. Maybe those ads have some sort of heavy duty spyware attached to them and the cpu spikes are due to attempt at covert installation. I'm just guessing, of course. But TL loads and runs fine so long as the page does not have those FXOpen ads.

Still short ES from 1018, stop is in, so it is a waiting game. Also short 6B from 1.6547 (sorry for the late post). Profit targets are at +62 ticks (1.6485) and +125 ticks (1.6422). Price is right now bouncing and testing the breakdown point, i.e. price has rallied back to the 1.6547 entry point).

The perils of trading retail forex, especially for relatively small profit targets - the spread is nt a market spread (no matter what your broker wishes to tell you), and therefore, you are subject to stop outs that defy typical trading logic. I also see that not only did price not trade at your stop level, but they clipped you for an extra bit on the fill. I had my daughter add the 1-2 times the spread to her stop loss levels, and subtract 1-2 times the spread from her profit objectives, and that solved some of the problems inherent to trading with a bucket shop.

... and once it punched through that level it had unfettered access to the next resistance level, and it has been trading on either side of that level for several hours. At the Tokyo open, the Yen was showing strength against the majors, but that strength only stucj against the USD.

... and first resistance ...

Sure ... though the spreads can be somewhat disadvantageous as well. PS Hal, I'm sorry if we've pushed your thread off track.