maxr

. Depth of market is yet another thing to watch, but as a relative beginner, the way I see it is that it gives me some comfort to know that e.g. someone has suddenly offered out another 50 contracts 3 pips up from where I was thinking of buying in - do I want to buy into that resistance, or wait to see if it's pulled off or bought up piece by piece before entering? OK, they might just be faking, but at least I can see it. 5 levels of market depth each way isn't much compared to e.g. NASDAQ Level 2, but it's something. Say you want to get in quick and buy 4 contracts at market but there's only 1 currently offered on the inside and 6 one pip up - are you likely to get more slippage than if there's 15 available at the inside bid and 67 one pip up? Spread is important, but I feel that in the end it's the prices you enter and exit at that really matter, and for me, market depth gives some insight on that at the although it probably is a distraction. Am I making too much of it? I guess my gut feeling about normal spot FX brokerage accounts is that it's like playing cards with a banker who can see all the hands - it might suit him to play with you or against you :-)

Thanks Guys: MadMarketScientist: what timeframes do you use with the early European sessions? I know a guy who trades the European open from 01:30 EST /06:30 GMT on short 3 minute and 86 Tick charts - he's trading the opening moves with a 'seat of the pants' technique on bare charts (which he's very good at). I'm wary of getting caught with the wrong timescale charts and big opening moves that sometimes correct - 60 points up and 60 back down in 40 minutes shows as a doji on a 60 minute chart... 86834 - with a TradeStation account I get 5 levels of Bid volume and 5 levels of Ask volume on CME FX futures. Is that as much as is available for CME FX Futures, or just what TradeStation choose to display? Thanks, Max

I'm trying to decide whether to trade spot FX or trade CME Futures. I'd appreciate any comments on how accurate or otherwise the current info below I've picked up is: Spot FX: UK and Euro brokers are regulated, US brokers less so. Few US brokers have segregated client accounts, all UK and many Euro brokers do. Lots of instruments and cross pairs - we're told some are very liquid, but unless you have a true ECN account (or similar) showing volume, you can't you tell what liquidity your broker can provide. Some spot FX brokers widen the spread radically at news times, run their clients' stops, shut their servers off at FOMC time, and requote orders. All this can make short term trading difficult on e.g. 10-15 min charts and news trading impossible with those brokers. CME FX Futures: Less instruments available, and only the 'big six' CME pairs against USD (GBP EUR AUD CAD CHF JPY) have big liquidity - but I'm told each of these has more liquidity than any one spot FX broker/market maker can provide on the pair (true or false?). You can trade with direct access in the open market, not through a trading desk - so no requotes (instead, 'no fill' or slippage on market orders if liquidity is thin), and your broker alone can't run your stops. Limited Level 2 style volume info available, so you can see market liquidity, support and resistance within 5 price levels up and down. Very tight spreads which don't widen so much on news, so better for short term trading. It can be cheaper pro rata to trade full contract size futures than full lots of spot FX (I don't know about Minis). Brokers make their money on futures mostly from fixed commissions, so they have less incentive to play games against you. Cross pairs have much less liquidity, as do Mini contracts. This leads me to prefer the Futures - is this a fair view? Specifically: a) Do any of you day and swing trade Mini FX futures successfully? If so, which please? b) Does anyone here successfully day and swing trade CME Futures cross pairs, e.g. EURJPY or GBPJPY? c) Do any of you do fast low volume news announcements trades on CME FX futures, if so, on which pairs have you had success please? Thanks, Max

A year or more ago (?) TradeStation went to 5 decimal spot FX pricing from 4 - i.e. what was previously 1.5000 can now be 1.50000 through 1.50009. I can see that may help some traders, but it can make the Matrix trade ladder almost unusable in fast markets. Is there any way to get the TS Matrix to display as it did previously, i.e. 1.5000 1.4999 1.4998.. etc.? Currently you can set it to display 4 decimal points, but all that does is take the 5th decimal point off the screen, so you see: 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.5000 1.4999 (x 10 downwards, then 1.4998 x 10 downwards, etc) ...which is some help when it's moving fast, but not much. Thanks, Max

FXGirl said: QUOTE] Anyone out there have a combination of broker / platform that works reliably (as in, doesn't crash if internet is disconnected briefly) and can put on a trade with pre-programmed lot size, and with OCO stop and profit target in under 4 mouse clicks and no typing? dwt I find MT4 pretty clunky too. How about a TradeStation brokerage account? You can place one click orders on the Matrix (ie a trade ladder) with one of a range of OCOs attached (e.g. stop and two targets). Order size comes out at what you preset in the Matrix trade bar next to it If you lose your connection it takes up where it left off very quickly on return of signal. The charting is excellent, with about the best multi screen support I've seen, and the current version seems pretty robust. Their spot FX spreads widen a bit at news times , but not so much as some. It also has a good permanent (not time limited) simulated trading system. Against that, althopugh the Matrix has good drag-and-drop order moving, the no-choice 5 decimal place pricing on spot FX can makes that hard to use in fast trading. The account application form is a monster, but I think that's all about you giving them the answers they want to hear so you can't sue them if you lose money. Support tends to be knowledgeable if not particularly fast responding. TS can be expensive for charting only, but if you have a brokerage account with (I think) $5K in it, it's $99/month with free live FX data - of course, if you trade the FX futures you have to pay the exchange data fees on top of that. Is it correct that MT4 fires your stops and target orders from your platform (rather than your broker's server), so that if your PC goes down you lose the orders? Max

Hi - can one import prepackaged custom OCO templates into TradeStation? I'd be glad to hear from anyone who can help me achieve the following: I want to set up TS so the following orders run automatically on each trade after I initiate and OK it: * Entry order (type determined by where I click on the Matrix). * Initial Stop Loss (in points/pips) * Stop Loss moves to Breakeven when open P/L is X pips/points * Take profit on 50% (Limit order) when open P/L is Y pips/points * Take profits on remaining 50% (Limit order) when open P/L is Z pips/points (The option to alternatively take profits in three or four stages would be good, but isn't essential at this time) * Trail Stop if required (in pips/points - close all at Market, cancel all orphaned orders). * Time Stop if required (in Local time, same as I set all charts - close all at Market, cancel all orphaned orders). I'd like the usual TS OCO functionality - each order to adjust remaining orders as it's filled (so there are e.g. no orphaned orders open after closeout), and to be able to adjust each order manually while the trade is running (e.g move trail my stop up, or move 'take profit' orders up). Ideally I would initiate the trade by checking 'Attach OSO' on the Matrix trade bar, filling in all the order levels for the trade, then clicking on a Matrix level or the Buy/Sell Market button. That would send the entry order and all the attached OSO orders together. I'd consider buying an off-the-shelf TS add-on to do this if such a thing exists. If it's not possible to do it on TS the way I've described, any advice on how I could otherwise achieve this would be welcome. The objective is that I can run 'set and forget' trades when I have other things to do Look forward to hearing what's possible (please post here, or pm me if you like) - I'm in UK, near Guildford. Thanks, Max

What about the guy who uses the maximum available trading leverage (short of being at risk of margin calls) in order to reduce the 'fiscal risk' (ie of his broker going bust) by parking the majority of his trading fund in a safe regulated bank account? In UK, bank accounts are government guaranteed to £50K per institution - so If I were (hypothetical example with flaws, but it'll do for illustration) to trade £1K on leverage with an unregulated FX or spread betting company based in say Malta, and leave £49K in a UK bank, only £1K is at 'fiscal risk'. By doing so I'd almost certainly decrease my overall risk (particularly at the moment) compared to placing my entire trading fund with that broker, then trading low leverage in my account. Max

Since we have no replies so far, just some more info - I found a comprehensive post about Oracle Trader on the Forex Peace Army site. I won't give the full URL in case cross posting is not allowed here. The poster concerned can't find a forex broker whose execution system will in practise accept trades under the fast moving big news release conditions Oracle is designed for - in fact he reckons his broker shuts their trade server off during big announcements, so trading is disabled! He says the Oracle Trader people have yet to suggest an effective broker to him. Anyone know if this is a common experience in fast news trading, and what the solution might be (or which brokers can/will handle that)? I guess he could go trade FX futures with a direct access account (providing there's enough liquidity on the pair he's trading)? Max

I'm surely not the only one to have received copious emails recently about Oracle Trader (see http://www.oracletrader.net/webinar/lastchance.html for their promo). This is effectively a guided news announcement trade service. They have a piece of software that gives a calendar of likely FX data announcement trades, and then flags up buy/sell recommendations based on their opinions as to tradeable divergence levels between expected and real. It can automate buy/sell signals, apparently by setting up to shadow those buttons on your trading platform. I don't currently trade news (in fact I avoid it), and I'm not in the mood to spend $2500 finding out if this service is any good (done that before, etc...). However, I have a mind to simulator trade news announcements for a while, to investigate whether news trading is something I should learn more about or not, and whether Oracle Trader is Delphic or not. Do any of you have any experience, 1st or 2nd hand, of Oracle Trader, or are any of you finding their free software useful (by the way, I believe there is a set of trading indicators with a very similar name - this isn't it)? Thanks, Max

Thanks very much for your comments SIUYA. I forgot to mention that I only day trade, and watch the chart most of the time I'm in a position, but I take the very good points you made, thanks. The problem for a new trader is that few trading coaches I've met appear to rarely think through these things thoroughly (hey, they have to find something they can teach easily), and most full time traders I've spoken to have found something that works 'well enough' for them, so don't continue to analyse it beyond that - maybe that's not such a bad idea:doh: Max

I know this area is tangential to the topic here, but I'm very happy to hear an experienced trader say that MidKnight, and I'd appreciate some opinions on the following if you'll forgive the diversion. As a rookie trader in receipt of a good deal of trading education from the conventional to the whacky, the way R/R is handled by many trading coaches worried me from the start - typically something like: "OK guys, we got a pattern forming up here, there's your technical profit target, here's your stop, we got a R/R of, let's see, 6:1 - wow, way to go...". Problem is, the only quantifiable part of that statement is the stop (providing you don't move it!). This kind of 'R/R' feels like conjecture based on assumptions as to whether a particular chart pattern achieves a pleasing geometrical symmetry (and the observed probability of that happening is rarely part of these R/R calculations). One day, though, a coach said "OK, what are you actually worried about? The answer is simple - how much can I lose on this trade? So, decide the maximum % of your trading capital you're prepared to lose on each trade (1%, 2% or whatever). If it looks like a potentially good trade on the chart, decide on a good technical stop, work out your position size from that and your maximum loss per trade, and go trade it. You've fixed your risk, now follow your exit rules as the trade progresses." That made sense to me - he was saying, 'set the risk, because the reward is unknowable in advance, and if your method has an edge and you follow it, you'll get there on probabilities'. That's great - except.... Say you enter long on a 15 min chart after a classic trend break and fade. You work out your position size from the technical stop and maximum loss (let's say 2 %) you've decided on - comes out to say 2 lots. It goes your way, and you set the stop to breakeven. Risk is now 0 (apart from maybe some slippage on your stops). Up it goes, and another pullback entry presents itself. You're happy trading at max 2% loss, so you enter with another 2 lots (which gives you total 1% risk now), and you're in luck again - this is becoming a trend, so you can move the stop up to breakeven on the last 2 lots and the same level on the first two. You're now trading 4 lots at breakeven or better with guaranteed profit on 50% of the position. Another leg up, and another entry signal occurs after a third pullback, so you do it again - 6 lots now, with guaranteed profit on 2, and better than breakeven on 2. We'll leave the trade there in case Elliot wave enthusiasts get overexcited, but here's the question... By scaling up in these circumstances, would I be actually following the 2% max risk level I set (and indeed reducing the total risk below 2% with each additional entry), or would that figure as generally understood include the assumption that a stop woul be set to breakeven as soon as practicable and the position size would only be held or reduced, not increased? I know the answer is as long as a piece of string, but I'd appreciate your views on whether this would be a logical course of action or not. Thanks, Max

Sorry - content edited out as this message somehow posted in the wrong thread, and I can't find how to just delete post.

[First, I hope I'm posting this in the correct part of the Forum, I'm fairly new here] Does anyone recognise the dotted indicator on the attached chart as a freely available one? The company that market this repackage several 'public' indicators A friend suggested that it's a moving average sum - subtract a short value MA from a long one at any point, then total that with the current price and plot the value. Rising price would result in the short MA having a higher value at any point than the long MA , so you'd get a negative sum and a plot below current price. Falling price would do the opposite, so the resultant line would be below price for long and above it for short, coded blue for a -ve value sum and red for a +ve value sum. Thanks, Max

I was messing about with Value Charts on TS the other day. I discovered that if you change the NumBars value (Format/Inputs page in TS) from the default 5 to somewhere between 20 and 50, then set VHigh and Vlow (Format/Style page) to Histogram (default BarHigh and BarLow), you get something which behaves quite like a Squeeze indicator. Using a centre line cross as signal, it's rarely slower, and more often faster, than all the free posted Squeezes I've tried, but it appears consistently slower than the current commercial PBF Squeeze. It can sometimes also call tops and bottoms more accurately than the default 5 bar setting. See attached chart - the indicators are, top to bottom: Squeeze - the fastest one I found posted on this forum. Blu Ray's Value Chart posted on this forum (Thanks for that Blu Ray), in Histogram mode and 50 bar setting with +/- 8 alert set. Blue Ray's Valu Chart in default 5 bar mode with +/- 8 value alert set. Max

Yes - I guess I could also just eyeball back to the left and examine how VC signals work with the price chart. I suppose there's no reason why 7.5 might not be the critical level for a particular stock/future/whatever, and 8.25 for another.

I'm not sure whether I really need Price Action Profiles, I was just asking so I could examine them if they were available. However thanks again altradelab for your kind offer.

Thanks altradelab - that would be excellent, but I can't at first glance find an 'export data' function in TS.

Thanks all for posting the Value Chart indicator, particularly Blu Ray for his version with -/+8 alerts and bar color change. Is there any way to create in TS the Price Action Profile histograms (or equivalent) that Helweg and Stendahl describe in their book as complementary to Value Charts? Max