brownsfan019

Thanks for the comments ptop. It's a lot of work doing EOD analysis with annotations, highlights, etc and it just felt like James and I were having a discussion with ourselves. I guess I'm more open where there's healthy dialog going on with a few members.

Blu - do you use regular trade hours or 24 hour data to plug into the Excel sheet? Thanks

Thanks Blu! Question - is there a way for me to calculate these numbers myself to verify and/or have them in case this person doesn't post them on the forum? I don't like relying 100% on a forum for the numbers. Also - are there other site(s) that you know of that have this listed as well for backup? Thanks.

James, Regarding the market profile numbers - poc, etc - is there a good website or two that you recommend that has this info like mypivots does with pivots?

Thanks for the advice Mark, I appreciate it.

Maybe the better question James is - what are your preferred methods for exiting a trade?

Just wondering if anyone has gotten Halo 3. I have Xbox 360 and probably going to get it sooner or later. We could schedule a TL Halo 3 battle time! :thumbs up: Info on Halo 3 if you are not familiar with the game - http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo3/media/default.htm

I realize there's a few threads floating on TL about pivot points, but thought we could discuss a few here in a more recent look. Here's my consideration of pivots and I wanted some feedback. First, I should preface by saying that my intention at this time is to consider them for exit purposes and only exits at this time. As I've mentioned many times, exits continue to be my weakness and for whatever reason, I've been spending some time at mypivots.com watching these levels. So in terms of exiting a trade, I am looking at using the pivot levels as possible profit target(s) vs. a fixed target, trailer, etc. My use of late has been to enter trades as I normally do and then reference the nearest pivot point and use the numbers from http://www.mypivots.com/dn/?symbol=41 I believe that site is recommended here and I think that's where I learned about it. The idea at this point is to watch as price moves towards a pivot after a trade in my direction and watch price closely as it nears the pivot level. When price approaches the pivot level, look for a reason to exit if the level is holding well. That's about it. I'll try to get some examples up later if there's time, but I wanted to see what kind of feedback I could get from traders using the pivots. I mainly trade the ES. Some questions if I may: Have you found over time that these levels are respected on the ES? How about other markets? Is the mypivots site a good reference? Are the 'classic' numbers the best to use?

James - first, good to hear you are ok. Second, I don't know where this might head for you, but writing about it on the internet could bit you in the ass later... Just be careful what you are writing about an incident that just happened on the internet. You may want consider asking James to take this thread down for your safety. The incident is just too fresh for there to be easy info out there about you. Just my 2 cents. Side note, glad that you took care of biz.

In my experience here and on ET, if you want to stimulate discussion and such, then annotations and explanations are useful. If it's more for casual looking, don't worry about it.

I've always liked the idea of creating a program to do your work and then watch it print money, but outside of the mega I-banks and institutions with huge pockets, I wonder how many actually make money over the long haul being automated. In the end, whether you are automated or not, there is still the human element involved - the human element of EMOTIONS. The argument that automation removes that is simply not true. At the end of the day, when you are reviewing your statement, human emotions can get the best of you whether automated or not. A human will decide when to turn the program on or off and therefore, emotions will drive that decision sooner or later. It's easy while making money. As soon as there is a threat of drawdown however, things change. I believe that being in the market daily and watching the charts yourself gives you an advantage (no matter how slight) over the machine in seeing what is out there and how things are reacting.

MC - good idea to get some more charts and postings up! Are you planning to annotate chart and/or provide explanations of trade setups?

Ravin - If you look at the actual numbers from my sample and watch this during the day, what I have seen is: 1) Price may gravitate towards some volume at some point. 2) To try to trade off of just this is tricky at best and requires other filters. What I am saying is that I'm having trouble seeing any use of the cumulative depth on the DOM at this point. There may be other filters needed but with as quickly as those numbers change, it's hard to decipher the 'real' volume that may attract price and just the games being played trying to attract price and then dump it. That's the other side of the coin - if we assume price travels to the heaviest volume, what happens when that volume just up and disappears? That happens OFTEN. As for using this on a larger timeframe, I really don't see how just using the #'s on the DOM. Reason being that these numbers flip by the second, so I don't know how to translate that to a 5 min chart in and of itself. A couple of the posts at ET have turned this into some sort of charting indicator, so I would guess you'd have to go that route in order to trade off a larger timeframe. Again, how you implement something like this that changes by the second over to a 5 or 15 min chart I am not sure. As for why price appears to gravitate towards volume I think it comes down to the job of the exchange - which is to match buyers and sellers. In order to move 'inventory' price needs to go to a place where there's the most buyers and sellers IN THEORY. Since the bidders and sellers can pull their bid or ask in seconds however, the auction is constantly moving around to find the next buyers and sellers. I could see something like this being useful in theory and looking good on paper. Just casually looking at it though, I would think some sort of additional filter(s) is necessary to try to find when price is heading towards real buyers or sellers (those that plan to get filled at the stated price) and when to avoid the possible fake bids/asks of people that are simply trying to make price look like it could move....

Here you go Ravin - a real-time example from this afternoon. This was just a small bit of time that I watched. I could not imagine doing this throughout the entire day. Obviously with some refinement, something like this could work, but it's far from being the grail and as easy as it sounds. Big surprise!

I think the best vehicles to trade darth are futures or the stock straight up. After trading options and doing all the analysis that goes into just one trade, I found it to be very time consuming and my time was better spent looking for other setups to maximize my time. And I've never been a fan of markets with market makers and/or shady brokers. Hence the reason I do not trade options anymore and have never traded forex (even though I get the forex bug every so often).

Tin - I was just referring to reav's question about buying a put and call at the same time. There's obviously a ton of option strategies out there, but straight up buying a call on a stock that goes up will not always result in a profitable trade. To me, that's enough to say no thanks.

James, Good charts. I'm thinking of just taking a break from posting updates and providing all this work when it's just you and I discussing. I'll be around and keep the CC alive, but when it's one or two people talking alone on a forum, it gets old real quick. There's obviously not that much interest and I have no desire to put together charts with annotations and then document that here when very few are going to take a look. I was actually thinking of starting my own little trading blog, so maybe I'll just do that. I can post my thoughts and charts and not be concerned about who is interested on a forum. I enjoy talking candles and trading here, but there's just little interest at this point and I hate feeling like I am wasting time when I've got a lot going on right now and time is precious.

We can beat this horse to death. The programs are built by humans. Computers just do what they are told and cannot react to changing conditions unless told to do so. Now, that will probably change years from now, but I hope by then I've got my bank roll together and can watch from the Bahamas. Or maybe Aruba.

That's not 100% accurate Tin. As I mentioned above, you can literally buy a call (want price to go up) and the underlying stock and future can go up but you can lose money on your option play! I'll never forget a trade I did a few years back on Boyd Gaming - nice chart, looked great for a long. The stock shot up nicely. My call option however lost significant value b/c of the implied volatility. So, to say that you just need to read the parent chart is misleading. Not only do you have to read the parent chart, you then have to read your option strikes and compare the Greeks, IV, etc. It's not as easy as seeing a buy on the parent chart and buying any call you happen to see. I just wanted to provide that other side of the coin b/c any newbies out there, and there appears to be an influx of them recently, should know this.

As I said Ravin, try doing this in real-time and report back to us how it goes. While price may appear to gravitate to the volume, that is also subjective as well. It's hard to explain here, just watch your DOM and try to trade based off of it. PS Turn that bold off in your posts please, it strains the eyes and we don't need to see your posts in bold.

Billy, I think you'll find much of the info here on TL geared towards Futures and Forex. Not that you can't use the info here, but some of your specific questions may be better answered elsewhere. For example, I'm not sure what's a good stock trading platform b/c I haven't actively traded stocks for quite a while. With that being said, you are headed in the 'normal' path - many start with stocks b/c that's easy, you'll then want more bang for your buck and look at options and then one day you'll see futures and/or forex as a way to get some great leverage. So take a look around and see what interests you and start building from there. There's plenty of FREE information all over the internet, so I would just see what catches your attention and then go from there before shelling out major bucks. What you are looking for is something that grabs your attention and you say - yeah, I could see myself trading like that. You either want to hop on the trend of the day and ride it or you want to find when the trend may be ending and look to catch the reversal. In the end, trades are either with the trend or against it. Of course, how you define trend is subjective. Good luck and be ready to spend some serious time getting your trading biz in place.

Billy, A few questions if I may: 1) What are you planning to trade? Stocks, options, futures, forex? 2) How are you planning to trade? A few trades per day or many more? 3) What style of trading will you be using? With trend, against trend, pivots, market profile, candles, etc. etc. You'll need to divulge the specifics of what you plan to do in order for anyone to suggest brokers, platforms, etc.

The 'formula' I use is rather simple - trade 1 contract per $x,xxx in account. That's it. I know there's many fancy formulas out there, but based on my recent trading activity I will decide how many contracts to trade. More of a - strike while the iron is hot mentality. I think the fixed number is easiest. As you make money, you trade more. If you are losing, the last thing you want to do is add more contracts. I would suggest that you trade one ES contract for every $2500-$10,000 in your account if daytrading. I give that range b/c like I said - if you're new and struggling, one contract is plenty. If you are cranking, then add more. That also gives you a goal to shoot for. If you know that you will add when you make $5000, then you need to figure out how can you make $5000 and then track that progress.

mc - It sounds like you are new to trading if I recall from your posts. I am going to suggest this - forget the pit noise. You do not need it, esp in the beginning. I think you are going to waste a lot of time and money trying to hear what the pit might be telling you through an internet connection. As others have pointed out, those that do trade for a living, this noise is just that - noise. And part of your trading plan will be to filter the useless noise out. Creating additional, unnecessary noise for yourself is just adding another hurdle. If you really want to feel the pit, you need to be there.

Here's my observation of watching the cumulative volume numbers on the DOM - just watching those will drive you nuts. They change so quickly that trying to trade off it would be hard in my opinion. I see now why the thread on elitetrader discussed scalping b/c that's where this could come into play. Abe - What you'll need to watch is what happens to those bids as price comes to it, if those bids remain. It's easy to sit back and say I'll buy here but as you said - since you are catching a falling knife, some will think twice as price approaches.