brownsfan019

Well, I think this is probably going to round up my 2009 trading. Traded lightly and didn't trust this market on lower volumes. 12-28-09: +$245.00 12-29-09: +$200.00 In hindsight, I should have just traded w/o regard to the holidays (like I've said before) but I was biased in my decision making. It's profits, so we'll take it and call it a year.

Sounds cool until you read that it's been around since 1997 elsewhere. Why are we so slow to adapt some things in this country, esp pertaining to the internet?

But he never actually did publish it, did he?

Attached is a list of books I put together after being asked this question many times. Enjoy! Amazon.com trading book reco's.pdf

I'm the same way - if OEC's charts have what you need, seems like a good idea to just run it all in 1 program.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year TL! Another great year in the books, here's to many more!

I was taught at an early age to say thanks, esp those that sometimes go above and beyond to help you out. I often use the OEC support ticket system, even with things that could be considered mundane but they always reply back. If you use OEC and have had good experiences with them, use that support ticket to just say Thanks and Happy Holidays. I'm sure those guys work hard, might be overworked at times, and a little thank you note could be nice. If any OEC staff is reading this, Happy Holidays and thanks for another great year!

It varies based on the trade. My stops fluctuate based on the market at the time. If I can get an ideal entry, stops are small; if my entry has to wait for some confirmation then stops can get larger.

I'll chime in with the other side of the coin - if there's volume there, it could be traded. That doesn't mean it will work for all types of traders, but you can trade it if there's volume there. I mention that b/c in a p/l post I had mentioned that taking a few holidays off here recently was costly to me.

As the new year approaches, we will use this thread to start the p/l tracker for the year 2010. I think the 2009 thread turned into a great success, so I hope we can keep it going here. A few reminders that we can reference in case there's questions later (mainly from new people to the thread): WHAT TO POST IN THIS THREAD In this thread, you post screenshots of your profit/loss blotter (p/l). This can easily be done by using a screen capture program like SnagIt and then taking a screenshot from your broker's software. In addition to the screenshots of your p/l blotter, there will be plenty of discussions going on throughout the thread. As long as the discussions stay productive, I try not to moderate this thread very much. Keep it on track and we'll have a productive thread once again. WHY POST IN THIS THREAD IF YOU ARE A TRADER MAKING MONEY Create a place where you are accountable. Get feedback on your trades, progress, etc. If you do want to post charts, you will probably get feedback on these as well. Occasionally you'll get a PM from a new person that says 'Thanks, you've given me some ideas or given me drive to do this'. If you find yourself in a rut, even while making money, this thread can help to push you once again. WHAT THIS THREAD CAN GIVE TO THOSE THAT ARE NOT YET PROFITABLE Show those new to trading it can in fact be done. Show that there's many ways to make money in trading (by seeing a variety of blotters from people posting here). WHY POST IN THIS THREAD IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING MONEY Showing your results in a public forum on a consistent basis can be a humbling experience, but it can also help you to focus and keep pushing forward. You might just need a friendly push from some here to get you over that hump. If you want to post charts and dissect your trades, you may get some much needed feedback from a fresh set of eyes. Obviously participation here is voluntary. If you want to participate, then have at it. If you don't want to participate, feel free to observe.

Fixed the post, thanks.

Few things regarding this: 1) Your wins will be small overall, even w/ that runner when it hits (often it won't). 2) When price immediately retraces on you (and it will) you will take a full stop out on a full amount of contracts; meanwhile your wins will be tiny in comparison. For this to work, your win % must be very high and in theory, that is achievable with such small profit targets but I would not be doing this as a function to 'cover your costs'. That's silly as Thales pointed out with commissions so small in today's trading. You do this to create a scalping methodology b/c that's what it is - scalping at it's finest. So if you want to scalp, this is exactly how you could do it. If your goal is to basically cover costs and not lose, then why bother putting the trade on to begin with? This feels very much like a strategy where the goal is to not lose; it also has a flaw of not winning very much at all.

Perhaps it's a function of the amount of data loaded. Try loading more data and see if that helps. View > Load More Data or click the load more data icon on the toolbar.

That's what I've been saying all along. I came from a broker where I was paying $500/mo in platform fees + all my data fees + charting fees! Let me see if I can answer your questions... The default is set with a cap. Send them a support ticket and request an increase. You'll find the shift key an important one in OEC trader. Hold down shift + scroll with your mouse to increase/decrease the zoom. You can also do this along the price axis as well. Interesting observation, I had no idea they were still there in the background. I'm not 100% sure how to get rid of those there actually. Send a support ticket or call them and then post it here so we all know. I think the shift + scroll mouse might work here. Let me know if that does what you are looking for.

Sounds like a good plan. Yes. Yes. It's a risk issue/control. You have to understand that most retail traders don't have a clue. They hear about trading futures on an infomercial or webinar or the neighbor's friend of a friend whose great uncle twice removed makes a killing trading them. How hard could it really be? The fundamental use of margin is to protect the broker in situations of quick moving markets where their customer is wrong and also to protect people from themselves. The CL can move and quick at times. Some traders get married to positions and trade w/o stops. Can you imagine being long the CL into inventory and watch it drop over 1.00 in 30 seconds without a stop? And then continue to watch it plummet as you wait for it to come back? There's a whole other side to this risk/margin thing that you aren't seeing b/c it doesn't impact you at all. It appears your stops are reasonable and as you said, as long as those stops don't occur too many times, you should be ok trading the CL. There is if you hold the contract to expiration. As a daytrader (no positions by 230pm EST) it's a non-issue. From there the difference is that the CL moves in .01 increments @ $10/tick and the QM (the mini) moves in .025 increments @ $12.50. But that part is nothing to be concerned about as long as you are just daytrading the CL.

'They' are not looking for your 1 contract stop loss order and then reversing it once they grab your 1 contract. 'They' do however look to find clusters of easy to trigger stops, so if you are getting stopped often then you have a system design issue NOT a paranoid, can they see me issue.

The margins are higher on the CL and recommended to trade with even more than a cushion of the bare minimum b/c: 1) It's a full sized contract, this is NOT a mini. 2) You've seen this thing move dinero and it can move so quickly and swiftly that if you don't have a decent margin cushion you literally could go into a deficit (which all brokers want to avoid at all costs). Regardless, if you don't treat sim like you will in real-time, then I think you are simply wasting your time. If you are 'only' trading 4 contracts on simulation and then trade 1 live, you will be tremendously disappointed in your live results b/c there's no way 1 contract can mimic the results of 4. You will sit there and wonder what happened or changed b/c on simulation you were making $XXXX and in real-time you are making $XXX. If the plan is trade 4 when trading live, then trade 4 in sim. If you are planning to trade 1, then trade 1 on sim. I truly believe you are setting yourself up for major disappointments if you don't trade sim as you will be in real-time.

12-18-09: na I hit the snooze button this morning thinking that it will be a slow Fri w/ no news. WRONG. :doh:

That's a slippery slope to go down Dinero. I'm going to ask a personal question and you don't have to answer, but in your live trading account, how much is it funded with? Also, are you aware of the CL margins @ OEC? $2700 for daytrading. To compare, the RLM is $400. Why do you think such a drastic difference? If you are going to be trading multiple contracts on the CL in real-time, then do that on sim. If not THEN STOP IMMEDIATELY. You really skew the results by adding contracts. I know the $$$ looks nice, but if it's not what you will be doing in real-time then you are playing some big mental games with yourself. If not, then have at it!

I see some possible resistance here on the 6B. I'd be looking for new highs to come in fairly soon to remain in this one. Just my

12-17-09: +$480 A little dabble into currencies today as I was trying something out there. An ok day, nothing to write home about.

Along the same lines, you might want to check out OEC's eSignal plug-in. That will probably be more expensive than TS, but then you get to put it all in OEC trader which you are already familiar with. It's never fun having to learn a brand new platform.

Dinero - another option would be to use TradeStation for this kind of stuff. I was on their site and here's what data is available: http://www.tradestation.com/strategy_testing/hist_market_data.shtm Tick data is very intensive, so I'm not surprised they only offer 6 months of it. You do get a ton of minute data (27 years). Perhaps you could just drill it down to a 1 minute chart and get the same effect you are after. If nothing else, you could see the price action. It's times like this when having TradeStation is very nice. I would not use them as my primary broker by any stretch, but you can get the platform for free if you do 10 round turns per month. Depending on how much trading you are doing, that could literally be knocked out in 1 day. There will be data fees though, regardless of how many trades are being done. So if you used TS and traded 10 round turns, you'd be looking at just data fees. Which isn't terrible if this is what you need/want for your trading. And there's nothing saying you have to stay w/ them forever. You might stay a month or two, get what you need and then close the account.

Quite awhile ago I purchased some data and it wasn't that costly. For the life of me I can't recall the name of the site or company but somewhere (buried deeply) on TL is the link. I'll see if I can find it somewhere around here.

What are you talking about?