brownsfan019

I love it when Thales throws a mention my way.

Well, usually the g/friend feeds me. How about you? :rofl:

Dinero - have you tried out OEC's RSS News Feed?

If this is done via EasyLanguage it might transport into OEC.

12-16-09: +$902.47 Just when I thought I might be getting along with the ES again, it slaps me around and calls me it's bitch. So then I quickly went over to the RLM and got my money back. Let me explain via pictures... As they say, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder and for a reversal trader the RLM provided a few nice trades with quick profits and the ES just didn't do anything.

Looking at the pricing, I would get the Market Moving Events for 19.95/mo. That should give you the events that have stars, which is typically the events you want to be aware of. I don't know anyone that does anything like Econoday. They are very good at what they do and I reference it every morning. As you know, I'll trade before/during/after news (except oil inventory) so I just like to know what's going on and when. Some would probably use it to remind themselves when not to trade.

I didn't want this to get lost in another thread, so I this thread is to highlight how the demo version of OEC trader works on limit orders. First, I should explain why this is important for any new traders reading this. When you send a limit order to the exchange, you are saying - fill me at this price or better, but do not fill me any worse. The concern with limit orders on demo's is that when you send a limit order on a real, production platform your order 'goes to the back of the line'. In other words, you will get placed at the back of the queue and as price progresses through it, some people get filled and others are left waiting. On some demo platforms, your limit order is filled instantly with no consideration given to the queue system. That is not the best way to work a demo environment b/c it can lead to a false sense of how your fills work in real-time. Second, the OEC demo platform does provide some 'queue filtering' where your order is not immediately triggered when price is touched. It does have to trade it a bit or trade through it in order to get a fill. Here's an example from the RLM on 12-16-09: On this example, my 10 contract demo order was filled only after it traded through my entry level even though price had hit my level 2 times. With that said, I don't know of any demo's that can give you perfect, real-time type entries. The queue system is one which is changing by the milli-second so it's unreasonable to assume a demo platform will be able to mimic this perfectly. But it is nice to know whether or not your demo does provide some queue filtering. If you don't know, ask! I also suggest on all demos, including OEC, that if you really want to see if your limit orders got filled in real-time, set your limit 1 tick above/below where you really want to enter. If price touches this level, your limit would have filled in real-time. Example: You want to buy the RLM @ 607.5 with a limit order. Place your limit order @ 607.4. If your 607.4 level is touched (even for 1 second) your 607.5 order would have been guaranteed a fill.

And the fact is that if you trade the highest volume contract this is a non-issue. Just trade the highest volume contract. I don't know how many times I need to say this on this forum. So many problems are solved/avoided if you just trade the contract with the highest volume.

I decided to test out the OEC demo later in the afternoon to test the theory that you get automatic fills and their demo is not realistic. Here's what I saw: I put a 10 lot order on the RLM @ 606.2. At 1533 and 1534 EST on a 1 minute chart, you will see that 606.2 is the low of both candles. I got ZERO fills even though price was hitting my entry limit order TWICE. I was only able to get a fill once price touched 606.1. So while the OEC demo may not be perfect, it's far from just giving you automatic fills when your price level is touched. It is a decent representation of what it's like trading in real-time. I did not say perfect or exact, but it's much better than other demo's out there.

Not necessarily - you are making the assumption that there is an open and close. If nothing trades, there is literally no open, close, high or low. Nothing.

Econoday offers a service you can buy that puts them on your Outlook calendar automatically. LINK I've never used it, so not sure if you can customize or not.

Well, it's a demo. And it's better than many out there. I've seen plenty that fill you instantly on a touch and OEC's does not do that. Other than that, there's not much else to say as it is a demo. It's meant to be used for testing and such.

Like I said, when I was playing around on the demo and throwing some larger blocks on the ES, I did not always get instant fills. How many contracts were you trading on the demo when you got instant fills?

I think their demo fills are pretty good. When I've demo'd larger blocks on the ES for example, many times the order is filled in increments - not all at once which is what some packages do.

That is currently not a function available in the software.

End of the week? You really want to judge him based on a guess of what you would have in a week? That's too funny Tams. Great joke, I appreciate it.

12-15-09: +$500.00 Just the ES today as I didn't get going till later than normal. Missed some nice moves on oil apparently though. Nice job BR on the oil trade! Welcome to the cartel. We will be at your doorstep shortly for initiation.

If OEC told you it can be done, have them show you how to do it. That will be quicker than hoping someone here can show you how to do it.

It's hard to follow a guide b/c it depends on your very specific situation. If you need to pull money weekly that's different than someone that can let it all just accumulate. It's also dependent on your profitability - are you making profits most days or not? It's just a very personal thing and no one can say here's how to do it exactly. My only general suggestion is that you shouldn't keep too much excess sitting in your futures accounts that earn zero interest. Keep enough to cover your trading but after that, get it out and into something earning interest. I realize bank accounts aren't paying much, but they are paying something. And as it builds and depending on your situation, you might want to start learning about tax-free bonds if your state has an income tax.

12-14-09: -$170.00 I zigged and the market zagged. Just couldn't get in sync w/ oil today at all.

Good question. I don't know at this point.

It fluctuates b/c I simply don't know what the results will be, but usually check each month.

I'm sure others might have complex calculations to do this, but basically what I do is: 1) Take enough to pay the regular bills + cushion = checking accounts 2) Figure out what I want to keep in the trading accounts 3) Rest goes into a mix of savings/money markets/etc If the need arises, I can quickly wire money to and from any account.

The $500/day is PER CONTRACT being traded, regardless of how many. That's the target.

One note on the results as well - I know a few like what they see, but keep in mind this is a good part of the entire year and I'm below my goal of $500/day. I suppose it's all relative, but I'm not exactly jumping out of my seat over my performance for the year. Even if I continue to have a good December, I doubt I can pull up the per day average.