brownsfan019

10-27-09: +$302.50 Overall was ok but I really f'd it up on oil and Russell today. Oil was short, got out and proceeded to watch it drop hard. Not smart. Russell just flat out missed an easy long off the open. That simply is unacceptable. Still working on my timing here, even after all these months. Hopefully my frustration at times serves as an aid for others to see that no matter how much you do this, you can still miss some easy setups for whatever reason(s). The good news is that even by screwing a few things up, I've made about over $700/ct the last 2 days. While not perfect, it's still not too bad IMO. Trade 10 or 20 contracts and it just multiplies. With that said, I'm not content with almost doing the job correctly.

Ok, point taken. Sometimes there is correlation on the 2 markets. Sometimes there is zero correlation. And sometimes they are negatively correlated. My original post has been edited, hopefully that meets your criteria.

Anyone still around besides a couple of us?

I finally took some time and cleaned up my TL inbox/outbox. Word to the wise - don't save unnecessary messages and delete them as you go. I was getting close to the max so I had to get it cleaned up.

Grey1 - while offering your opinion is welcome here, your declarations of 'I know all' is rather old (and you haven't been here long). If you want to offer your opinions, have at it. But telling someone if you don't know the answer to some of your questions you won't make it is ridiculous. I don't know the answers to all of them & here I am doing it day-in and day-out. Here's what we know - there's many, many ways to trade the market. Just b/c someone doesn't agree w/ your methods does not mean that person is wrong. We did this song and dance in another thread but apparently it's not sinking in.

Nice article FW. Personally, I haven't seen it on intraday charts in the AM session, which is what I trade. Not debating what the article is saying, but for my personal trading on an intraday AM basis, I haven't seen like a few years back.

WJ - good charts and stuff here.

10-26-09 update: +$437.50 Couldn't resist what GGC was willing to give before my Noon EST cutoff time.

10-26-09: +$287.50 Not bad today based on the setups that were there. I missed a Russell long that I should have been in that would have recouped that loss, but 2 things fired off simultaneously and I should have gone to the Russell first.

Very true. It took me A LONG TIME and THOUSANDS of dollars and hours to realize this. For me at least, getting a few decent moves off the open and then shutting it down sent my profitability through the roof, lowered stress and opened up a life outside of trading all day long. It feels very counter intuitive that you can work less and make more, but that is entirely possible in trading. Once you found something that works and you are confident in, it's just a matter of trading more size. That is the one very nice thing about trading - you can work the same hours and make more simply by increasing size. Many other professions cannot do this - they must work more hours to make more (lawyers, doctors, brokers, etc.). This was an incredibly difficult thing for me to get my arms around b/c I had been brought up and taught through school that working hard and long hours is the key to success. And in most professions, that is true. Not so in trading. I can't stress this enough to the newer guys reading this - find 1 quality setup, test it like no tomorrow and once you are confident in this 1 little setup, trade it confidently and make your money. When you need/want more money do the same thing but with bigger size. Repeat process over and over. There is no need to trade all day and try to time every single move out there. It's practically impossible and very difficult as you need a dozen or so possible setups to trade the big moves and chop areas. IMO that's a quick way to shorten the life of your account. Just find one solid, reliable setup that you can do every day w/ confidence. Then increase your size. That's the holy grail many are searching for.

Interesting observation - both charts are tradable, regardless of the timeframe. Nice charts and annotations.

Personally I like that first one. That's clear as day to me. Sometimes you guys draw lines from so far away that I question some of them. That's just me, and my That first chart is simple, clear and easy IMO. Very nice easy trade. Here's how I would have seen the 2nd one:

Sounds good, I think you are on the right path. How you define S/R can come in so many shapes and sizes, so play around with some things and see what you think. For example, in one p/l post bathrobe made a vault of cash when he said he bought a pullback to the previous week high. I have never looked at previous week high, but talk about some potential S/R - the entire previous week could not crack it. Point being so many ways to define S/R and then finding how you want to trade it. My suggestion is when you are playing w/ these S/R levels to consider only looking for a few trades on the 1st or 2nd test of your levels. In other words, if a level has been hit 5 times during the day, not so sure how important is by the 6th time. But if you identify strong areas, the 1st or 2nd test should provide some movements whether reversal or breakout.

It's a neat idea and worth taking a look at. Unless you enjoy what our gov't is doing now. And the point is not about electing the same people that are on the ballots every single time. The point is about putting DIFFERENT and NEW people on those ballots.

That's what I thought. More lines all over the place ala Hershey-style. No thanks, I would actually like something that works in real-time. PS Do you use that stuff to make money trading in real-time with real money? Has anyone ever been able to do that and prove it? Anyone?

I couldn't agree more. You have to take what advice/suggestions you are given on anonymous message boards with a grain of salt. I've long advocated that those being put in 'guru' type positions to actually prove they can do this (and we have a thread for it right here) but my comments just get swept away. So while there are some great ideas presented here and other boards, it is what it is - free info posted on anonymous message boards where nothing has to be proven. I've read more than once that there are many ways to make money at the trading business and none of them require being able to trade.

For me Kiwi, I haven't gone automated b/c my exits are not exactly a perfected science. I guess in that regard I do rely on some intuition b/c there's plenty of times where my predefined exit is within a couple ticks of being executed but price starts to pause and I just hit the flatten button. I suppose something like that could be coded, but sometimes I just rely on my gut to take a trade out.

Yeah, I wouldn't suggest buying all of them at once. That was just a list I put together awhile back and was able to find it.

I've come across a truly interesting site that I'd suggest you consider. It is called GOOOH (for Get Out Of Our House), and pronounced like the word go. They have an intriguing plan to evict the 435 politicians from the U.S. House of Representatives. Here's the link: http://www.GOOOH.com

And can you share a way to use this knowledge tams?

I thought OEC was going to get into this, but I could be wrong. I've been wanting to at least see the charts. I'll drop them an email and see if I can get any updates.

Instead of retyping what I just wrote, go to this post.

Some ideas off the top of my head: Get some books and start reading. Do NOT purchase any expensive systems that vendors sell. Get a demo account and just start doing it. Don't pay attention to the results, just start clicking away. Start reading this forum from top-to-bottom and see what interests you. I've attached a book list I put together awhile back on some good books for a trading library. For demo accounts, it depends what you want to trade. I use Open ECry for futures and they have a nice demo system. There are plenty of stock demo's out there as well. Amazon.com trading book reco's.pdf

Personally I use one chart scale and that's it. I'm watching 3 bonds, 1 currency, 3 oil, 2 gold, 4 indexes and 2 grain charts so I have to keep it simple. As for what kind of chart setting, that's up to you and your personal preference. There's a lot to be said of minute, volume and tick charts.

Nice chart Dinero, looks good. IMO you should perfect one way of trading (intraday or swing) before 'experimenting' with other setups. There's not much use in having a whole bunch of ideas that kind of work vs. 1 solid, reliable setup. If the goal is to make money, then you need to perfect that 1 strategy. From there you have to decide if you want to daytrade or swing and start there. As for your chart - you could argue a great place to be looking to short based on past resistance and/or time for a breakout as the 3rd time is the charm. If it was me and I really believed in this area, I'd be willing to go both ways and see what happens. As long as it doesn't chop (and it can) eventually you'll be on the right side.... but I'm a reversal guy so I'd be licking my chops to short.