DugDug

Cory - I am sure you are on top of it - however as we can all forget easily enough - dont forget the march futures contract expiry - I notice you are still posting mar contract. Personally I roll earlier as volume is not such an issue, and I never want to get caught. Also I have done it where I am trading the next month contract and reading off a different chart..... it always freaks me out when I am looking at two different prices initially.

Tasuki - please take this in a positive light..... 1) google it. 2) if you have been trading futures contracts and for years and years and have never bothered to find out about the spot market even though you have heard about it..... I can only shake my head and realise why many people loose money..... they dont even know what they are trading.

I did send an email to OEC - their first response is we offer the demo for $25pm _ I thought fair enough - I would have thought they might have offered it as an extra account in their system for those traders who pay them more than $25pm brokerage (yesterday I paid way more than that) I guess it all depends on their business model, I have not heard back from as yet. So who knows. As I mentioned I get a little tired of using real money to test or try new systems thats all. So far I like OEC, except the poor documentation... eg - is there stuff on their back testing and replay features in anything? Maybe I will just write my own.

James - dont worry I have have thick skin - I used to work on a trading floor and it was part of the job. And you are right about it makes the discussion interesting. (I also dont think poorly of Urma either - he is clearly good, interesting and a self confessed oldman with fantastic new ideas (from his posts), however there are always one or two little things that do get under the skin - I guess I am human (or bored)) (There are always two sides to every discussion) Its interesting when people adopt the idea that so many people are doing it that it no longer works. (trend trading dies and is reborn every few years eg 2008) That may be the case for certain arbs, and so called free money, and it seems definitely it does get harder to find the free money. However this is offset by increased liquidity. (I am old enough to remember what its like to have real gaps with nothing in between) Does not that just mean that when everyone switches to the new ideas then the old ones will work again. (remember the new economy and the internet bubble where people thought you buy something for $1, sell it for 20cents and will make money , and that this is now the "new normal" as we are told in the media) Nothing works all the time, but certain fundamental truisms will give you greater odds of success. Technical analysis is nothing more than a road map. I dont believe in all the indicators etc; this is a game of averages, and doing the same thing over and over again is where the money is made. The simple things of making more than you loose, by running profits, and cutting losses. I know of enough people who have tested trend trading models that show that entries, patterns and the like dont necessarily make a difference. However if you can find a low risk pattern as a setup that does repeat in the right context (and the time frame suits your mentality) then great. Use it as a tool, a guide. You dont need banks of computers to find value in instruments, or stocks, and when you hear it from someone saying this is the new thing, I think great. When I hear this is the new thing and all you oldies are idiots - I roll my eyes and think lets wait for the next black swan event. (you know the ones many quants discount as rarities - the same ones that create opportunity) There is always value and opportunities everywhere. Ask that old dinosaur Warren B. As a local/retail trader trying to compete in speed etc with computers is plain nuts - most people trading successfully seem to only trade a few times a day. The day market making firms stop making markets then you will know that the edge has gone - I remember being at Uni and told this would all be arbed out - however volumes are larger than ever and people are still doing it. Put it another way - a bicycle may not be as efficient (or it may be) as a car, yet it still provides a good mode of transport for the individual and is a lot less maintenance.

MK - I found this interesting as well, I was looking at the identical setup as Thales - 15m chart, I was thinking it was a three drives down (something I am just starting to experiment with), and bought at 996, and stopped myself out at 986 (doh) and then thought I would renenter above the big figure, however I never did. My stop was purely arbitrary and set at take a small loss using an automatic stop set at ten ticks below, figured I was trying to pick the bottom. The real mistake was not re-entering, and going at it again - this I feel is vital when trying to trade like this, whilst still remaining flexible enough. I would imagine Thales has a better explanation for his.

(i did not read the article) however DOM usually stands for depth of market. It is a way a lot of system allow traders to view the market showing a few price levels on both the bid and the offer.

I managed to get that short EUR trade.... and luckily took profits on back near the break the other day on Mar 3 137.34. All based on context of where it is and what you are trying to get out of the trade I guess. Interestingly enough I then had a similar trade to Thales on the JPY, however I took a loss - enough to cancel the EUR profit (doh!) and even worse - NEVER REENTERED. Thales always reminds us of this, and I was off looking at something else. NOTE TO SELF - if looking at 1min charts, and quick cuts and rentrys this IS an intensive occupation. (more so than what I am used to trading longer term) Shorting JPY on 100% abc up from bottom at 11.079 (15 tick stop.) (I have to work out the cut and paste charts on OEC)

I guess that's the reason why Wall street lost so much money - those folks are driven by greed and not fear (so the media tells us) - clearly they are evolved differently from the rest of us.

OEC and stops. A continuing question. just started using it - and yes the manuals are crap.... understandable while systems are expanding, but these are not great - I just wish developers would use examples - then things might be clearer. I and I am sure others always find the myriad of stops, brackets, trailing jargon different for every system, and examples usually make it clearer. With the trailing stop and the factor level.....does the factor level tell the DOM WHEN to move the stop or does it tell it by HOW MUCH to move the stop...??? eg; if the order is long 1 contract at 137.50 and the buy stop is set at a factor of .1, with the trailing stop set at a factor of .02. (Then when you enter a buy stop below the market, lets say at 137.44, then the DOM knows not to sell below 137.34 if the stop is triggered.) If the price moves up by .02 to 137.52 then the stop level will also move up by .02, so by the time the price trades at 137.6 the stop should now be at 137.50, if the price has only traded up to 137.59, the stop will be at 137.48. OR does the stop only move up by point .01 when the price moves by point .02.??? I ask as while I did use the DEMO, once you open an account with OEC you no longer have access to a DEMO account in order to try things and test them.....you have to use real money. I stupidly would have assumed they may have had a paper trading/demo account with the live version as well. I am a bit sick of testing systems with live money, but that seems to be the only option here once you have a live account. This will also apply if they introduce new upgrades as well. Thanks. for those who are a bit more up to scratch with the system.

Urma -Dont forget - Goldmans is a market making firm according to Lloyd..... it might actually possibly loose money from its trading decisions as opposed to its market making??? additionally I think this (old) article is clearly wrong.....given the two people you mentioned. Quakes In Quantitative Trading: Nothing New Under the Financial Sun -- Seeking Alpha If I recall goldmans was bailed out....???? And it probably only missed worse by being better business managers and by being able to grab a chair and sit down just prior to the music stopping. Will we every really know? However while there are lots of ways to make money..... I think any one particular group that laughs at another just shows arrogance.... never a particularly appealing trait. Particularly when I think you would find that a lot of people from some quant/broking/trading houses actually loose money and become part of the 95% of losers when they branch out on their own. It makes you wonder how many people rely on the order flow, low transactions costs, leverage, free funding and other spreads offered by the larger firms. A lot of retail guys leave and go under due to poor capitalisation, loss of interest, lack of time, education etc. Surely as a quant you must be able to look at the 95% of traders quote and realise that its a lie, lie and dammn statistic to be able to draw conclusions from. Maybe you are one of the smartest around, thats fine - some of the best traders I have seen are not that smart, and thats probably their strength and they know it. These guys know that sometimes luck plays a part and that they dont know everything. You should be greatful there are people that make you look good. Yes there are exceptions, however I just took exception to (and always have and always will) your comment. I think given the reaction a few others did also....Thats all. There are plenty of dogmatic views on these sites as well - the cult of some indicator, so I cant disagree with you there. I am probably old school in that I believe that the most expensive words in the English language are "this time its different".

Urma - I always gave you a little more credit - but to say "Believe it of not but most here are still involved with topics like profiles, candles, VSA & Wyckoff with little or no idea of the new era of smart data consolidation and visualization that is fast approaching." comes across as pretty condescending. Especially given that most peoples trading problems is not in the visualisation input provided by a computer screen.

each contract and each trader will have different methods of how and when to roll over... not just based on volume. The exchanges and your broker should have the last "tradeable" dates for each contract. eg; IB have different days for longs and shorts in something like the ZN - if i remember correctly. There will be no substitute building your own small database of this type of information....dont rely on others. get the info from your broker and the exchange.

trading is not necessarily about ideas that are right or wrong..... its about averages and consistency. If you are looking for something that is going to help you be right (eg; patterns, indicators) then you are missing the point. I can tell you now and save you a lot of time - no one thing in the market works all the time, so you will always find the times it does not work, and hence prove its adherents wrong. Congratulations...... There is only one right or wrong in the markets - you have to be long the things that go up, and short the things that go down. After that the rest is how much you make or loose over a series of trades based on whatever method gets you long or short. Averages.

over the years I have developed a brain dysfunction from hitting my head on the desk numerous times :crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap:

1) desire to change yourself 2) plan to change 3) discipline to put into place the actions of the plan

yep - no matter how hard I try I will never run the 100 in a quick time - genetics has a certain amount of say. Those talent schools do take the best - its a bit like survivor ship bias. However everyone can certainly improve with any sort of muscle/brain training and a good coach - absolutely no doubt. (Zdo - are you going to start a thread called "touch yourself" next - i reckon you will get a lot of takers for that one;))

to be blunt - with a low winning percentage and only targeting 3 point profit targets - no money management book will help you. You will not make enough to cover losses. If you are going to scalp - I dont know what to recommend as thats something I dont do. I would suggest working on setup that allows you to run larger profits compared to your losers, or at least one that has a high percentage of winners if you are only taking a few points. Also having some wins WILL NOT necessarily help your trigger finger - if you dont have the right setups, and plan, then having a few wins may just give you an itchy trigger finger and will lead to trades you dont need, or want - usually these end in tears. The best resource is here on this site - various threads..... free, helpful and a licorice allsorts of information.

I think that your insight is far more widespread than you might imagine. We all see shonky vendors selling systems that you can tell are shonky, however there are plenty of good traders around who are invariably good for other reasons than the ones they use to explain to other people. Sometimes, you might find someone who has incredible intuition, great money management, an ability to be able say i am wrong, go from long to short and vice versa and just be in the zone of the market. However when asked to give a replicable rationale reasons for how they do it they are "forced" to come up with a reason as opposed to saying - "I dont really know how I do it, I just trade". If trading other peoples money and you say that - goodbye credibility. There is so much misunderstanding in many of these things that sometimes even a spurious explanation is better than the real thing. We humans are a strange lot.

great story Thales - I love those sorts of stories that stick in the mind - they gain a personal mythical status but they are fantastic. Unfortunately the pits are largely closed and they are rarer these days. This actually relates very well to the notes I am making now regards trading patterns. Rather than giving patterns fancy names, or talk about rally, fall, bullish, bearish etc; I have tried to opt for the two names of retracement and continuation. This is to help me clarify in my own mind, what the pattern should do and when to apply it what I wish to trade is those patterns that continue, both in the expression of the ideal direction of the trade and in the continuation of the major trend. However certain patterns also suit a retracement of the trend. However the key to pretty much all the patterns is if you get rejection (especially of the major trend which should be the area of least resistance) then there are great reasons that you will get a retracement. I am still tossing up (but am 99% sure I will do so ) is implement the cut and reverse when this occurs. (I strongly suggest this is not done by you yet Cory as there is always the risk of getting really chopped) However I hope this "simplification" might help you somewhat as it has helped me.

Nikke I was looking at a similar thing, however I passed as after the recent run up, I feel I would prefer more of a pullback or ABC down, using longer term bars eg; 15min as it starting to do now. While I dont know enough about TTT - it has made me think more about what I would call marginal trades in terms of the previous days context.

agree Kiwi - but I guess not to get too philosophical - its all a tool. Imagine talking to two carpenters - one who will tell you about the leverage and physics involved in driving an object of metallic zinc alloy into a natural organic substance that has been processed, refined and cut, using another metallic object of forged steel and human natural movement of extra leverage between the radius and humerus, the other says I use a hammer to nail things together. I guess your example is more along the lines of one of the carpenter telling you that a hammer is the best tool to cut an obect and then using it to pound a piece of wood to make it fit. You do have to laugh when an expert describes his tool in a manner that is not really correct. I cant talk - I am terrible at describing some things - its a matter of assuming knowledge and personal interpretation I guess. was it a video course or something on the internet?

thales re your recent USDJPY, JPYUSD charts - how can you short one currency and at the same time be long it?...... that just does not make any sense! (just kidding - reminds me of a fund manager who during a presentation said "we never short anything ever, and then proceeded to tell everyone about some of the long EUR trades they had done )

I love it when I reel a big one in - give it the priest - gut it, gill it and put it in the bag to take home for dinner. All the little ones I release back into the wild, for while they gave me enjoyment/frustration/a lesson, they cannot provide the sustenance I need to keep fishing. However I will continue to target any fish, or likely area they might be found in the hope that I can catch that big one, get a run out of it, reel it in and make my day.

Cory - you have the amateur fly fishermans dilema. Every now and again fly fisherman get a mayfly hatching (or some other insect) and the salmon go wild for them - they seemingly eat everything that is on the water. The water is alive with fish eating everything, including the other fishermen around you.....except your fly!! The frustration is palpable - why the f...n hell cant I catch anything, whats wrong, maybe i'll try this, try that etc; The key to most of the successful anglers are they will still only target one fish in the frenzy, they have learn their craft prior to the day and know how to cast quickly and accurately, and they do they dont keep chopping and changing flys or angles with out thought for why. These things all take time, I have been trading for years, and swapping back to a more intensive short term intraday trading style for me is frustrating, ( also exciting), and sometimes I wonder why I am bothering - but I also know I would rather spend the time and effort to ensure I get it right for the long term. I wish I had the resources of such a thing as traders laboratory when I first started, but I also think that such a resource is also like putting a kid in front of a candy store and saying - one of these days son - if you are lucky - when you have enough knowledge experience etc; you can enter the store with the others - until then you have to wait. Man o man - thats frustration. Yet if you get it and succeed - or even if you dont - you will have learnt a lot and thats never a bad thing.

1---Strategies that make me money over the long term, that are relatively simple, straightforward, make sense to me and I can reliably follow them - these get rated highly 2---Strategies that involve me losing money get rated poorly. Given that you can often give the same strategy to ten different people and get ten different results see turtle traders story/history, the fact there are debates over internet forums, the ready access to strategies and rules already available and the vastly different results. your list will probably be different to mine and everyone elses.