johnw

Hi Colonel B, I find your words very interesting and yes I would appreciate you showing me how to incorporate the 10 year note into my ES intraday trading. many thanks

I totally agree with you on both counts. My suggestion to any Newcomer attracted to this thread by it's seductive Title, is to make your two statements above, a part of their core belief of trading and never ever let them go.

gm DbP, I like the ES ...I like it's intraday price waves and I do believe that trading the same instrument becomes intuitive over time as our minds retain the behaviour of thousands and thousands of these price waves. Actually I am not sure that 'intuitive' is an ideal choice of word but it will have to suffice for the sake of this post. I do trade currencies on a longer TF but I can only cope with one intraday instrument as I watch the ES build during the course of the session and I watch it's relativity to previous days/weeks etc ... in a manner not unlike Steve46 ... in fact many of our lines fall at the same values, which makes sense really. Anyway, for better or worse, the ES and I are locked together until something changes and causes a re think.

No ... I am just a guy who approaches Intraday trading as a game of numbers and IMO there is an optimal zone for win/loss ratios. Obviously there are days when you can stray above it, but there are seldom days when you dip below it unless you have failed to follow your own rules. That zone IMO is set around 80% based on the outcome of hundreds of trades based on ES price waves each day . If I add another filter, my net total tick count drops for the day over a period of five+ days, so that is useless .... and try as I might I cannot move the average win/loss ratio consistently higher than I am currently achieving ... it is as though I have hit a brick wall either based upon the law of probabilities or I am staring something in the face and I cannot see it .... (now I have just written this, it reminds me yet again that this is the story of my fifteen years in trading .. ten of them with ES) That of course leaves one variable to play with and that is size With one mouse click any one of us can control the size of our business at any time. Just try to do that in the outside world.... for example if you own a small company employing say 50 people and you decide to double the sales turnover thereby tripling the net profit through the economies of scale, the exercise becomes both enormous and risky. However ......If you are happy with your trading ratios at five contracts and you wish to double your turnover then just increase 5 to 10 contracts and all the ratios remain in proportion. Granted, if your size reaches a level where you cannot be filled in one hit, you will need to adjust your entry/exit plan ... but what a delightful problem to solve.

hello Tams I used the word 'optimal' quite deliberately because there is ( IMO) an optimal base of accuracy beyond which the laws of diminishing returns apply. So let us progress beyond "the hare and the tortoise" please. I am interested in your experiences as a Trader ..... In the case of intraday trading, where do you think that this optimal baseline lies?

Right ho .... 90% is now off the dance card, and so where do you fellows think that the law of diminishing returns kick in. Do you think that 80% on an intraday basis is an optimal base from which to manipulate your 'protective stop' and 'take profits stop' or is 66% more realistic (win 2, lose1)

Hi Pred, Have you given thought to changing your level of fitness instead of confining your goal to just weight loss. There are forums for fitness/sports prep/ swimming/ bodybuilding etc where Posters would be more than happy to assist you in a very useful manner. Even just reading some of the threads will open you to interesting possibilities.... such as the psychology of changing engrained habits ... best methods of burning calories and building muscle ... benefits of 5 or 6 small meals per day .... difference between food groups etc. What is better to trade on for example .... slices of toast smothered with butter and delicious strawberry jam (yum yum gluten, fats and sugar), or a small bowl of banana, blueberries, quinoa and natural yogurt ( yummy rocket fuel) I am sure that you know to ease slowly into major changes to diet and exercise because the initial reactions from your body will not be favourable ... but this period will pass. Perhaps give consideration to some simple yoga exercises (youtube is best source) once again take them slowly. goodluck

Hi Steve46, If I have understood correctly you use 10 day and 5 day periods to harvest your lines. What made you use 5 day instead of say 3 day for the short term cheers

gm DbP, Well you have excelled yourself with the post above. It is the best post I have ever read here on TL and I congratulate you for taking the time to write it. I have a small number of brief articles and each day I read one or two as my machine opens up. They only take a minute or two to read and although I know them almost by heart, I try to read each one as though it was the first time. I would like to add your post to my little library. cheers

I am just using BBs to address TA addiction in general ... the more people are feed TA, the stronger the addiction becomes as you know.

Well no, it doesn't make things clearer at all. I appreciate that you are trying to create a visual explanation of your method, but people wind up addicted to BBands which they most probably don't understand in any case. Frankly I think you are loading yourself up with too much responsibility for the students success, but good for you for all your efforts. cheers

Hi Steve46, Given that The Price is turning, or at the very least 'shuddering' at your horizontal lines, why do you choose to introduce Bolly Bands into the game. Surely the BBands are a derivative of the supply/ demand lines in which case they work because you already know how to select these horizontal lines. Since you say that you do not use them in your own work and I couldn't agree more with you, then why muddy the waters when generously explaining your work to others. I know the argument for 'training wheels' but given that the failure rate in trading is somewhere near the success rate of riding a bicycle ... why not just offer up your trading beliefs as they are and people can either sink or swim as they absorb the concept. cheers

I cannot agree with you wrbtrader ... KISS is KISS, it is not relative SIUYA and DbP have a far more realistic approach to the problem of Trading

Yes I quite agree ... Intelligence as we acknowledge it is much overrated ... even birds don't sh.t in their own nest and we regard them as dumb creatures. It is our humanity we need to grow, but it is at loggerheads with fear, ego and greed. And so basically we have never outgrown our fear.

Excellent start 40draws....... 1 ... you don't owe me or anyone else an explanation of your actions or beliefs 2 ... you are here to learn and Learners ask questions .. what is your question?

Hi 40draws, It is Saturday and I imagine you are replaying trading charts. I greatly admire your enthusiasm and I am not going to pollute your mind with my opinion or my experiences, but I am going to help you on your way with two pieces of advice. 1 ..do not open any windows other than the price window 2 ..do not apply anything to the price window other than horizontal lines. Also, I am going to throw in a huge bonus. If at any time you ask me for my qualifications as a Trader, I shall ignore your question. This means that I shall never lie to you, which is an enormous bonus on an open forum and especially this one. So just to recap ... no indicators .. no windows other than price ... no lines, highlights or notations other than horizontal lines on your price window. And no BS goodluck and we will talk again in five months.

Yes of course I believe that a newcomer can meet the six month deadline. I have not been a party to such an achievement but I hold the desire to succeed in any person, as almost immeasurable. What I do believe however is that the question of time/achievement in trading is too complex to be boiled down into two camps ....yes/no. Since your insightful contributions account for almost a quarter of the posts, I imagine this subject to close to your heart and I admire that and I think that you do care. I entered this game fifteen years ago with no experience of trading other than running a Forex book for my Companies and when I decided to switch to futures (after a couple of half decent cognacs) and reading a few books, I received a big surprise. What I had read and what was happening were quite unrelated. That is when I shut down my PC and thought the problem through. It is after all a logical problem that requires a logical thoughtful approach. What it demanded of me was more energy and commitment than I thought that a retired guy should give initially, but now it keeps me young.

Yes I quite agree DbP But who is going to tell our fresh young student, exactly what is resource and what is a scam. Is this going to be your job Db?

Quote: Originally Posted by DbPhoenix » Today there are virtually unlimited resources, including data archives. Db A fact that can either help or hinder, surely? BlueHorseshoe Yes, I agree with you Blue. The smell of all those electronic $$$$ and the apparent unfettered freedom of a free range chicken attracts people who are not suited to trading at all and they pay the same ultimate price as the chicken. And then there are people to whom Trading is a good match and as DbP points out if they learn what is important and learn to place to one side that which is not directly relevant, they will succeed. Then there are those who are initially unsuited but refuse to quit and if they are prepared to make all the changes necessary that their challenge requires, then they will also succeed.... for these people the journey is longer, but maybe the taste of success is all the more sweeter. I would never encourage a person to quit after six months. The Quitters will do that anyway. Frankly I admire people who stick at a task and overcome the obstacles and grow into the challenges along the way. These people can never lose no matter what their original goal may be.

"This paradox describes other traders, but most definitely it does not apply to me" And so this attitude brings us to 'self delusion versus reality' which is another layer of the onion of life that must be peeled away.

Thank you Db, I appreciate the time you took to explain your actions. Incidentally, I don't think that it is difficult to understand what motivates people, and by and large it has little to do with their self appraisals ... quite the opposite in many/most cases.

gm Db, Some people are born to teach and I am not one of those people. But I have a healthy curiosity for situations that are foreign to me in order to reduce their foreignness. And so my question to you Db is "what motivates you to teach" I am not interested in the cliche "those that can't resort to teaching" I would like to think that we are beyond that point. "what motivates you to teach"

Yes indeed ... this is the part that bothers me as well. The correct questions determine the correct answers, whether we ask them of others or ask them of ourselves.

Well Db, nobody can argue with that theory, least of all me ...but have you seen anyone achieve this feat ...

Are you a politician by any chance Db .... that is a very slick answer indeed ... bravo