TheDude

Speaking of desks, here's one I want - It's art deco from Pasadena. The triangular shape gives it a nice feel. It would fit well in a corner, but then there wouldnt be any room for a couple of screens. In the middle of the office would be good - facing the door. I almost bought one in a store near me that specialises in this sort of stuff - modern classics but it had gone. Modernism Gallery > American Art Deco Furniture > American Art Deco FLETCHER Aviation Desk

I wouldn't bother with any 'technique' books. What you need to reed is Enhancing Trader Performance by Brett Steenbarger. Thats all you need book wise. However if you do really want a few techniques/methods to start you off, get them free off the internet. Screen time is where you learn. You cant learn to trade from reading a book, just like a great chef never really learnt much from cookery books.

Hi Lucid, I'm interested to hear what you have to say - I'll keep an open mind, so thanks for your input. One question I have about this trade. Correct me if/where I'm wrong, your structure/position will be as follows: +EUR, -USD - GBP +USD As I see it, your USD position is in fact flat, and what you actually have is long EUR/GBP. I fail to see where correlation comes in to this. If YEN/USD had no correlation to GBP/USD and I did the same, I'd have a YEN/GBP position. Sorry if I'm being stupid, I just dont see where correlation comes into play. :doh:

So I imagine you are using a tightly correlated instrument as a leading indicator?

I trade insults with traffic wardens.

Hi MMS, This is an interesting point in this last sentence. Do you (or any other day traders) have any stats on the number of trades that never, ever, never, ever see red? This was my first profitable electronic method years back when I traded EuroFX. Sick to the stomach with losing, I realised if I just whacked the stop in at entry after each trade, I'd scratch on 90%, take a small loss on those that just reverse, but 5% would win. Half of these wins were small but would cover trading costs, the other half would be my pay. These were the trades that shoot off and never look back - I'd just stay in managing on bigger time frames as it progressed. I'd like trade for a week sometimes before seeing any pay. Those were the days, but I learnt a lot!!! Eventually it became less fruitful as everyone started trading the contract. That meant more rotations and only 2% making anything at all. All good things come to an end. Less liquidity can be a good thing for a junior. I'd trade corn or something if I was starting out now, not ES etc where they all get killed.

Hi Weed, Please can you explain this a bit more please? To my understanding, if I have a position with a FX bucket shop, then they are my counter party. My stop sits with them, and them only as the price they publish to their customers (you and me) is based around what the real spot fx market is doing. In fact, my order never really sees the real FX market - it is just a bet with the FX bucket shop. I say this because you can not place orders for any less than $500,000 in the real FX market. Even then, nobody would want to trade with you as minimum deals tend to be multi-million in the banking/real market. Therefore, to my thinking, there is no 'professional money' to go after your stops, as such participants do not have accounts with FXCM, O&A etc. Even if they did, they would have nothing to gain as the FX broker is their counter party, not another customer. You're not trading on an exchange - it's decentralised and not that well regulated. Given the business model in which a retail FX broker operates then, he can only derive income in one of two ways: 1/ Customer losses. He is relying on the statistic that most people depositing funds will blow it with in 6 months. 2/ Piggybacking successful traders who have been identified. Scenario 1 is the more likely. If your business was scenario 2, you'd be better off posting a job ad. What better way to create a customer loss than pinching stop-loss orders by quoting 1-3 ticks away from the market when near a TA level - where everyone places their stops? Besides, your counter party/broker knows your position, your account size, and where your orders are!!! He probably also has some BI software running as well to identify common behavioural patterns. I look forward to your input - or anyone elses if I am wrong here. Thanks, Dooderino.

The position will be so huge and complex it will introduce not only execution risk, but issues from surprise events that may push some illiquid pair off course easily. You'd be better off sticking your money in a long term closed account at the bank for 10-15% JMO. Why don't you give it a shot and let us know how you get on?

DTN/IQ does provide DOM, but it's an extra $20 https://www.iqfeed.net/index.cfm?displayaction=data&section=account&menu=1&signup=premiums Ive used IQ for 5ish years now. I've never missed a tick - it's always up. I admit now and then I do get a very small lag (1/2 sec), but its rare and doesnt bother me for how I trade. I've no experience with Zenfire or Ninja.

I see what you mean BlowFish. At the moment, Im just interested in the stats, with no plan to turn it into a system as such, but rather gauge the probabilities if I am in a trade. Take today as a fine example of what you said by days when the gap doesnt close. As the probability is for the gap to close, the days when it doesnt should provide some pretty big opportunities as they suggest that the market is out of balance. I guess Taleb would call these the tails when the market is out of kilter - MP just happens to help us ID these more easily IMO. Today we opened well outside of yesterdays range, with an overnight/pre-open range. We know from MP theory that yesterdays value has been rejected. Will the open accept the new level by rotating, then perhaps falling further, or will it reject the open and close the gap? Watching the first minutes of trading, and seeing it stay below the pre-open range, it becomes apparent this ain't stop running ready for a rejection & gap close. There is only one way.... Oddly (this was chance, not skill), I had my target at 37.50 So far that is todays low. Did I get a fill? Of course not!!!

Geez Thanks Elias you twatbrain. I'm gunna be rich!!!

This may make you black gold boys laugh..... UPDATE: UK FSA Fines Former Oil Broker GBP72,000 For Mkt Abuse - WSJ.com Fess up. Which one of you was it :haha:

From what I understand, HFT's will generally take a trade if the perceived payout (2c) covers costs minimum. If it does, the trade is taken. And why not? Money is money. 2c x 1 gooozillion trades a day adds up to rent, beer money + a night out with a lady of your choice Look at ES scalpers. They only do 1-2 ticks per trade, but on a 300 lot 50 times a day, that aint bad money, even if a load of them scratch. Different strokes.

LOL - go feed your monkey AmCan1 Look at this sexy beast - she's just a dying to be clicked all over!!! http://www.blogcdn.com/www.switched.com/media/2008/09/2535981801_9e05ee9412_o_switched.jpg

Good point Tams. After all, if there is a higher probability of half gap fills, its probably easier to make more money through position sizing - although risk would also increase accordingly if we assume we pick a stop where the market proves us wrong. To my thinking, that point of reversal confirmation will be the same for both full or half gaps - if we use technical levels which to my thinking would make sense as we are using technical levels (full or half gap) to potentially exit. If we have a R ratio for each trade of 1:2 as a criteria, then we will get less opportunities perhaps? Sorry, I don't understand your 2nd point.

Thanks for that Tams. I'd imagine that the half gap would have a higher probability, but would it be that much better? If we consider a gap to be a sign of excess, or minus development, then 'in theory' if the gap gets halfway, it 'should' go the whole way as the buyer/seller who created the gap are no longer/less active at that price. There could be a counter auction or pull back at the half gap point, but this could simply be fib traders coming in. Having said that, I think these findings I posted are just something to be mindful of when in a trade. e.g. yesterdays close could now be a useful level to monitor if in a trade as a target/scale point.

Has anyone got any stats for the probability of a market closing the gap between yesterdays close and todays open? I did a backtest on ES M0. I used the Globex RTH close which occurs 15 mins after the cash close. I disregarded whether the open was inside or outside of yesterdays range. Out of 80 days of data: Gap closed during Initial Balance (60min) 16 days Gap closed after Initial Balance 26 days Gap not closed 22 days Gap too small (<3 points) 16 days If we disregard the days where the gap is too small/not tradable, we get: 66% days will close the gap, 59% of these days will close it after IB periods 34% will not close the gap. Has anyone looked into this in other markets, or have the facility to automate such a test on a wider sample of data? :missy: I thought this could be an interesting topic, but in no way intended to conflict with JPearls valuable contributions around Market Stats.

Is this just an audio recording, because I cant see any charts that he talks about. Thanks

Wow! Were you one of the original SOES bandits? That would make you part of trading history legends. That was real trading back then; a definable edge with reason and logic that you could write out on a piece of paper and easily teach others to do - just like being on the floor. Trading round support/resistance just doesn't have that does it? Although we all do it, most of it is in the eye of the beholder.

You guys should get a job in market surveillance at the exchange - or failing that a security guard monitoring CCTV screens! Me? I trade 1 market at a time as a day trader, so I just have a humble 2 screens. One for trade platform, the odd spread sheet for records, the other with 2 charts (long and short time frame). I'd post a photo, but it aint that interesting, and unlikely to give you chaps a turn on More screens = more information = more conflicting info = more distraction = more hesitation = less profit. I just want to know if it's going up or down and a gauge of order flow behind the move. No rocket science - which is a shame, because I'm good at that. I guess we're all different, but I'm the Dude :haha: But in fairness, I can see why a stock day trader or options trader or anyone who wants to monitor (no pun intended) loads of markets at the same time would want a load of screens, but not a simple guy like myself.

Agreed. I bet it has a chapter on Money Management, and another on the importance of psychology. I'm gunna write a book one day, and it will be called 'How To Make Money Trading'. It will be about 4-6 pages and not have a single chart - well maybe one or two. The 4-6 pages will just be about 1 aspect of trading - position management. I will sell it for $5,000 - about the price of a basic retail account. I think my price will hit the sweet spot. Although it may seem expensive at $1k per page, the probability is that any newbie will lose his $5k without reading my book. What I'm selling therefore is more time. Years in fact. Anyone want to save a few years staring in a screen for $5k?

Thanks TLadmin. I came back to see if anything had been done, and low and behold...the floating ads are gone! I can read content again!! Like the new logo, didn't like the ads. Cheers,

Wow! Doing that kind of volume, I wonder if he's entitled to volume rebates from the Merc? :haha: At least it shows OEC can handle surges in demand! (I dont use OEC)

I cant read your post cos the damn floating add covers the text. I can read it now in quotes. Anyway, I don't like installing loads of this odd stuff on my PC - it slows it down Im sure. Unfortunately, this is the end of the road of TL for me. The site is now unusable using Google Chrome, and I don't see why I should change my browser just for one web site. I may return in a week or so to see if anything has been done about the ads. In case this is my last post, I'd like to thank every one for their help. Bye. The Dude.

Hi, I keep getting these banner ads on TL down the right hand side of my screen from your sponsors like DB FX. The problem is that there is no way to close them, and they float, so are still there as I scroll up and down a page. They cover screen content making it impossible to read threads. The result is they make a visit to this web site rather pointless. Please can you get rid of them. I understand you need to advertise, but floating ads that cant be closed is just annoying. Thanks