Tiobingo

I thought I'd give a warning based on my own experience using the new hydraulic nail gun I got for christmas. This thing really flies. I could build a new fence in my back yard 10 times faster than swinging a hammer. And, no more painful purple finger nails. In fact, no more finger nails at all. I have blown off 5 of my ten fingers in no time at all. And I still don't have a fence. Guess I should have read the rules more carefully, taken the responsibility to get better trained, and come up with a plan that didn't have my fingers as part of it. What a lousy nail gun.

This looks like an interesting indicator but I'm not sure how to go about using it? What is it supposed to tell us?

CType, some trades will win and others will lose and you can't be too worried about trying to avoid the losses that fit within the winning results of a system that gives you a winning edge over time. If you try to avoid the losses, you'll wind up ironically, missing the winners and getting the losses anyway. To make matters worse, most people will find some 'thing' to blame rather than their own lack of a well researched tradeplan and their own failings as a trader. You ask an excellent question but I think that the more important questions you need to find answers to are questions like: What should I trade? How should I trade it? The answers to those questions will come from some good old fashion hard work that would result in a good winning tradeplan. Read a lot of the posts on this forum and you'll soon learn that many traders have not bothered to do that kind of preliminary work. You could tell from their questions (and responses). Some have, of course, and you can also tell from what they say. Try to find a good mentor or trade coach.

Lots of great advice and I imagine you're as confused as ever. Everyone makes good points. Hopefully when all is said and done, you'll learn to make better trade decisions based on a strategy that you have done enough home work on, to have the confidence in knowing that it is effective. No one makes real money on any one trade or another. The real money is made on an edge that your overall trade strategy and 'tradeplan' give you in the market. The problem with fretting a particular trade is that once it is over, as a trader, now you have to take another trade. And another. . etc.. Without a plan, most wind up failing. You're experiencing one reason why, right now, in real time. Get the most value out of this by learning the right lessons. Good education doesn't come cheap. Good luck.

My trade strategy always brackets an order, with a target and a stop. I will trade a 2nd position with a trailing strategy as well. Typically, as per my trade system, I enter a trade where my entire trade profile is predetermined; where my entry is, my fixed target, my initial stop.. also, how I manage the trade as it progresses. Where price has to go to trigger some trade mgt rules; reducing risk, locking in a little bit of profit, exiting a position at my predetermined fixed target, and then letting the remainder run with a trailing stop strategy. My entire trade is a component to a greater tradeplan that acts as my roadmap each and every session. I know when I start my session, how long I trade for, and even have a dynamic, self adjusting daily goal setting strategy that guides me regarding my trigger to stop trading. My tradeplan allows me to quit positive on most sessions while also allowing me to take what the market wants to give me, vs what I want out of the market. In the end, I have done my research to establish an edge in the market and that's what I trade and how I trade. The stops are a key part to the overall plan. Hope that helps.

I realize this thread hasn't been too active lately but I just happened upon it again and thought I'd chime in with my 2 cents. I'm a channel trader myself and have consistent success. One of the key ingredients that I attribute my success to is the notion that less is actually more, when trading. I like to use a goal strategy that is dynamic. The goals are dictated by what the market is willing to give me. I try to get my trading done as quickly and efficiently as possible and then turn everything off and get on with my day, away from trading. Psudan mentions how you potentially leave a lot of profit on the table but you can flip that coin over too. How many times have you had a profitable session only to take one or two more trades, and wind up giving your hard earned gains back to the market? Quitting positive on most sessions and moving your account forward on a consistent basis makes a lot more sense to me. Also, so many people under estimate the other costs involved to trading too much, each day; there's a real wear and tear on a person that takes place, potential for more mistakes due to market fatigue and every day life distractions, etc. Nope! For me it's about quality vs. quantity and when it comes to consistent success as a trader, less is more. That's my humble opinion.

Cuttshot makes good points. The ES is an advanced market and I believe you can do better elsewhere. What do you do when you hit your target and you don't get filled, which happens all the time on the ES. Then your trade backs off a few ticks. Now what? The 12.50 tick is expensive especially when you start factoring in slippage and the cost of having to market out like in the example above. Trading is hard enough to then have to put up with those additional challenges. There's no need to. I'd much rather trade the Russell emini, but then, that's what makes a market. Finally, anyone who isn't capitalized properly shouldn't trade any emini in my view. Better off starting with small forex positions. Even the best systems lose a few in a row and if you're undercapitalized, you'll be dead and your winning system will not do you any good at all.

That's great Guy. Thanks again. I recently opened up an stock and option account with Think or Swim and just funded a forex account with them too. I think I'll go ahead and open up a small fxdd accnt too, just to have a way to trade the same pair but with a different timeframe. I'd like to be able to swing trade in one position but also have the flexibility to take day trades which might go in the opposite direction so it seems that having two fx accnts is necessary for a well rounded trade plan/portfolio.

Hey thanks for the endorsement of FXDD. I was thinking I'd try them out too. I'd like to have an MT4 platform and I believe they provide that, no? I actually use Tradestation though for all my charting and for trading futures including the Russell emini, etc. MT4 would be a backup for forex. Wow, TJ. SST putting up some impressive results with TF. I've been following your crude posts too. What a run. 36 out of the last 38 sessions winning? 8 winning weeks since the SST's debut. That's incredible! I can see it as I visually scan the chart you use with the SST. Nice work!!

I think I heard that Mark was trading the BP with SST. But you must have read my mind czo! I was justing thinking about the BP futures today. I heard TJ mention that the GBPUSD 233 tick was one of the winniest charts when he was developing SST way back when, but he never mentioned anything about the BP. Have you done any preliminary testing on it?

BlowFish, thanks for the idea. If I can take the liberty of answering your question about UTA, the SST is the newest and coolest (and quite frankly I'm hitting home run after home run with it) trade system by NetPicks. The UTA is the trade tool that NP teaches us all to use in analyzing our trades, learning the new SST system and creating our tradeplans with. Since so many of us UTA users are now SST members, I think that's probably why there has been such an influx into this 'UTA' specific forum. I've been testing the EURUSD 5 minute chart with the UTA and like many of the members posting in this forum, I have not been a big fan of time based charts. But I am learning, with my use of the UTA tha the 5 minute chart is very effective using SST with EURUSD. Best of all, it's simple and consistently is profitable. Great stuff!!

I agree with jaturner. It seems the 5 minute chart with eurusd has been unstoppable. It seems counter intuitive given how dynamic SST is and how undynamic a time based chart is. I am now very curious about other 5 minute charts with some of the other major pairs. Has anyone started testing any of those yet? I wonder what TJ is up to. Also, my curiosity is having me think about some other timeframe charts, like a 3 minute. Or if that is too small, maybe a 7 or 10 minute. I'll let everyone know if I come up with something.

Jim, Thanks for starting this post. I too like to use range bars. My question would be if anyone has found a way to get more data. I use Tradestation and find that the available data is very limited so it's hard to gain confidence from the limited results of my backtesting. I'm curious what others are doing in regards to this.

I think Cuttshot and MadScientist offer a great clue into what it takes to be successful on a consistent basis as a trader. Mighty Mouse does ask a very important question too. To me, obviously, there are no guarantees that a market or system will continue to trade the way it does and no one knows for sure when the tide will turn or if it has turned. I have certain key stats that I monitor and I use a tool that looks very closely at my trade data. I can see when key stats start to drop off and while it might fall into the 'art part' of trading, I think if you remain vigilent and don't become complacent, the trader instinct will have you always looking for improvement and keep you on your toes. No easy answer though to a very good question. But all we can do is go with a system that wins more than it loses and try to put the odds in our favor on each trade. That's really all we have control over (that and risk management) afterall.

Thanks for the tip Moyyim but I'm already a trader and one of the reasons I chose this path was so I wouldn't need to be recruited. I appreciate the thought though. By the way, my trader's discipline paid off again as I took home the goods after this past Saturday's game. Lol..