$5DAW

I have to ask, Where are you getting this information? Open Interest 343K ??? Must be "Cash/Spot" data,,,, but from whom?

I found Kathy's commentary on their new website, if anyone is interested. BK Asset Management | Kathy Lien, Boris Schlossberg, Managed Forex, Forex News

Thanks for the reply, I might just do that free trial. It's an old habit, I went to GFT this morning and there she was, first post in a week. And another post this evening, maybe my world isn't coming to an end. :rofl:

Boris Schlossberg and Kathy Lien are leaving gft to form their own managed forex fund. I've started my trading day by reading Kathy's commentary for years, been missing her insight on the GFT site lately and wondered why. I did a search and found this: http://forexmagnates.com/boris-schlossberg-and-kathy-lien-leaving-gft-to-form-their-own-managed-forex-fund/ I know, I know, I know,,,, you either love him/her or hate them. Like I said, I read her commentary before every trading session, I like it. I've never followed any of their trades. Was wondering if her commentary is (or ever was) posted on the BK Forex Advisor site, I never signed up there or "clicked around" much, I just read it at GFT. Anyone have any more info???

I've always liked your style josh. I've been toying with some out of the box displays you might be interested in. Before I get to far into this I want to jog your memory about a comment you made on a video you posted a while back about POC shifts. I'd have to go back and listen to it again to quote you, but the take away was, in your opinion, POC shifts were not statistically sound, I disagree. Time, price and volume, ain't much more I have to go on when deciding to enter a position. Over the last few years I've become almost entirely a volume trader, largely (past) POC shifts. I give no thought to candles, bars, opens or closes. The only reason there is an open or close is to designate the time segment. So my thought is if the EUR/USD (6E) traded 24 hours I would have an opening tick Sunday evening and a closing tick Friday night. But the Globex only trades 23 hours so I have "starts" and "stops" instead of opens and closes. If you keep that idea of starts and stops in mind and consider the rotation of the Earth there will be a start and stop for each trading session on every exchange around the globe during the 23 hours the Globex is available for trading. I came up with this chart by setting up my monitors in portrait mode, since I haven't gotten around to reinventing the wheel (yet) the Y axis is now the X axis, so to speak. Simply, price moves horizontally across the chart, Time is irrelevant, sort-of. What I look at at the opening bell is price not time,,, I don't think I'm alone with that. So during the "rotation of the Earth" when the Asian session begins to trade I capture that first tick of price to mark the event, not time. The current price is always highlighted on the top of the display and the volume profile begins to develop into the patterns we MP traders recognize, only rotated 90 degrees. Have you gotten out your tin foil hat yet? If not I'll add that I named a few of these trade-able patterns. The one on the bottom I call "the red rocks," the middle one can either be "the Chicago Bulls or Bears" (depending on direction) since the "tops" of the volume profiles resemble the tops of the John Hancock building and the Sears Tower. Lastly, the top profile is the "King Kong" pattern, if you were watching this profile build you would have witnessed King Kong jump from the Empire State building over to the Chrysler Building. Of course these profiles look a little different when they're building, but I'm sure you get the idea. I don't want to reveal much more of the secret sauce quite yet so I'll end by saying I believe, "The Close of a Bar is Meaningless," or should I say, "Bars are Meaningless."

It's right there under, Posts: 52 Ignore this User :doh:

What is "PBFSqueeze," I'm not familiar with that. Most often the BBand settings are a 20 period simple MA as suggested by Bollinger, and bands set to 2 standard deviations. So the "lag" will always be embedded in the average. I like this indicator (I just use the bands no fancy indicator), I also suggest getting/reading the book. I've found if BBands are used with a volume study to aid in confirming market direction (as suggested in "the book") my entries are significantly enhanced, you might get by with tick volume if your trading spot. I would caution you in any attempt to "reduce noise," I believe with some screen time with standard settings (and minimal "tweeking") you'll learn many trade-able signals. Most of my trade signals from the BBands are mean reversion, so the opportunity to overtrade is something I have to keep in mind on a range bound day. As a final suggestion, you might consider putting the bands on the chart and study/see/visualize how the "indicator" indicates and with a little more insight (screen time) you might not feel so compelled to "reduce the noise." It's so simple, a caveman can do it!! :rofl:

Yes, the charts are better, and the Std Dev lines look OK at first glance. But there is no need to use Image Shack for your posts. This is a great thread and you are posting links that will sooner or later be disabled. I used the search link and found this, http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/beginners-forum/805-how-post-chart-properly.html#post2806 maybe it will help. What time zone is posted on your charts, AND does Trade Station allow you to change the Start time of your VWAP indicator?

I think a trader can do very well with these studies, but they do have their limitations. The VWAP benchmark has been around for almost 20 years, it was developed in Asia in the early 1990's and has evolved to include the T(time)WAP and RV(relative volume)WAP. The +/- standard deviations of the VWAP often align with a prior or create a new major/minor support or resistance. How these levels are implemented into a trading system are as diverse as the individuals who trade them. IMO, there are many worthless VWAP and Volume Profile indicators being plotted on charts that give users a very poor experience with these studies. From what I can see of the studies on the chart you posted (which isn't much), I would question its accuracy. Please take the time and learn how to post your charts using the attachments (paper clip) icon, your chart is basically unreadable (to me).

I'd say this market was range bound just prior to a minor news release. Being the conservative trader that I am, I'd limit my trades to short scalps. Entering short each time the lower SMA (left hand) crossed above the higher SMA (right hand) and take profits quickly at the VWAP (middle C). Another nice trade might be (but I haven't back-tested it yet) go long on the previous low when the spread between the bars high and low exceed 70% of the sessions daily range, with a target on the previous high. I wouldn't hold any positions overnight/weekend because if the FED decides to implement the Bösendorfer Scale (a Bösendorfer 225 has 92 and a Bösendorfer 290 "Imperial" has 97 keys) or something similar you'll probably get stopped out just under the lows.

I have to agree with these comments. I confess, I have stacks of notebooks with manually calculated daily ranges, ave true ranges, ave failed moves, commitments of traders positions and the like. I've always thought calculating moves and charting a few instruments manually, kept me (my mind) more in tune with significant levels/prices like daily and weekly highs and lows. Keeping a note pad with a crude pencil drawn chart on my desk seems to embed these levels deeper into my mind than an orange or yellow line across a chart. e.g. can you remember last weeks high and low of the instrument you're trading without looking at your chart?

I don't know how this will post, may take some editing.

Thanks Do or Die for the great introductory post to this thread. I'm often reminded of my tendency to forget about the gray matter between my right brain and my left brain when I'm "ALL IN" one side or the other. Like many, I've been trading for many years, and must confess your quote above may have saved me countless hours/weeks/months of trying to turn Art into Math. I think on some level newbies must bounce between the two until they find their comfortable fit, but if they read your post and realize that's what they're doing, they may find their comfortable fit much sooner than later. I love the game, both sides of it, but today I'm well aware (most of the time) of which side of my brain is in the game and which side is (suppose to be) sitting on the bench. Thanks again for a great post.

Yes, it is. I think He's sending a clear message, :rofl:

Ingot54 I think you've nailed it down right here :hmmmm: We've all read the articles and seen the videos on high speed trading, we know they're in the market waiting to pounce on our orders/stops, but what can we do to adapt? I trade the euro futures and for a few years now I have two methods that (so far) still work. One is a trend follower, it seems to survive the flash "sweeping of the book" that appears to happen more and more often intraday. The other method I use is primarily used around important news releases, since IMO that's when the action is. I use a combination of time/price/volume histograms along with a VWAP charting out five standard deviations for four different session opens. I'm not really interested in the bias of the news because computer programs "don't give a shit." All my trading is intraday and I only trade around opens, closes and news. I hung up my scalpers jock strap long ago and lost faith in the old school indicators when used on time based charts shorter than ten or fifteen minutes. I watched the 60 Minutes segment (rerun I think) and two lines, IMO say it all. I'm paraphrasing, "the speed (of trading) is limited to, how fast electrons can travel." And the other (punch in the gut), "we have no way of knowing, what goes on in these computers (at the co-location)." I find the last statement almost unbelievable.

Ingot54 I always enjoy reading your posts/threads, although somewhat wordy (at times:)) I feel the "take away" is worth my time. I saw the "Floored" documentary awhile ago (seems like over a year{?}) and watched your 8 part series as a refresher, BTW thanks for posting that. I'm lucky to say I've been to the visitors gallery at the CME when crowds of traders were trading there, now my visit is just a fading memory. I believe the thoughts/comments you've posted run through the minds of many traders, especially new struggling traders searching for that elusive style/method that "fits" their personality. I did find this posted on the web the other day, more information to weigh on your or others decision. High-Frequency Traders Descend onto Forex Markets. What are the Implications for Retail Traders? | Forex Blog

It's not often I have the opportunity to rub cyber elbows with a nuclear engineer, keep it up phantom, I'm here and taking notes.

This may be the key, not so much growing or enhancing your physical appendages but growing psychologically. Most everyone has commented on this and I agree, something is missing between the work you've done identifying your edge and its implementation. I will say, jumping ten fold in size seems a bit extreme, but who among us doesn't want to add another zero to their account. I've found, finding the maximum anticipated draw-down and multiplying that x 2 and adjusting my positions/risk to fit within my comfort zone works for me. Maybe it's 1/3 or 1/4 or 1/2 only you can make that call. If I'm stressed when I enter a trade, I'm almost always doing something I haven't proven to myself beyond the shadow of doubt, the probabilities of positive results are in my favor. By reading your post I get the feeling you're going to do something, right or wrong. Just stay within your comfort zone, and I'm sure everything will work out fine. Good luck and nice job on the edge by the way

I believe you have written a very informative post, great job. In these few paragraphs many key elements to successful trading jump out at me. Emotions, have certainly pushed me along my trading career, sometimes not so gracefully. Persistence, 7 years is a long time in most anyone's opinion, and the many books , cd's courses, etc shows me you sure kept your eye on the prize. Discipline, "It was not easy to stick to the plan for a month," anyone who's tried it knows this is a great truth, and don't think I'm negating fact that you had a plan to follow in the first place, most don't, IMO. Replication, Having "handful of setups" that you could replicate trade after trade and then evaluate the results takes a lot of study, backtesting and screen time, again great post SRspider.

rocky, I'll add to the book list. This book cleared up many of the misconceptions I had about computerized trading and offered valuable insight as to just how elaborate the orders can be inside professional algorithmic trading systems. I believe you have a good grasp on the T&S strip and combining that with "what works for you" will serve you in good stead. Amazon.com: Algorithmic Trading and DMA: An introduction to direct access trading strategies (9780956399205): Barry Johnson: Books

@ rocky9281 First and foremost, you misquoted me, you omitted the word hypothetically in your #1 quote. Your assessment of Q1-Q6 is dead on, it is impossible to trade outside the bid/ask spread. The exchange will always match the closest bid/ask and execute at that price, end of subject...... and expand and contract the spread if/when needed. If you're a small retail trader (like me) and are not connected to one of the exchanges co-location servers, we are forced to trade against an approximation of the only true order book which exists on the exchanges computers. That's the sad fact Data transfer or latency is one of the demons in the T&S closet, this is where the trades outside/inside the bid/ask are spawn. These trades are only outside/inside the latest bid/ask spread as it is sitting on our computers not the exchanges "Master Order Book." Even the exchange will footnote their T&S data with "fast market conditions" remember we're talking in 1000ths of a second (milliseconds) here, a lot of trading can happen in a few seconds when the "bots come alive." So no trade is left behind, the order book at the exchange is always cleared and is always right, it is our DOM and T&S data that is slow to print.

Me too Hypothetically the single answer to your six questions (Q1-Q6) and three question concerning above, below and inside (Q1-Q3) is yes, that's how it's suppose to work. But be warned, there are demons in the T&S closet. Icebergs, submarines, and child orders are a few of these ghost-like demons. Also latency is a biggie, HFTraders can display IOC (immediate or cancel) orders that appear for a twentieth of a second (50 milliseconds) on another exchange (if available) and then switch sides or remove their order completely just as fast. For perspective, it takes 300 to 400 ms to blink the human eye. At these speeds of execution my "old school" methods based on old school indicators suffer greatly, when trading to close to the flame. IMO, if you are a retail trader and do not have an army of programmers at your disposal you could be chasing your tail for quite some time. If you are a trader worth his salt, you will exhaust all known possibilities (within your/our means) and make little progress. Here is a sentence or two from a resent article I read. It was no accident that Fidelity bought Wealth Labs — a build, design and backtester of systems — allegedly because the company wanted to know what others were doing, so that it could take advantage of them. In other words, perhaps Fidelity wanted to assume the opposite side of the systems on the basis that the vast majority of systems are designed to be trend-followers. There's another great article on this topic in the May 2011 issue of Futures Magazine, "New world but similar headaches," it's worth a read. I'm not bashing HFTraders, in fact I like the liquidity they provide but IMO they do require me (as a day trader) to be a lot more alert and a lot more patient before I enter my orders.

Several years ago I heard Mark Cook's talk at a conference, he talked about new traders coming to his farm in Ohio for personal training. He reported most everyone that came to him wanted to trade the S&P. He went on to say he would take them out to his barn and ask them if they ever rode a horse. He had two horses, a lazy old nag and a prancing Thoroughbred. Then he would ask, "IF you wanted to learn how to ride a horse, which horse would you choose?" I agree with AuctionMarket_Trader, IMO the key word is IF. This is a great thread with a great debate, dreams are hard to quiet in most people.

I'm not a cash market trader, but I'm wondering if your statement above involves fractional pips, the fifth decimal place that some brokers quote prices in. As many have said up-thread, this is another one of the "tricks" bucket shops use (fractional pips) to offset the illusion of no commissions. It's all in the marketing

I'm not sure what you're asking, but this may help. http://www.futuresmag.com/Issues/2010/December-2010/Documents/Top50_2010.pdf Or http://www.futures-brokers-directory.com/