bobajob

Yes - I was talking about true scalping. It's funny how scalping means so many things these days. I'm getting the message that it may not be viable now.

I was reading Chris Farrell's book - day trading online. In it his describes how, given a wide bid ask spread in a slow market, one can scalp the spread by trading just above the bid and below the offer. Now given that this is a viable strategy for stocks, but there is the Pattern Day Trading rule. Is there are similar futures market that has wide bid ask spread and relatively slow moving. Basically the opposite to what you usually want in a futures market?

what makes it professional? they can give you whatever price they want. And if you are good - they'll close you down.

Listen TAMS - i'm beginning to like you. Just ask yourself - do you really think I don't know whether I am using a Demo account or a paper trading account? One needs a fully funded account - the other not. I think I would notice a large withdrawl from my own account to fund it....(which I did). I haven't just come to trading in the last week you know. I may not have earned bragging rights but I've certainly been round long enough. Let's bury that hachet? Anyway - I would rather discuss with you how you trade the HSI. I think it looks to be a very powerful lucrative beast. My system is based of very short term Market Profiles. Seems like it has potential. And you?

Guys - LISTEN - it has been confirmed by IB: "I'll further go into the SIMULATOR issue. The real time order book depth that is disseminated from the HKFE is 5 deep. If the size of the book showing is less than 10 contracts the simulator isn't going to be able to provide the additional liquidity which is normally "hidden" in the HSI market. We could come up with some logic to counteract this but then again this is JUST A SIMULATOR." This is the issue. I only report here to let others know if they are using IB simulator for HSI. thanks. Have that TAMS!! (you get annoyed so easily) Just 'cus Aussies can't play cricket any more isn't my fault.

Sorry for not clearing this up sooner, but in fact the answer - no thanks to TAMS b*ll**ks. The simulator in IB cannot handle HSI trading due to the order book not displaying very deeply. So in short the bad fills - in the simulator at least - are due to a problem in the simulator. Just good to know for others who might have the same problem.

Yes - this trading is after the lunch break. In the UK (a couple of weeks ago) the afternoon session starts at 5:30 am

Hi Richard, I appreciate the feedback. The HSI trading was not out of hours in Hong Kong. An example of a multiple contract trade is: Market order to buy 2 contracts, Orders filled 1 @ 23004 @ 6:01:17 (UK time) probably 15:01 HK time second order filled 1 @ 23073 @ 6:01:17 As you can see the market had filled the exact previous contract 69 points lower. As I said before this is simulated trading, but I don't really want to see if this happens in actual trading before I get to the bottom of it. Regards,

Wow Tams - I really don't think I deserve this kind of attitude. I'm not some idiot that has just come in off the last banana boat. You seem to think I am asking about liquidity or something. I am merely asking - is this usual for the HSI market to fill trades 80 points from the market if you place a market order? Maybe it would be solved by placing limit orders, but I would like to understand why it may be happening on a simulated account and if it will happen in the actual market. Maybe the answer is Yes or NO. By doing simulated trading for a many months THIS IS MY DUE DILIGENCE.

Just a point - all this 'if you can only trade for an hour' then you're not committed. What should he do - give up his day job to trade????? Rubbish.

Tams - thanks for the reply, which I would say is a little harsh. My replies are below. number one lesson -- don't trade anything you don't know. I totally agree with this statement - that's why I'm learning on the simulator before actual trading. I merely wondered if I was trading the correct month, as HSI has a single month as the front month not every quarter. I should know the expiration though, true. number two lesson -- never use market order on thin markets. How is the HSI a thin market? True my method probably would benefit from limit orders but I want to test out how bad fills would be using market orders. But I would not expect market orders to fill 80 POINTS FROM THE MARKET. That's what this thread is about - why fills so far from the market. number three lesson -- don't be so cheap, get level 2 data. I am using level 2 data - why suppose I don't. Thanks.

I have been trading the after lunch session using Interactive Brokers - currently a simulator account, in addition to Bracket Trader front end. the last couple of days I was still trading the March contract - maybe I shouldn't be - not totally sure when the contract roll-over is. Anyway an number of my trades are either opened or closed out at about 80 points away from the actual market, always to hurt me, never in my favour. I would like to trade this market, but if I get action like this in real trading I am frankly dead. Anybody got experience of this - and where the problem comes from? My TWS software or the exchange (I guess though simulated trading doesn't really use the exchange). The market never traded anywhere near the fills I'm getting. Thanks for any info. Regards, Nick

This is a screenshot from SGX Nikkei contract March 11. Is this usual? Compared to other markets this seems like very little movement.

I'm also interested in alternatives to the US. I trade FTSE futures but being in the uk this means starting at 8 in the morning. I would ideally like to trade before that. I have recently started to researchn the SImex futures of the Nikkei, but for some reason the trading looks really thin. Also for some reason I can't get interactive brokers TWS to show the data in the asian session. Any ideas of markets is appreciated, NICK. Sent from my U20i using Tapatalk

Tim, Thanks for the info. For info I coded it into excel using TWS API and so can effectively get it for free. It is the foundation of my intraday trading method.

Please someone help. I have TWS by Interactive Brokers installed - and am trying to use the API with Excel 2007 and Vista. The excel sheet opens OK but when I request data - triggering the DDE - then excel hangs. I have the same setup on my laptop with XP and excel 2003 and it all works OK. Any ideas what might be causing it? Thanks.

Go and read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - the description of the old bucket shops is exactly what spread betting companies are today. I actually can't believe how same it is and yet it is still allowed. I have had a spread betting account, there is no doubt they can easily manipulate the fills that you get. Even if the wait 2 minutes to fill you they can then essentially give you the worst price the market offered for that 2 minutes to gain an advantage. Then again THEY are the market so they can give you whatever they want. For longer term trades this probably isn't a problem, but in the long term I am sure if you are profitable the will find a reason to terminate your account. Just like in the day's of Reminiscences. I would now never trade on a market that has no tranparency. Especially as I am day trading where it is impossible not to be highly effected by these guys. Just my two cents.

I must say I have been a little disappointed with the EL blog. When I first found it I was very happy to see what I thought was a true breath of fresh air. Unfortunately it has developed into the usual mentoring service. Now in itself I suppose you shouldn't ever be able to get something for nothing, but I think it has been the timing that has got me. Everything seems to have been planned right to the day, slowly tempting people in. What concerns me is for someone who has been trading for so long, with such a solid method, why do the indicators change - and markets that are traded are very variable. Lastly has there ever been a losing day? Probably I'm unfair - but it's made me wonder once again if there really is anyone out there actually trading profitably.

investor RT looks pretty good to me - I might go with that or just use the API with IB. I had already created an MP program in excel to do realtime charts using OpenTick. It should be pretty simple to modify it for IB. The main reason to do it is to get sub-minute TPOs which don't seem to be available in other platforms. Plus I have been using my simulator software in excel for a while and the move to realtime trading would be less of a change. Thanks

HI - I am soon to have an account with Interactive Brokers. I would like to trade intraday off Market Profile or Volume Profile charts made up of 15 minute profiles - with TPOs of either 1 minute but ideally 30 seconds. Does anybody know if this is available out there - and if possible whether it can be teamed with the data feed of interactive brokers? I think ATrader might be an option for me. Many thanks.

Anybody here trading the YM in the UK? I am looking for the best solution to trade in UK - with low commission rates. The day trading method I am looking to trade has a large number of trades per day, so costs need to be kept to a minimum. Interactive Brokers allows UK traders set up an account in pounds. I think TradeStation also has the facility too.

I am trying to see if bonds are 'not sexy - but worth a look'. Anyone got any 1 minute ZN (10 year) data that they would be willing to donate. If anyone is interested I plan to turn it into Market Profile graphs intraday. Thanks

Ronin - do you have any info or resources - or even links to trading bond futures? There is very little emphasis on this on sites about trading. I do have the Bond Basis book, which is technically excellent, but I wouldn't mind a bit of more human experiences described when trading the bond futures.

I have been looking at the bond futures too. They are more tradeable without doubt. I am looking to do intraday Market Profile on the bonds. I just wish there was slightly more volatility per day.

what's the price of doing that Momentom?