BlowFish

ELD is the format of easy languages script files. Sometimes called ELA's which was an older format. Rather than write numbers (that are hard to digest) why not use different shading to represent the intensity of the volume? You could have a background behind '0' go from a very pale red to dark red and 'X' go from pale blue to dark blue for example. That also preserves the symetry of the O and X which I think is important. You would need pretty large boxes to print maybe a 4 or 5 digit number in. Just athought. I am guessing you don't want to pay for this? I came across a couple of guys who sell P&F software for tradestation. They may change there stuff if they could see it adds value towhat they are selling. Cheers.

Good tips. I would add that you can get two upwaves back to back or an upwave and a sideways wave. Some would call those inversions I guess. Elliot never made sense to me untill I broke the building block into smaller chunks. His 1,2,3,4,5 is actuall two abcd's in the same direction. Even then its too complex. The more esoteric Gann stuff (well stuff that his followers attribute to him) is more focused on time than price also. Cheers.

Yes of course I am well aware of that. :-) It was just an anecdote of how things can go wrong. It was one of the largest single losses I have taken, probably the largest. Of course in the days of phone trading there was much more that could go wrong. I thought this took the discussion into a broader and more useful direction..."know exactly where your orders are held" and "always check whether your orders have been elected or not". Having orders busted (a perfectly good order that has been accepted by the exchange cancelled at a later time) is another frustrating experience usually due to some fat fingered trader placing an order for 10k rather than 10 but that's another story. It amazes me that people would consider executing a trade without understanding the basic nuts and bolts of the exchange. Cheers.

So many tools focus on price it is always of great interest to come across something that is orientated towards time. I know a couple of Gann gurus who maintain finding inflection points in time is much easier than finding inflection points in price.

Not sure about Nymex I have never looked at it ... that may be why we see different things. I don't trade ECBOT on a regular basis (well have not for a while) so would have to check. That may be one of the weird ones that needs a stop limit to go native (as opposed to a regular stop). The moral of the story of course is know your orders and know where they are held! At least with IB you know exactly where the order is held by the colour code.

IB provide native stops in all the markets I trade Eurex Globex CBOT CME. If memory serves me correctly when I checked out asia they do for Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. As far as far as I can tell if an exchange supports an order they provide it natively. I'm not sure what you are basing your information on but I think you are mistaken. I guess you could be talking about spot forex but as that is not really a 'real' market there is nowhere to hold stops natively (unless you count taking a bet with your broker a 'real' market). I dont use IB's platform directly I use an "order helper". However you can see exactly where your order is graphically on there traders workstation (TWS). Once it goes green in the appropriate column you can be sure it is sitting on the exchange. IB Has its faults but breadth of markets you can trade and orders you can use in those markets are not one of them. Cheers, Nick.

I wonder what this belief is based on? Just interested from a purely academic point of view. I will always give the benefit of the doubt unless something clashes with my own market beliefs which are based on "truths" I have discovered or verified for myself. Having said that I still keep keep a healthy degree of scepticism untill I can verify things. You seem pretty adamant and I just wondered what made you feel this way. PM me or ignore my question if you don't feel its appropriate for here.

How would you display the volume? You cant put it on the X axis (as you only have 1 space per column) and you can't put it on the Y axis (as you only have 1 space per row). I would hazard a guess there is/are P&F ELD(s) knocking around somewhere that you could probably modify.

I had a bad experience once when an order held at my brokers (IB) was not elected due to their communications with globex going out the split second that it was hit. It disappeared off my trading screen so I though OK all is well. about a couple of hours later I got a message saying that it had not gone. Cost a lot. Just another lesson albeit an expensive one. Most exchanges support either a stop or a stop limit natively (some support both) - just use a stop with a large limit if its the latter.

Another guy I like for confluence of levels (rather than time) Is Jim Kane. I got all his stuff and while I don't trade fib it is quality material (caveat - imo).

Its a couple of things I guess. Its looking for some sort of affirmation/validation through the markets. The old adage 'would you rather be right or rich'. Obviously (or maybe not) I would rather be 'rich'. The ego of course would rather be right and screw the making money. For me this manifests itself through closing trades too early perhaps before the 10 ticks/pips! This allows the ego to be 'right' but certainly adversely affects the bottom line. I am lucky enough to have retired from my previous profession enjoying some moderate success. I think I am looking for some sort of 'validation' through the markets to replace what I got there. Ironically one of the reasons I was paid so well was that I was not fearful of making decisions they would all be right at the time and if later proved wrong they would be reversed re-worked replaced whatever it took. A fine ethos for trading. I knew I was damn good and I just did it. The ironic part is I find it much much harder to do this trading! Of course I know to be 'right' all I need to do is stick with the plan and that it is nothing to do with any particular trades outcome. I really have what I think is a good solid and more importantly realistic view of what the markets are and how they work. Intellectually I know there is no room for my ego. Anyway that will do for now. I re-read Zen in the markets by Eddie Toppel recently. A great little book - he promotes the idea that most trading errors are due to ego and that to really experience real success and get in the 'flow' you must completely eliminate it from your trading. I don't share all his views but it was Eddie that first turned me on to the idea that the ego was at the root of many trading errors. Cheers.

Carter legit. Setups Lame. Well lameish - some of the underlying principles are sound (e.g. BO after volume and volatility dry up). More valuable to just see a 'squeeze' and understand whats going on behind it.

Ego. In answer to cooters original question. I think thats the major reason for me.

I think Fischer goes into time projections but not in any great detail. Have to say his book never really 'clicked' for me but it is fairly comprehensive from the point of view of topics covered. I wrote some tradestation code a while ago to find potential turnng points. Basically I'd load up a a whole bunch of intraday bars and record all the swing hi swing low points. I'd then project all the major fibs in time and have confluences marked as a histogram based on the 'stregth' of confluence from memory I didnt bother unless there where 3 or more. While it was a fun project it didn't look good enough to trade. Just seemed to indicate too many turns that didn't materialise, but to be honest I didnt go much further trying to improve it. Cheers, Nick

Yes its pretty easy to come up with a stratergy to make money on random enteries, try it, it works. If you can do it with a small basket of diverse instrumens you can actually make reasonable and consistant money. Also I agree with what you say about exits being key, (though of course good entries can help :-) (sorry I did not get that from your original post). If you scale in and scale out thats fine but to make any sense of what you are doing you must evaluate each part of the trade sperately. For example if you enter with 2 lots and a stop of - 1.5 take half off at +1.5 and trail a stop on the rest -- evaluate this as two seperate trades (that share the same entry criteria) a 1.5 scalp with 1:1 RR and the bigger swing with trailing stop. You will surely discover they have different characteristics. The 1:1 almost certainly will smooth your equitey curve and often times is actually more profitable than the trailing part. Also if you take say 3 losses with 2 contracts you will need to have 6 wins at the 1:1 target or a win where the trailing portion goes to +7.5 points to get back to where you started. With 5 losses (inevitable with a 50% 60% or even 70% system) things can start to get ugly. Of course each to there own but I prefer to take everything off at 1:1 and have a higher % winners or trail everything if there is good momentum going. Really the big advantage of the scale out type senario is psychological. The thinking goes once you have 'paid for the trade' you are 'playing for free'. It certainly wont increase your bottom line - either the trailing piece or the fixed peice will be more profitabe. It can be no other way. If you look at your results (real or simulated) you will see this clearly. Many 'pros' will actually advise scaling in rather than out. (certainly the trend traders). The thinking is that a trade is most at risk early in its life so it is better to take a loss on a small portion of your position. From a maximising profit point of view this is a better propsition. Of course maximum profit is not the only objective. As I mentioned before psychological comfort and or a smooth equity curve may be more important to you. If you dont run the figures how can you know? My point really is do your own due dilligence - examine your figures (with a simulator if you dont have real data) and really understand what effect changing parameters will have. If you wanna know if coin toss entries work and how they work - try it for yourself - thats the only way you can be sure. And of course really understand RoR. That really is the key figure for deciding position size. While it is partly true to say that most traders fail due to undercapitilisation or overtrading (trading too big for there account size) imo its because they do not understand the RoR. Cheers.

I guess it is safe to say there is often more than one agenda going on most times. It is not hard to make an argument that a thin market is easier to mark up/down for whatever reason. The 'smart' money may not actually be 'smart' they may simply be A US company hedging $50 million against European sales. I am talking multinationals and even governments when it comes to forex. Another type of 'smart' money are the 'insiders' like specialists and market makers. They are likely to play in thinner markets thier only agenda may be to find order flow and exploit it. Incidentally anyone who can read a chart can make a pretty good guess where there are orders likely to be bunched. Having said that the chart under discussion does look very 'blocky' and thin. It is one I would be wary of trading when a lot of the bars are just a few ticks wide and opening low and closing high or vice versa. It just dosen't have well formed bars. Like any analysis VSA isn't perfect and I think thats due in part to my original point. Often there are various participants with conflicting agendas. You can often see the fight but sometimes the outcome isn't clear. As an example differentiating stopping volume in a down leg (that allows the trend to resume) from 'climatic' volume that signify that the trend is over can be subtly hard. I would say actually sometimes it is impossible. Maybe I'll post some charts - not to try and "catch anyone out" but I know if I can better identify the difference it will improve my trading. Perhaps discussion will allow us all to see things that we did not before. PP I have to say I am very inclined to look at the currencies despite the fact you use tick volume as a proxy they seem to be a much easier read than the indexes. Now it could be that you have selected 'clean' charts to illustrate a point. I'd be interested in seeing some tougher ones. Cheers.

The reason people keep limit risk on any single trade percentage of there margin is to prevent blowing up. Your risk of ruin grows significantly as you put more margin at risk on any single trade. As an example if you had a rigged roulette table that paid red 60% of the time would you bet all of your stake each spin? How long would you last? Would you bet 2%? 10%? 50%? Why? If you had a roulette table that paid 70% of the time would you risk more? How much more? The objective is to stay in the game, money will come if you do (and you have a positive edge of course). Cheers.

Hey there WS. You might take a look at Joe Ross' law of charts. He has a way of rigorously defining congestion. He has what he calls a 'measuring bar' (a wide range bar as opposed to a wide body bar). Essentially all the time bars/candles have an open of close within this measuring bar you have congestion. Early recognition of the type of trading you are in is one of the several important concepts in trading imho. I am not saying yay or nay on JR however his law of charts is an excellent place to start for a basic blueprint of price action. It defines pretty unambiguously trends, congestions, 'ledges' and corrections. btw the formation you describe is an 'upthrust'/'test' in VSA/Wycoff speak or a long leg doji in candle speak.....before you say "BlowFish you are out of your mind" ...let me qualify that...it is one of those formations over two bars. Put another way the formation you describe on a 5 minute chart would be a long leg doji on a 10 minute chart Cheers, Nick.

Fib welcome to the forums, I am fairly new here myself but its a quality venue. Isn't the YM 5$ a point? that would allow 10-15 point stops @ 2-3% (if my quick mental arithmetic is not out - it often seems to be nowadays). The 2-3% rule is a great rule of thumb that people quote to keep other people plunging in the deep end and drowning in a fairly short time. It goes hand in hand with "conventional wisdom" that you should pursue something like a 1:3 risk reward. The key thing really is risk of ruin and the amount at risk on each trade is just one component of this. Obviously if you have a higher percentage of winners in comparison to losers you can put more at risk on each trade without increasing the overall chance of ruin. Ironically one of the main ways to increase your percentage of winners is widening your stops (in comparison to your target). As you quite rightly point out having stops that are too tight can reduce the efficacy of any method! I linked this in another thread TradersCALM - risk of ruin menu talks about RoR far better than I could. Cheers, Nick.

A couple of random but related thoughts. I think there are very few 'regular' businesses that operate like this (finish at monetary target). I don't know of any that give there sales people the remainder of the month of when they have made there monthly goal! I think it is valuable to set your 'normal' hours of work. Of course one of the great attractions of trading is the freedom and flexibility it affords. Despite this it appears a good idea to have some core guidelines to when you are going to do business, an important part of your trading plan. It strikes me having a trade working at the close of play is quite similar to a normal business having a 'rush' on or taking an order that needs filling quickly - whatever. Work an extra hour or two and give the staff (you) a bonus or some time off in lieu! With most of the trade management platforms out there its easy enough to leave a working order with a trailing stop and target. Though that might not suit some peoples style of trade management. Cheers.

Amen to all of that Notouch. I watched a presentation Trevor did for the CME recently. I noticed he still talks about 'buying' and 'selling' when of course we all know each trade has both a buyer and seller. A lot of the stuff that is presented is simplistic and based on stuff that just aint true (imho). Of course that dosent mean that the tool is no good. What it does shows broadly speaking is which side market orders (including stops) are hitting. If you can use that information to better guage order flow I can see how you could build successfully strategies around it. Some people like to use an absolute value during the open to gauge if a sustained move for the day is likely. They reckon that it requires a certain imbalance to get things really cooking. Cheers.

The various trade station indicators work well enough. Investor RT with MD really is an expensive tool. Personally I prefer to buy rather than lease also. I'd probably go with Neoticker if I wanted to do delta analysis. That would also allow you to do order book analysis or in theory to construct the delta of an index from underlying stocks if you so desire! (if your hardware will cope with it). I have gone back to looking how volume develops as a bar builds without regard for whether its on the bid or ask. For me it was a bit of a "cant see the forest for the trees" type situation. I do go back now and again and watch it for a month or so (using Multicharts and public domain indicators) but while it does provide a microscopic view of the market I wonder if that really adds that much to my trading. Cheers, Nick.

I wonder if its the good old subconscious doing what's best for you (not). You know the drill - had a few losses - felt a bit uncomfortable (or worse). I can protect you from this says the subconscious. The same mechanism that stops you touching the proverbial hot stove. Of course we know intellectually that losses are all part of the game and that there is nothing inherently dangerous about the market. Even knowing this it can be difficult to reprogram the subconscious so it stops getting in the way. I know it is for me. Cheers, Nick.

Glad something positive came out of it. Did you check out that traders calm link about RoR? Cheers.

They sound like pretty good ballpark figures. Certainly not totally un-realistic expectations that some have. I have never blown up an account though I have suffered the thousand cuts...it just hasn't resulted in death. I guess one thing I was pretty good at was realising fairly quick when things weren't working. It doesn't take that much to see your account is steadily going down rather than up. I have still managed to do reasonable damage to a couple of accounts though not managed a real spectacular blow up. They say that once you have enjoyed sustained success you become vulnerable to blow up again. Over confidence I guess. I'm looking forward to blowing one of those multi million dollar babies (again expecting that I will pull the plug somewhere between 25%-50% drawdown).