BlowFish

Yeah funny 'letter' shame that some seemed to miss the rather bitter (but broadly true) pokes at HFT, dark pools, real liquidity even speculation in general. I think I have read these guys before, certainly they have an axe to grind but still broadly call it how it is.

That's kind of you to say Bob. The bit on price behaviour was a bit of an aha moment for me. "Looking at a higher time frame for context" is a fairly well established concept however that idea is seldom fully explored. If you scratch a bit deeper and really look at how things fit together, you can come up with a really robust understanding of overall market structure.

The thing is if one wants to succeed as a trader a study of numerology, astrology, reading tea leaves, or goat entrails for that matter is probably not the most expedient way to reach that goal. Of course if one can divine the future then market success is simple. However for those of us that can not, less esoteric methods would likely be a better use of our time. I have a friend who has spent a lifetime studying Gann he can trade despite this, not because of it..oh and he is 60ish so that's a lot of study. Compare that to ...I dunno the second tranche of turtles that where trading profitably based on a weeks tuition of a simple break out system..... Tunnel through the air one of the greatest trading books written lol what? Interestingly though if you take the ordinal position of the letters 't u n e l l' and subtract 'b u l l c r a p squared' it fore tells the recent market crash to the pico second. Uncanny.

There is also a huge variety of public domain indicators in EL. You can learn a lot simply by looking at some of those and working out how they do what they do. You may well discover that many of the things you might want to tackle have been done before too. Edit: I notice you are talk about advanced courses. With any programming the battle is properly understanding and defining exactly what you want to do. That is essentially programming language/environment independent. I seem to remeber talking aboutthat in more detail here http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/coding-forum/6036-programming-where-start.html

Your welcome. Is it my imagination or is there a bit of heavy handed moderation going on here? Oh well no big deal. Having said that there is a real danger of alienating and ultimately loosing users, most people do not like to be censored particularly if it is just a bit of idle banter.

One of the reasons 'old school' trend traders tend to trade multiple markets is for this very reason. On a well chosen basket of instruments (not too correlated of course) one or two will usually be trending. Another possibility is to sample your data differently (a pretentious way to say look at another time scale ) For example an instrument that has been stuck in a range for weeks and months will often (usually) be making great 3 4 5 + day 'trend' runs from the top to the bottom of the range (and back again). If you observe this on lets say on an hourly chart these they can look like (and be traded like) epic trends. Incidentally quite a few commodities and currencies have had some great trends recently (depending of your perspective of course).

Indeed. As Jose points out it is a simple price pattern that shows that price has changed direction (though I'd be inclined to call it a trigger rather than a filter). It's kind of similar to what old timers would have called a key reversal. You could substitute anything that indicated that price had been rejected or supply/demand had shifted at a market stats derived level.

That must have been some impressive testing to make such a definitive conclusion. And yet, clearly other people trade profitably using candlesticks, weird eh? If you have a search brownsfan posted daily to a thread where traders posted results of real trades. He posted pretty much daily and was profitable week in week out trading.....candlesticks. I guess that will be of little interest if you have determined they are 'waste of time'. Good luck finding something that is not.

1 Yes 2 There was one on the ninja site in the indicator section last time I looked

You missed pilot C. Over the course of many years has logged thousands of hours flying. The only trouble is periodically (s)he crashes and burns.

The important metric is actually the RoR (risk of ruin). Talking about risk as a fixed percent serves no real useful purpose though it can be OK as a 'rule of thumb'. To determine your 'risk appetite' (in any sort of meaningful way) you will need to know your RoR. Quite a naive question coming from a 'mentor'.

Here you go...be aware of the issues with insidebid insideask (they are discussed earlier in the thread inputs: UpColor(darkgreen), DownColor(red), DeltaBar(1), MaxBlock(9999), MinBlock(0), ResetDeltaEachBar(0); variables: MyVol(0), Block(0), color(yellow), intrabarpersist MyCurrentBar(0), intrabarpersist VolumeAtBid(0), intrabarpersist VolumeAtAsk(0), intrabarpersist BAVolRatio(0), intrabarpersist VolTmp(0), intrabarpersist Delta (0), intrabarpersist DeltaH (0), intrabarpersist DeltaL (0), intrabarpersist DeltaO (0); if LastBarOnChart then begin MyVol = Iff(BarType < 2, Ticks, Volume); if CurrentBar > MyCurrentBar then begin VolumeAtBid = 0; VolumeAtAsk = 0; BAVolRatio = 0; VolTmp = 0; MyCurrentBar = CurrentBar; if ResetDeltaEachbar = 1 then Delta =0; DeltaO = Delta; DeltaH = Delta; DeltaL = Delta; end; Block = Myvol - VolTmp; if (Block >= MinBlock) and (Block <= MaxBlock) then if Close <= InsideBid then Delta = Delta - MyVol + VolTmp else if Close >= InsideAsk then Delta = Delta + MyVol - VolTmp ; VolTmp = MyVol ; end; DeltaH = maxlist(DeltaH, Delta); DeltaL = minlist(DeltaL, Delta); if Delta <= 0 then color = DownColor else color = UpColor; plot1(DeltaO, "DO"); Plot2(DeltaH, "DH"); Plot3(DeltaL, "DL"); plot4(Delta, "DC");

You will have to make assumptions that's true enough. If you get 300 1 lot trades all at exactly the same time (as reported by the API) it seems a reasonable to re bundle them. (with zen/ninjs I was surprised to find this happen quite a lot) . Actually you could argue we are not really assuming anything....it is just easier to digest this on the tape as 300@xxx. Actually it is pretty much impossible to digest it all unless you do aggregate it. Essentially since the changes at CME it is impossible to read the tape (time and sales) without as prints (on some instruments) will scroll faster than the eye can see (let alone the brain process. Negotiator, exactly you have no other real possibility other than setting a 'delta time' threshold. I'm not really inclined to program it at the moment (I do have urges to program now and then!). It really is pretty trivial though (not quite so sure about the displaying things in a scrolling grid). Having said that Ninjas sample code for OnMarketData displayed on a grid I think.

As an aside some while back I wrote code to measure trade intensity. The (pretty simple) routine to do this could easily be used to re-aggregate large orders onto the time and sales. I don't really know Ninja that well, most of the aggro is finding out the mechanism to achieve something. How to display data on TS is precisely that sort of aggro. Too busy to take a look at that now but might if there is sufficient interest.

Yes we have kissed and made up thanks for the kind words though.

His first post to thread is here http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/general-discussion/10633-vendors-vendors-vendors-16.html#post126583 Seems pretty clear to me that he has absolutely no problem whatsoever being identified as 'a vendor' not what you say in later posts. QED. Lets leave it, really it serves no purpose bickering and I don't have the time or inclination to go through quote by quote. The marvels of the interweb means anyone can see who said what and when. I'll continue in PM's if you like but reserve the right to agree to disagree and duck out!! Edit; btw I was very careful to not use the L word it is pretty emotive. As an aside, two or three posts later you thank him for "being so transparent" in that same short post you also say " It's a strange thing when even a vendor wants identification on the site. " That is a telling statement to me, it seems like you attach stigma to any sort of vendor and it would imply that you do not simply want to name but to name and shame. I may be wrong but it seems like you have a negative view of all vendors? Take a look at the Whyckoff section here, It is probably the best resource on his work bar none (including expensive courses). It is possible one of the best bodies of work on any single coherent trading approach. That would simply not exist if DB had been hounded out for being the vendor of a $40 ebook. (He has previously left other venues for less). WRBTraders posts I have enjoyed for what must be a decade (I guess), I honestly (you can believe me or not) did not know that he offered paid for material. I guess all I am saying is all vendors are not equal, they are certainly not all 'bad' and it would be foolish to discount pearls of wisdom they have given away just because they sell something.

Well I guess we should leave it at that, we have both stated our positions and anyone who cares (no one I imagine!!) can see exactly what was said and what was not. Keep up the good work on the list.

So it's OK to completely mis represent someone? The ends justify the means right? You use more fallacy in your reply. You choose to attack me (head in the clouds, high maintenance). Rather than comment on my point. Look up ad hominem, essentially you attack the arguer rather than the argument. You also choose to use 'the efforts' to justify your misrepresentation (tacitly taking credit for the upcoming change). Let be quite clear. - You where dishonest -. Whether that is to further your agenda or a genuine mistake only you know. I find the latter increasingly unlikely seeing how active you have been in this thread, also the fact that you choose to go to war (attack me, defend your statements) rather than simply apologise or acknowledging an error further supports the premise that this dishonesty was intentional. You want my thanks? No. You have my sympathy, in my experience unless one is logically scrupulous and brutally honest with oneself it makes it hard to do well at the retail end of this business. You want honesty and transparency from vendors, I would like to see that from all posters. edit: PS good job on maintaining the list. that was never in question.

Happy holidays, just trying to book a few weeks in the sun for next month!

I am not sure why I am getting involved, maybe it's because you are using somewhat dubious tactics in your campaign It is a pet peeve when people use logical fallacies or just plain bending of the truth to further their agenda. I wonder if it is intentional or that you might just have lost sight of what has been previously said? I suggest you re-read his original post. if you read that (and subsequent) posts to the thread it is crystal clear that he is not concerned with 'wearing a vending label'. Quite the reverse. You do your cause no favours by misrepresenting people. As an aside I think I'll buy Marks stuff. Over the many many years that I have enjoyed his posts I did not realise that he had a paid offering, thank you for outing him (sincerely). I was genuinely unaware that he had collated his stuff into a paid package. It's something I'd like to read, price action, costs about the same as a (modest) dinner for two, and a guy who's posts are eloquent and informed.

That might of been the idea but that was not what you said originally . What you originally said had nothing to do with a vendor re-joining the community (I guess the discussion subsequently moved on). What you actually said was You must admit it's a little strange that the website where you sell your education is easily found by googling "wrbtrader", which is your username here at TL. For a vendor just wishing to move in and out of the forum in a non-promotional way, why don't you just change your username to be completely separate from any of your selling endeavours. Are you suggesting vendors post in complete anonymity? Of course not (though I suspect the unscrupulous ones create accounts to do just that). That is completely contradictory to your (very credible) endeavour.

A step too far...way to far. And anyway he's going to have a skull and crossbones right? And actually adds opacity if people start using secret nom de plumes.

I'm seriously considering selling something (maybe indicators that I have given away in the past) just so I can get on the list. When are non sponsor vendors getting a skull and crossbones icon? I want one!

If vendors where moderated 'better' in the first place then lowly members would not feel it necessary to voice their concerns. Maybe we have a different idea of what a 'good thread' is, some teaser article that is cut and pasted to every forum, blog, or trading portal on the internet with little chance of any meaningful follow-up by the author should just be summarily deleted imho. The tone of your post is interesting, seems protective of the vendors . I haven't read the thread yet but I noticed something about transparency. I already commented (in the support section) that it is pretty unclear what the status of some posters is. Having a clear policy on posting by non sponsor vendors might help too though in the past common sense prevailed. There are two ways to improve signal to noise ratio, filter the noise or increase the signal. I can't help feeling that the reason the noise is more noticeable is that the signal has become rather weak.

Dunno works for me...have you got the format of the time correct? see image.