BlowFish

I apologise, I should have limited my observations to your comments. Having said that they are generally of a negative nature re-iterating how it is virtually impossible to make money trading and if you do, don't expect to make enough to support your self or to reach the giddy heights of 15% per annum return. I think what got my goat was your assertion that finding an edge was the 'holy grail'. It suggests that it is virtually impossible (impossible until someone does actually find or prove the existence of a chalice with miraculous powers). Essentially you are saying trading profitably is impossible (or at least virtually impossible). The more damaging implication of this is that a potential traders time is well spent looking for this grail, this elusive edge. Until a potential trader stops all the piddling around trying different systems and approaches in search of the mythical grail they have absolutely no hope. The real problem is actually trading an edge with discipline. That's when things get difficult. It would seem that some people also have difficulty recognising an edge. Bizare as they are relatively easy to find.

Sounds as if you are leaning towards mechanical trading, is that the case? I just wondered to try and determine whether the problem is with the system(s) or with your execution. Your spot on about risk btw. I have a hunch that while people can intellectually accept the concept of risk, emotionally draw downs and a streak of losers can be pretty hard to stomach even knowing they are inevitable and a normal part of trading. The tricky thing of course is knowing whether they are 'normal' or 'abnormal'. This is something that is a bit easier the more mechanical your system incidentally.

Any news on this? It really is quite limiting. e.g. there is a great thread called "plotting globex highs and lows" (or something similar). It illustrates a couple of pretty neat programming tricks. Just today I wanted to refer someone to it (it answers a couple of questions that are frequently raised). A search for "globex" does not reveal it. Very frustrating. Very.

Well we must respectfully disagree (again). I am not sure what your interest in trading is to be honest, you see to have a terribly negative view of it. I honestly can't imagine anyone making a go of it with some of the the beliefs you expound. I do agree that most people are under capitalised. they also have un realistic expectations. Thats a couple of things we agree upon at least If you don't believe you can find something that can give you a small edge then of course no one would succeed beyond a lucky streak. (which is not going to get you very far at all). If this is sincerely your belief I wonder what your motivation is wasting any time on trading related activities? Incidentally if you do not have a positive edge it can be mathmatically demonstrated that you have a best chance of capital gain using all your margin on a single large bet. (other wise the laws of large numbers will slowly work against you to whittle away your account) Anyway you seem to have miss my point, no matter.

Could you use tick data on data1 and minute data on data2 to trigger signals. I guess not as the time stamp resolution of historical tick data is only 1 minute I think? I hear they are introducing millisecond time stamping at some stage.

I find trading interferes with my drinking. Every now and then doesn't hurt provide you limit it to one or two trades. If you find that you are putting on a trade rather than freshening your drink you probably have a problem.

Dosen't EL require a 'tick' to do anything? Not sure not something I have done. Cunparis have you looked at all the date/time functions? Would storing the date time of entry and then comparing the current date time not do the trick? (subject to you getting a 'tic' to trigger your code).

If you search you will find background information at a similar site (well similar but a cesspool) that might help you make sense.

That is debatable depending of course on how one defines range bound. I can't recall how you do that using your paradigm? I guess I'll remember eventually There is plenty of opportunity as price bounces between the top & bottom of a range too. In a nutshell buy support and sell resistance whereas if a market is trending do the reverse buy break outs of resistance and sell bo's of support.

There is a school of thought that would conclude the reverse! The trader that follows the set up unemotionally without second guessing it will be the profitable one. The one that messes with the system based on other factors will be the one that won't. It is my strong suspicion that the reason most traders fail is for not sticking to a system. The 'experience to know when things aren't right' argument is generally used by people that are essentially winging it. On the other hand I do think that most successful traders have developed an implicit understanding of price action (learn't tor read the market if you like) whether they use that formerly or not.

Really it is on many different levels. Interestingly it is one that crops up regularly as a recommendation in Market Wizards. I have probably read it 10 times, it certainly bears repeat reading!

It clearly provides an advantage who wouldn't like to see the order flow before everyone else does and then get to choose if you fill those orders or pass them on to the real market not only that you get a rebate for any orders you fill? Win win win situation. Legal sure but then so is the specialist system. Zerohedge has pretty good coverage of such things.

If I was a betting man I would say a block trade negotiated before the open. Could be MoO orders but then you would expect some movement. Imvho trying to guess the participants and there motivations is just that ... a guess. What exchange was it on? It's a pretty thin instrument to determine anything much from volume. Most volume analysis works much better in liquid markets.

I agree with AK you assume far too much about everyone else's objectives and their ability to achieve them. There are people that are doing/have done stuff that you are obviously simply reading about. you will never fully discover what can or can not be done or the best way to do it simply reading about things. I can't imagine why on earth one would want to learn R or matlab. With a view to what exactly? (I have looked at their source code to steal some very specific algorithms and guess what? a) they didn't have exactly what I required & b) I found their implementations of similar function where far from optimal!). I usually know exactly what I want to do before I look at tools (though I am not adverse to playing with stuff to see how it works). Having said that I would certainly not presume to tell people what they should be doing based on stuff I had simply played with.

I don't believe so. (though I mist admit I am mixing in some of the issues with 'managed frameworks') I just find it counter-intuitive to 'think' in the OOP paradigm at all. Having written code for over 30 years I like to think I am capable of writing pretty tight, efficient and re-usable stuff. I am fortunate enough to have learnt tricks and techniques (plagiarised if you like ). from some pretty smart guys. They (we) where using many of the ideas adopted by oops way back then.The key difference was that the data and routines that acted on it where not encapsulated by the compiler (I should say assembler). In fact none of the principles where forced by the compiler. Hell often there was no operating system (let alone a frame work to manage your code). Straight jackets are pretty good for preventing certain patients from harming themselves, interestingly bad programmers will still find a way to gurt themselves despite the OOP straight jacket.

Nate has nailed it really, pretty much anything will do unless you are dealing with lots (100's or maybe even 1000's) of instruments. The key thing is to structure your code properly so all data base stuff is done through a couple of primitive routines. More sophisticated stuff uses those primitives. If you architect sensibly you should be able to change at a later stage in hours or days rather than days or weeks. Go with what you know or fancy learning about.

Others have eluded to the key metric which is actually risk of ruin. The 2% is an OK rule of thumb that people advise to prevent a streak of losers from putting you too far underwater. Check out TradersCALM - risk of ruin menu for how and why you might want to know RoR. It varies significantly depending on the characteristics of your approach.

I am sure waveslider will correct me if I am wrong but the intersection of 135 & 24 gives a point in time were the move should end (though W put less emphasis on this). By seeing where the target line is at that point in time a potential price can be found.

The main issue is that search does not return a lot of threads with the search term in. There is a thread in the support section about it. Searching for "search" for example does not find it (or didn't). It's really hit and miss what it returns if it is a miss you need to try different terms or give up looking for the thread you require. Cheers.

No. There where a number of volunteer mods too. (I recall a bit of a 'pruning' shortly before you guys took over). A great bunch of guys who where active users (so around a lot) too. The solution seems simple a couple more mods, preferably in different time zones. As an aside any news on the search function?

I'm inclined to agree head2k. For the argument to hold up one must accept that peoples sole motivation is to make money. There are clearly exceptions some traders/educators publish results (ones that manage funds for example). Some you just know are the real deal. There are also traders that make woeful educators and educators that are poor traders. I have to say I would agree that most educators are a waste of space. I am always wary of the word 'all'. OP, to be honest it sounds as if your expectations where not realistic. There is a bit of a catch 22 when starting out in so far as you need some experience to sift through all the aforementioned BS, it is hard to work purposefully towards something if you don't know what that something is, or are not fully convinced about it's veracity. It can be pretty hard to discover 'truths' which allow the formation of 'beliefs' that will allow one to trade successfully.

Sadly this seems to be 'normal' now. I remember in the early days of TL there where a team of dedicated mods. At any time there was a good chance of a couple being on line whatever the time whatever the occasion. As it is now the only name I recognise is MMS. I would be interested to know if TL is where the new management want it to be? Seems understaffed to me, though I have seen no indication they might be recruiting more. There is a thread in the support section about the woeful search function. Can't recall how old it is weeks maybe a month. No official response. I am sure it is not the case but it makes it feel like the captain and crew have taken to the life rafts.

Thread necromancy for the win! Not sure I'd wanna learn from a guy averaging under a tick on the day (per contract traded)......especially in the DAX where several ticks slippage is common. I think Rotter was Bund Bobbl & Shatz.... DAX can be really thin at times. Joe is he managing a whole tick per day now?

I'm surprised a moderator has not called by this thread and said "please use the 'report post' button". Not sure who the general board mods are nowadays (I know certain sections have there own) maybe they need a couple more for certain time zones?

Certainly agree with your second two statements. Not sure about the first, trading requires quite the paradigm shift. There are all sorts of learnt behaviours that stand you well in 'regular' professions that can hold you back trading. The road to (trading) hell is paved with doctors, lawyers, accountants etc. etc. Some of the preconceptions are hard to shift prcisely because they work so well in other walks of life. People like Douglas & Steenbarger talk about some of these things at length.