BlowFish

eqsys welcome to TL, Nice to see a post from someone that knows what they are talking about. Of course its a function of volatility, $/tick, margin and the traders objectives, account size and risk tolerance.

Can't tell you how the story ends but can tell you when it ends. Seems like (s)he stoped posting shortly after starting this thread 2 years ago.

Firstly financial markets do not have a Gaussian distribution. Secondly TPO's assume that trade conducted at a price is proportional to the time spent at the level (sometimes true sometimes not) and thirdly the way of measuring deviations is just plain wrong, anyway 68% is only valid in normal distributions (which financial data series are not). Knowing which direction and the magnitude of that skew is valuable in itself. If you find TPO charts valuable that is great!! Don't kid yourself that they are based on any real sort statistics. (and who cares if you find them useful) Very clever approach for the data that was available at the time though.

Take a look at Jperls 'Trading with Market Statistics' threads. A couple of pretty cool tools and a bunch or ways of using them. A good starting point.

Odd thing. I didn't thing term fractal was coined until until the mid 70's (1975) in Les objets fractals, forme, hasard et dimension? by Benoît Mandelbrot. Pretcher re-writing history per chance? To answer pretchers question want to know about fractals and the stock market? read Mandelbrot. If you want to learn about EW then maybe Pretcher is your man though one has to wonder, he is either pretty poorly researched (you would have thought an EW expert would know what Ralph wrote) or maybe he has an agenda to further his career as market clairvoyant? (He does seem to subscribe to the principle if you make enough predictions some are bound to come true). My hunch it's the latter, associate EW theory with the work of an outstanding mathematician and researcher to add 'scientific credibility'. Edit: I am really not that big a sceptic, honest

Going back to working out why you are trading without a proper plan, the Mark Douglas books might help. They are considered 'classics' by many. Most people seem to prefer the second the first is probably more challenging. The first kind of breaks you down and the second builds you up again. Of course you could just say NO I am not going to do it anymore.

Could of swore you posted one like this before. Yeah I know....senile old dotard. Does it have a 'multiplier' (I have not downloaded it)? It occurs to me having an input that data2 is multiplied by before being compared with data1 might be useful. So for example if you wanted to do the spread between ES (data1) and YM (data2) you might use a multiplier of 0.1. Or you could put YM in data1 and ES in data2 and use 10. This is speaking from the point of view of someone who is not using such an indicator so might me complete nonsense...I'll blame the senility again .

Might I ask does the environment you work in help prevent you getting 'sidetracked' (for want of a better word)?

I agree. Even accepting it's simply about applying an edge many of us have this little voice in the deep recesses of our minds 'I wonder if we could improve that edge'. Intellect and ego are enemies of trading and looking at too much stuff lets them in.

There are a couple of problems with MP and there always have been. Having said that many traders obviously find it useful. Clearly the VAH,VAL & POC are watched and traded by enough traders to make them significant. As good an example of 'self fulfilling' that I can think of. It is not so much that it is 'outdated', it was always a heuristic method(rule of thumb). Not only that but one of the premises that it was built on was false (markets are not normally distributed (Gaussian)). Who cares if it gives you a framework to trade within ? Nowadays it is possible to use tools that are based on actual mathematical / statistical principles. Personally I think these tools provide a better framework and I guess strictly speaking that makes MP outdated. Not only that I find them much more 'elegant' and i think they frame price better in many varying circumstances. Vintage cars still go from A->B, arguably in some style . The Lexus practically drives itself.

Firstly I am no P&F 'expert '(so take my comment with a pinch of sort) I do have a decent understanding of how and why you'd use P&F though. I would guess the table is a 'rule of thumb'. Volatility is more important than the absolute value of the instrument (of course stuff that trades at 100 is going to have a wider range than stuff trades at 10). As with all methods of sampling and displaying data it is more about what you want to 'capture' rather than a magic formula. What do you ne to see for the swings you are targeting. For example on exactly the same instrument someone interested in capturing 5 point (just an example) swings that take an hour so to complete will use a different box size and reversal to someone wanting to capture 50 point swings (that might last 2 or 3 days) . Fit the tool to task. You find a spanner to fit the bolt, you don't select a spanner and then go looking for a bolt that it fits.

The real problem was not the technology but the fact the order flow they relied on is going elsewhere. The fundamentals of markets really have not changed that much, the participants have not really changed. The opportunities for speculators have not really changed. This was in reply to a different post but is somewhat relevant http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/34/see-behind-flow-order-flow-9781-2.html#post119389 If it is all a bit bewildering start exploring market microstructure slowly in the background. It might not make you a better trader but knowing who is doing what and why might make things a bit less intimidating and a lot less bewildering. It might also help you 'define what sort of trader you want to be' by breaking down what sorts of trader there actually are. Retail traders have loads of advantages (shock horror). The biggest is perhaps we don't have to trade, we can pick and choose what when and where. Most of the 'pro' participants do not have that luxury. On the subject of technology we have never had it so good. I am sitting with a laptop that has more grunt than a co-located 'big iron' monster of 2 or 3 years ago. Bandwidth has hit a ceiling but it is ample. I could get fibre to the premises if I wanted/needed it. Latency is not a problem really unless you want to do HFT and you know what....? If you did you could rent CPU space in the same data centre that the CME is hosted. Latency is fine for most things and reliability is through the roof compared to just a handful of years ago. Reporting, and transparency is as good as ever even FX is slowly starting to change. Sure competing in certain spaces is going to be pretty darn hard (HFT market making is an obvious one) but that has always the case. There are just as many (or more) areas where it has never been so good.

It is not just 'good practices' you are pretty much doomed to failure until you take care of those things. Until then you are playing at trading. Harsh but true. The question you have to ask yourself is why have you not formalised your plan and money management strategy? Is it fear of failure? Maybe it's an excuse (if you have no plan you can be lenient on yourself regrading whether you executing properly). Perhaps you are still in the 'grail' stage and don't want to commit to the plan until it is 'perfect'. Maybe you want to validate yourself through 'calling the market', a plan would take away that glory (it would also shoulder a lot of the pain incidentally). Slap your self for trading without a plan and commit to not doing it again. And Yes. Been through very similar as I imagine many people here have.

I think that's where people come unstuck. Sure it can add a bit of confidence but is it worth all the extra layers of complexity? I don't think so. To execute consistently it is much easier if it things are simple. Something you can do pretty much with out any thought or analysis. Funnily enough I am always on the look out for things to help confirm a level and how ever 'good' they are I usually end up either abandoning them for simplicities sake or if they are that good trading them on their own for a bit of variety. Indicators that attempt to measure sentiment shifts or changes in order flow e.g. cumulative delta or trade intensity all have great appeal to help with triggering and timing. But you know what? if any of those 'trigger' you can bet your bottom dollar price will trigger itself (like breaking the previous bar). JohnW has a couple of good posts on th subject of keeping inputs to a minimum. I also think that methods that require lots of inputs are more inclined to fail with changing market conditions. You can 'curve fit' in discretionary trading as well as system trading. OP even if coping with all this information it would probably be beneficial to try and strip away everything that is not essential. It would be much easier to maintain peak performance. You also might find you can trade more markets and diversification is a great way to reduce risk.

I would look at some sort of simple break out.The insiders are buying before a potential move. A break out will indicate that a potential move is becoming an actual move. You could use drawn lines around price action or an indicator like keltner or donchian channels. You could also look at Whycokoff area here for discussion about supply and demand and how it manifests itself through price action.Though quite nowadays it is a great archive of W material.

The edge they had disappeared simple as that. Worse what was a huge advantage (being on the floor) became a huge disadvantage. The only 'fault' was not recognising that. I talked a bit more about it in the other thread.

Probably hugely inefficient but you could apply all the instruments to a chart and the have an indicator with basket = (data1 * weight) + (data2 * weight) etc You could then plot(basket) you'd probably want to hide the other plots. If you have the constituents open in other charts you could send them to your index chart using ADE (all data everywhere). That gets a little bit more complicated. I don't really know radar screen so can't help there. There is probably a much better way but that should get you up and running in a few minutes. That's the beauty of easy language.

Yeah, actually I always used the term un aggregated but seems that un coalesced is the more popular term Can't be that popular from what yo say. Anyway you are right, sometimes someone down the line will 'aggregate' several trades at the same price/time (report them as one trade). At one time the CME intimated they where doing it on some instruments but that is not the case now.

Yes I understand what you are saying. Some of the more sceptical old hands would say that you are unlikely to learn anything worthwhile from an internet forum anyway. I have to disagree. Of course the problem for someone starting out is separating the wheat from the chaff. For every grain of wheat there is always ten bushels of chaff. Having said that pretty much all the threads I mentioned could be followed by an early teen. The Thales thread for example actually had trades posted by his 9 year old daughter. That was not my point really they where also new trader/forum user friendly. (Just using that one as an example.) 'Value' is a bit hard to quantify but threads like that clearly had infinite more value than some of the 'platitude' threads. People following Thales carefully from the start would learn exactly how and why he placed trades, how he managed them and a whole lot more. Sure it may not make them traders but at least it shows how a successful trader trades (he was during the course of the thread). It shows his approach in detail, it shows trades as they set up and screen shots of blotters. Similarly Jerry Perls threads where hugely better than stuff I have spent thousands on. These threads where gentle, they where well constructed and newbie friendly. They started at the beginning and held your hand on the journey. Not only that the guys that started them would tirelessly answer questions and 'support' people taking an interest. That is what drives traffic to the site. That is what makes lurkers become posters, and that is what makes posters into participants. It is all about quality content and members providing new quality content. Any sort of 'dumbing down' (I know you are not suggesting that) or 'making it simple' I think will have an adverse effect. I know that was not exactly your point but I think you ar asking the wrong question. Attract knowledgeable people that make quality posts and every other bugger will follow and participate. Incidentally I know you guys are working hard on TL. I appreciate that.

Intrestingly, I got the TL newsletter, a wee while ago. The first "Top posts & Threads" is from a year ago (and it was only 2 pages then). Further down the page this weeks "hot topic" was put to bed 9 months ago. :doh: This does not seem unusual nowadays. As I said last post I don't want to appear negative or a whiner but at best I am and a little I apologise but I feel it needs to be said, I just wonder what the flip is going on.

Thats a question for the exchange...or maybe your broker.

Do they report un filtered, un coalesced data? Do they report bid/ask info? If so there should be no reason why not.

Well colour me argumentative but I think it's the reverse. (Im going to get a reputation for being argumentative if I am not careful). It's the detailed, in depth, 'technical' discussions that draw posters out of the woodwork. If you look at things like the VSA threads, some of the Whyckoff ones, Jerry Perls market stats, Walters threads on his ongoing research, the FX threads like 'busy day tomorrow', Spyders (I guess that as I don't visit often), These have all encouraged new posters, but more importantly posters that continue to contribute. I'd argue that it is these threads that generate search hits that drive traffic here in the first place. I think the reason is obvious. These threads have meat on the bones, they attract lurkers. They offer detailed approaches to the market, they offer genuine novel research, they offer specific applicable knowledge. The lurkers become engaged and ask questions or for clarification and before long they are in a dialogue. I have started very few threads though I like to think (maybe erroneously) that I have made a decent contribution to others. The reason is I personally think it is a 'responsibility' that requires a fair bit of dedication to maintain a worthwhile thread. It requires work. The 'real time' thread is a good example, Cory and the guys are doing a fantastic job keeping going but it does not have the zest that it had in the beginning when Thales was actively maintaining it. I know I have said it before but throwing out the odd platitude for discussion really has very little value (imho) it's great threads are required.

Hey Ingot, I watched the video, quite a long time ago now but I qualify . Baldwin, Borsellino and most of the pit traders that have to written or talked about the golden years of trading say even then most pit traders just disappeared. Seems like Peratos principle was alive and well in the pits (the 80 20 'rule'). Even 'back in the day' it was tough. One of the big edges in the pit was seeing customer paper enter. If you where not venerable enough to have a good spot on the top step or be close to the guys that worked those orders you could hear what was going on. Nowadays there is less and less paper going through the pits, that edge is gone. The pit (in the case of futures) is not the primary market, Electronic markets are now prevalent and there is usually an electronic contract that directly equates to t the pit contract (fungible). Most of the pit traders would make money scalping a couple of ticks here and there (market makers if you like). It must be impossible to do that in this environment. It's over, the guys that had trouble in the film where those that did not recognise that.

:haha: I am sure this has occurred to you but it seems to me that a 'contributor' appears kind of 'endorsed' by TL. Endorsed is perhaps over stating things but it does give a degree of 'respectability', more so than a 'sponsor'. I think with a sponsor most people are pretty clear what the basis of the relationship is between the sponsor and TL is. I suppose as the section grows it will be obvious that these are 'guest writers' and that 'their views do not necessarily reflect the views of Traders Laboratory' (to use the old cliché). I guess it's all about attracting quality contributions in the end rather than vendors using it as a bit of free advertorial. T2Win seem to have done this kind of thing quite successfully though I am not sure they give contributors any sort of special status? Anyway, as I said, just curiosity on my part.