BlowFish

Thanks for taking the trouble to clarify I am inclined to agree with you that only 5, 10 or maybe 20% (if you buy in to the pareto principle) of people that visit forums make money. I got the impression from your first post that you thought that once people got into those upper echelons they cease to post just leaving the rest. That was what I did not buy into. As a brief aside my own motivations are partly 'social' (it's a solitary profession if you aren't prop shop or working for an institution) I miss that you can't go for a pint after work and talk. I also have an interest in how other people trade and the methods they use, this is completely isrrespective to my own trading and I try and keep it compartmentalised. (Brooks was a bit different because it has a lot in common with my own approach.) I do still sometimes get distracted and end up putting more energy than I should into things. Finally I like to think every now and then I might help someone or present a point of view that is mildly interesting. I think it would be a shame if you stopped posting charts. I am sure your contribution would be missed. All it requires is a single person to post a single comment that triggers an aha moment to make it all worthwhile. Maybe you would consider posting one now and then, or one that is particularly 'tricky'. I always like tricky charts though picture perfect ones can be nice too. There where a couple of things in Brooks' work that I really quite liked. You might even go as far as saying I found important. In the interest of contributing i'll try and make a couple more posts on them though I probably eluded to what they where early in the thread:) As someone that also tends to work kinda obsessively on things I find it is important to work purposefully. Focusing on narrow specific tasks helps me (though I am still inclined just to jump in or get distracted by other elements:))

I hope you don't think I'm being confrontational but aren't those contradictions? It's my hunch it's the same demographic (winners vs losers) as anywhere (whatever that demographic might be). Do you sincerely believe forums are only frequented by losers? I wonder what your motivation for being here is if that's the case? Personally I don't agree, having got to know a few people behind the screen names I think you might be very surprised. my P&L or anyone elses P&L has absolutely nothing to do with the veracity of Brooks methods or any other methods. To be honest that whole notion is absurd. Again I am not trying to be confrontational but felt it needed saying.

Have a search here for 'bookies' and 'bucket shop'. Nothing wrong with using a bookie if you understand the differences. They are not great for 'scalping'. as they set the price and are often the counter party to your bets, they will get mightily miffed if you exploit minor pricing discrepancies and have an array of tools to prevent that. Those counter measure are likely to put paid to any 'scalping' efforts.

From Jerrys other posts I have no doubt this was just a slipped gear between brain and fingers Enjoy the threads ....it's unusual to come across an approach that is not only novel but has some real value too. Not only that the clarity with which the the ideas are presented is just cream.

That sounds adequate to construct your own index. I wonder how scalable it is, at times MC dosent feel that fast and efficient simply receiving storing and displaying data. Maybe OK for building the DJ 30 but I imagine the SP 500 or the Russel 2000 would not be practical.

I have to say I am sceptical. Lots of claims with little substantive to back it up. I am sure they are fine glasses but it sounds like marketing rather than clear technical advantage. Let us know how you get on if you score a pair. Edit: Dont you need a prescription? seem to remember you discussing laser eye surgery a while back.

Tams do you happen to know if a new print on data2 will generate an indicator update and do you happen to know how you check which data stream generated the update if it does?

This occurred to me. The core concepts of this methodology are based on pretty sound principles imo. Principles that are also relatively straightforward. Some years ago I spent a long time with the material understanding the many layers and nuances that built on these principles. For me I want simplicity and clarity in my charts I found the framework needlessly complex it actually obscured what I needed to see to make trading decisions. For me what it added to the core principles was not worth the extra complexity. I have no doubt that if you drill for years you will get to the stage where this is not the case. I guess it depends what your objectives are. I am interested in methods tht have synergy with my beliefs, I also like a challenge, however to eek out a meagre few points a day I would rather a method that a nine year old could show me (if you catch my drift) . In short I am sure the method is efficacious but it seems clear to me there are far far simpler approaches that are too. There are various hurdles to over come in trading without having to deal with a complex methodology. I also think that the ego has more space to operate with added complexity that's a whole other story but also partly explains the attraction to some methods.

I believe the idea came from some one else, not that that is important. What is important is the close is a bit of a hit and miss affair. It sometimes 'works' because when price comes off from a high/low it will often rest somewhere. If it happens to be resting there when the bar closes you will likely have a decent level if it is not you wont. Bars are a simply a way to sample continuous data so we can make sense of it. I don't think it takes much persuasion to see that using an arbitrary fixed datum based on a single point in time might not be that reliable. Extending that thinking one could use for example the mid point of the bar which as it is based on the high and low has had the whole bars duration to establish itself. Edit: as an example look at VJ's chart in the previous post. Which is the better datum on the green bar marked 'balance area' the close or the mid point?

It was enjoyable enough. I gave a heads up when it first aired on UK TV (not much use to many) though It pretty quickly found its way to youtube. I would have liked to know a bit more about the strategy they employed, I guess an average reality TV viewer is less likely to be interested in that so not much coverage was given. A lot was gut, based on the newspapers and news wires, though I seem to remember they had to trade pairs. It would seem that people react to trading other people money similarly to there own, though I guess some might be able to be a bit more dispassionate. 'Certainly worth a look' rather than 'must see' imho As an aside I found this absolutely fascinating The Ascent of Money | Financial History | Professor Niall Ferguson | Channel 4 it's also on you tube I think and definitely worth a view. It's good to know that there are quality programs being made here and there.

'Normal' use is regular session though stanlyd makes good points. When you get on to the scalping section there are some alternatives presented. VWAP and SD are quite slow and steady. PVP is not as it will 'switch' around. Different calculations will often produce different PvP's. For example Ensign averages across a 2 min bar.

I agree. Though I think you must have mis read my post. It certainly seems to be taken out of context. I said that many people who talk of 'more buyers or sellers' often do so without any understanding, with no knowledge of market microstructure the auction process or even how the exchanges that they trade on operate at the most fundamental level. The sum of there knowledge is often a couple comments from some hucksters website. I did not say (and never have said that i am aware of) that there is no value in studying and classifying buying and selling pressure, order flow, market delta, trade intensity and those types of metrics. Let me put it another way "why do people talk about more buyers than sellers" ...in many cases it's because the haven't a clue what they are talking about. (Of course amongst the learned contributors here that is not so prevalent)

Hard to say without some chart examples. A common way of dealing with stops is to use market structure. Hide the stop a few ticks behind the last swing high swing low before your entry.

Or Ninjatrader which you can get completely free on a demo account

I wonder what the practical limit is of MC? In neoticker (which I no longer use) you could build your own indexes from the constituent components as the DAX dosent have a $TICK maybe I'll have a go at making one and seeing if MC can handle it. Another thought does data2 .. data30 .. dataNN generate indicator updates on ticks and is there a limit on NN?

I am not quite sure why you started a new thread for this? Perhaps it should be moved to the thread in which the question was asked. Actually if the poster had taken the trouble to read that thread they would have found the link a few posts before so that kind of makes this post redundant.

The only thing I would say is try not to limit yourself at the design stage. With data storage cheap and processing power fast, don't make compromises you may later regret. In short even though you are only currently interested in collecting hourly bars for a few instruments, in your design conciderations bear in mind that one day you might require tick data from multiple instruments from multiple exchanges. You are likely to get more support from other contributors too!

In some cases I guess its 'linguistic shorthand' in many, its people who do not understand the auction process.

This is a belief that many hold, beliefs are powerful as they shape your thinking in a fundamental way. I personally happen to believe that it happens to be one that is not correct. If you look up the commitment of traders report it shows by far the largest participants (in futures markets at least) are 'commercials' by definition these are hedgers so not profit motivated in the traditional sense. Even if you don't buy into that, if you believe that 'the pros' you speak of are conducting the majority of the volume then as futures are a zero sum game (excluding transaction costs) there must be other loosing 'pros' on the other side of their trades. I also think the buy low sell high paradigm is not that useful (again only imho) but that is too large a topic to go into here. To bring things back on track Brookes uses the paradigm of 'locked in' and locked out' traders to explain short term price movement,

That made me smile. Not only discovering her own trades but sorting out her own position sizing too.

Seems that it would be a good place to post up and coming 'levels' as was discussed in the Al Brooks thread.

It would represent 1000 contracts/shares/lots bought and sold. For every buyer there must be a seller. That seller may be selling short to open a position or selling an open long position to close.

Ahh OK I wondered because the charts you have posted in the past to demonstrate trading decisions you made in your journal thread where 'regular' charts. Is this a new development or was there always a 'secret sauce'? Just curious.

watch them on Youtube then

What is a Dynamic Pic Bar? A google search returns zero hits so my hunch is it's a phrase you have coined for something proprietary?