BlowFish

Prof, I am a proponent of constant volume bars for certain applications and have followed your arguments at other venues. Might I ask is it your contention that time is an unimportant variable when analysing price series data? (I think I can guess what your answer might be ) As an aside constant volume bars with a time histogram below gives an interesting depiction of 'pace' or momentum (if such things are of interest). Sorry FJM strayed a bit off topic.... good work though!

The fees for API generated orders are the same with IB. Many people use order entry applications that talk to the API (button trader, bracket trader, zeroline etc.)

Tradestation cones with a study called Day Open Hi-Lo .....or something like that. This should do what you require.

I'm beginning to sound like an Interactive Brokers salesman but it feeds starlight into Excel using DDE or OLE (which is called something else nowadays). Note its 'real time data' is actually aggregated into 200milliseconds (from memory) chunks.

OEC are not a zenfire broker which was the original requirement.

Depends on your exact requirements. I would go with Interactive Brokers. Pretty open API and loads of apps (and so help) written to it. Has the bonus of a wide range of tradeables available.

Indeed! Having said that there is such a huge amount of information it is easy to get confused! When you buy the course you are essentially getting Drummonds lifes work. One of the most valuable things (imho) is the treatment of multiple timeframes (particularly in respect to types of trading). It is a comprehensive piece of work that rewards study (in my case it took many thousands of hours to really 'get' it). But as you rightly say you can take one idea or concept and trade it successfully. Recognising this requires some maturity as a trader however. I like some of the basic geometry too, 11's & 5x's are very traceable, especially if they line up right with the envelope and pldot.

There are lots of variables if you are trading hourly bars or even dailies (not that I do) it's not so much trouble to 'flip'. I bought a new desktop setup about I dunno 6 months ago....as yet no trading software just games <blush>.

Macbook pro with 17" screen here. Gave up on the Cape Canaveral setup ages ago. I'd be interested how many instruments people follow with the extra real estate?

Theres the rub. Some things are considered OK others not. I only discovered 86834's blog a couple of days ago (Ironically it was probably because someone questioned his integrity). I quite liked it, certainly didn't seem like the home of an internet marketeer. I am sure Brown would not mind the odd link to Nisson or Bigalow for example. Nisson in particular is all about product. The thing is, some websites that list commercial services also have a wealth of 'good' (depending on your view) free material too. What are the criteria that determines what is acceptable and what not? I guess that this will come under discussion as more formal forum guidelines are established. Edit: Read ahead a few posts and DB has said much the same thing...still not worth deleting this having taken the trouble to write it. It is relevant in the context of the forum guidelines currently being established but probably not in Edabreus thread. Apologies for that.

Too late I clicked on them arggghhh is it contagious do you think ?

Try messing with weekly and monthly pivots. They 'work' in the same way as ordinary daily ones, just a different sample period no more or less 'laggy'. So normally the PP generated from last week you would project into this week. There is some inherent geometry in pivots S1,R1 etc. Probably why they 'work' just as well on a 7 minute chart as a 3 day chart. If you look hard at the arithmetic you will probably see the geometry they represent. After a wide range day you might want to look at halfway points too. Due to the way they are constructed a wide range up, closing near the high will put R1 off in space. Or maybe look at other filters, stats, or processing based on range, that seems to have a high level of synergy with what you are doing. Do you have access to, and would you consider using volume information? Jerry Perls trading with market statistics threads might be of interest. (In the market profile section) They are a great read whatever your approach, and something quite novel which is a rare thing.

Most of the 'retail platforms' are MT4 connected to a bookie. Retail 'traders' are just taking bets with a bookie. A bookie that can manipulate the prices in a variety of ways. You will find it hard to get bets on in a timely fashion. As the bookie is the counter party, should you find a way of exploiting these short term fluctuations they will simply not take your bets any more (close your account). Or they may just flag you refer to dealer in which case you will be filled 20 seconds later if price has moved against you (at your original price) or re quoted a worse price outside the market if things are moving in your favour. There are a couple (only a couple) of notable exceptions, broker that provide retail traders access to real interbank liquidity. Of course as the banks are connected to these networks you would be arbitraging against their(the banks) price discrepancies not retail traders. Imvho you are driving up a cul de sac FJM.

Ahh but that was the European desk I'd wager I wonder if the US desk is better nowadays? Last time I called I couldn't remember my security word <doh>. For things financial i try to pick extra secure account information. So secure I don't remember!! I should re-iterate I think they are great broker, which is why they are my primary.

You actually don't need a huge edge, however there are a few different variables that are important. One of the most important is risk of ruin, I like this site which talks about that http://www.traderscalm.com/ror0.html Expectancy is another statistic that many people look at. Google will reveal a gazillion pages on that. Sounds like you probably know about that as you where talking about R:R. With an approach based on the stats you will want to look at maximum adverse excursions and minimum adverse excursions. Eliminating outliers that could turn into big losses would be very prudent. Again seems like that is what you where doing in your example looking at S1 or S2 as a stop. There are 'formal' ways to look at these to determine stops that suit you best. As for filters to improve results you could look at daily pivots in respect to weekly and monthly pivots. You could use some sort of 'price action' to trigger a trade, you might have to give up some potential profit to get some confirmation. There's lots you might try. Can I asked do you use Excel to massage your figures or something more sophisticated?

Good advice Harlequin. It should be noted that IB does not have a great reputation for being that prompt answering the phone. I have not had that issue calling the European Desk. Mind you can't remember the last time I needed to call, years ago. On the plus side they have a European, USA, & Asian dealing desk and offices in may cities. How often do you call your broker? If you think that is something you might do a good test is to call them at a few 'awkward' times (just after the open, after news etc.) and see how long it takes to get through. Of course you can bet your bottom dollar that the one time you do need to close a trade by phone it will be just after a surprise 2% interest rate reduction.

This always puzzles me. There is really no excuse for 'missing' volume, all the providers get get the same feed. from the exchange. Actually this is not strictly true I believe there is a separate 'broker' feed and 'data provide'r feed, or used to be at least. If things get overloaded there are two acceptable solutions and one unacceptable one (that I can think of). 1) Just keep sending despite things backing up. This will cause 'lag' but all data will arrive intact. I'm pretty sure this is how Esignal does it. I don't use Esignal and have not for quite a while, In the old days before multi megabit broadband Esignal would noticeably lag the actual market if things where fast. 2) Aggregate data. IB does this and I think this is an acceptable compromise. If the market is fast they will send all the volume information but may aggregate ticks at the same price. 3) Discard data. This is the unacceptable option (imho). The discarding could be intentional or un-intentional (due to 'overloading'). I really can't imagine that a mature product would still be bugged to the extent that it lost data in fast markets, it is much more likely to be a 'lesser of two evils' design decision. An email from the provider would clarify how they deal with fast markets and saturated links to clients. It's perplexing.

I'm an IB man too. I would add that they possibly have one of the the broadest range of markets and instruments available from a single account of any broker out there.

The question of brokers crops up often. There are half a dozen or so that are consistently recommended by people here. IB, Mirus, Amp, OEC, Transact (I think) and maybe a couple of others are generally recommended. Maybe worth having a sticky thread to direct people too?

I am easily confused!! It would be useful perhaps to explore how one could use options to improve the basic strategy/play to say limit risk or whatever else.

That would be interesting. I can't help feeling that your experience might play a bigger part than you credit yourself for.

Perhaps you where unaware that as Multicharts also uses easy language it is (usually) a simple cut and paste of the text into Tradestation. I guess this could be mis-construed as extreme laziness rather than just being pressed from time.

Browns now you have confuse me!! I was talking about the example given in the original post. I know that in another thread JP mentioned actually using options but my question relates to the example in the original post. So put another way do you also look for companies that are expected to have a negative report and short them (buying back just before? (by taking a short position in the equity or by using a derivative)

I would never have guessed. Looks like a concise set of guidelines, the intent seems clear.

Several methods where discussed (and coded) in a recent thread. I am unclear about his last sentence, assigning the highest value of the two periods would 'undo' the work done in the rest of the post.