FFTrader

If you ask me, the media and Mr. Lewis may be just interested in getting a bigger audience / selling more books. If I can assume the most media outlets have not really looked into this until after Mr. Lewis publish a book, I doubt what we hear on CNBC, Bloomberg, NY Times, etc. is fair and can help level the playing field for all and protect market liquidity. CNBC today have resort to asking IEX's CEO to answer the simple question of whether the stock market is rigged on camera. See: Katsuyama vs. O'Brien - who won the fight? Where as in reality we small discretionary traders probably have no idea HFT is - but I did bookmark these earlier for my own research purposes - I thought these two articles by Credit Suisse is a better illustration of what HFT is as when you read these articles, you do not have to go to Amazon and pay money to buy a book first : 1. https://edge.credit-suisse.com/edge/Public/Bulletin/Servefile.aspx?FileID=23284&m=1815212669 2. CS HFT DETECTION All I can say is, get the word out. At least don't let people bash it and let the regulators do a good job in figuring how to regulate it.

I am happy with 50% and 61.8% too - the problem arises when you see other ratios works - or become trade-able, etc. The thing with trading - and I am sure many traders here will agree - is that if there are enough participants at a level, a market will go with the majority. I am sure if you look on the charts of relatively thinly traded futures like GC - as oppose to larger volume ES - you may find these odd percentage retraces, for example. Whether these retraces will produce a significant turn that takes out the original points of the retrace on the other side OR simply produce a trade-able / scalp-able level/zone is probably two different stories. :2c: :2c: :2c: If you Google Gartley, you will see many references to 88.6%, for example. I keep wondering why and have not found a reason. Anyway, I guess there are no real reasons - like the golden ratio - that makes these other levels work somewhat. :roll eyes:

Ok, I am always been a big fan of 61.8% Fibonacci Ratio (so is 50%) - but why are Fibonacci Ratios of 88.6%, 78.6%, 127.2% useful? I see them in Gartley patterns and the instrument I trade - GC futures. I saw many threads online regarding it is good in Forex ... However, no one had address the issue of why it works - I see the pattern in GC for 88.6% on the 60 min chart from last Friday up to current, for example, in addition to the 61.8% and 50%. My objective is to determine why it works and hopefully determine when it will have a higher probably of working.

Peterthemonkey put out a good point - you need to define it. If anyone here have studied information theory - see: http://www.framingham.edu/~dkeil/dscs-chaos.pdf Go to slide 18 - note that the famous ratio of Pi ... is by definition not random. Why? Because it can be generated by a short algorithm (of mathematics). In other words, Burton Malkiel famous coin tossing experiment and mathematically adding or subtracting a constant is also using an algorithm (of addition/subtraction) and thus by definition not random mathematically? Malkiel may have underestimated that in Information Theory (Google Claude E. Shannon if anyone cares), there are a mountain of knowledge and foundation concerning coding, telecommunication bandwidth, channel capacity, etc. that builds on the idea of randomness ... Yeah, just leave it to the economist and their real understanding on mathematical principles? :doh: :missy: :doh:

Will watch the video after I get a WiFi connection ... If I can ask now - how do one get reminded on the trading plan during the day but not get distracted by the evolving market - as some markets can move fast (e.g. GC, CL)?

Well said duncanhoo. The thing with flipping a coin experiment is that the experiment mentioned could be flaw. It is the PRESUMPTION that a random event with some math (addition and subtraction) will NOT produce a pattern. This presumption is mathematically not sound. The reason being that the "addition and subtraction" of half a point is a rule. That is, you need a mathematically random number generator and ONLY the generator's output is use with no other mathematical manipulation to the output - to ensure randomness. The problem is that with this author (a journalist / economist / writer as depicted by duncanhoo), there is a good chance that during the writing of a book, the research on the concept of randomness and the mathematics behind randomness is probably not well defined / researched. I have not read the book myself but base on what I know with mathematics and base on that certain trading concepts that can work across different markets, I would probably not buy the book.

I am seeing the average daily volume of ES dropping for the most part of the past 12-18 months. I am not sure if it was because of HFT but I would argue that at some breaking point the HFT would not be able to find enough trading profits if the volume of ES is low enough? That is, if there are enough HFT going on, wouldn't they trade against each other and eventually they would find no real edges / not enough profits in their systems? As such, the ever decreasing daily volume is a sign of this?

manual? of Tradestation or the text file? manual of what? I have done a tiny bit of programming myself (and have my own simple indicators) so removed the "text_setsize" and the ELD verified without error. Put it on tick charts and intra-day charts and no lines ... just to clarify myself a little.

I cannot seem to import it to Tradestation ... needs an *.ELD file or am I missing something? Use the .txt file and save it as an *.ELD? I have Tradestation 8.7. I did that and no lines? Thanks.

Thank you BlowFish. I guess I am asking an expectancy question? That is, how much profits can I expect from a good set up ... my set up above basically means that after 30 contracts / 10 trades of 3 each, I get 3.62 points net. Per contract that is slightly over 1 tick on the ES. Although conservative in that 3.62 number, I am not sure I am close to a realistic target or too far away.

I am testing a set up with 10 trades of 3 contracts each and the results (conservative estimates) yielded a net return after commission of 3.62 points. This is for the ES and it is for day trading. Approximately 5 trades a day. Without me detailing what it is, would you trade this set up?

Hi MoreYummy, I started this thread because a fellow trader asked me to join with her and I have since decided not to. I think there is a trading room, however. I am not quite sure what indicators they use per se but I think they do use key support and resistance as part of their setup based on the free trial I saw. I am not an experienced trader and still struggling. As such, as of this moment, I cannot say for sure whether their stuff works or not - FOR YOU. What I do have control on and starting to get into a habit of is to trade my own setup. The key - and most recent - milestone for me is that I am able to avoid large drawdowns. I trade with two fairly standard indicators basically - a momentum indicator and an oscillator. That's it. Other considerations I use are purely subjective opinions I have base on my experiences so that part of it may vary depending on who you are. More experienced traders here and elsewhere may agree with me that there is nothing new under the sun - and there is no holy grail. In other words, keep searching for something you like while try to come up with something you are comfortable with. Hope the above helps. Thanks, FFTrader

I was there during the live trading event. Still has more questions than answers - but that is just me.

Those lines looks like it has some similarities to the standard Tradestation indicator "Trendlines Automatic" if you ask me ... and pivots calculations can be seen on http://www.mypivots.com ... the blue lines are timing stuff I have not been able to observe and see similarities / where it came from. To put all three together and come up with an indicator may be an accomplishment. Of course, I have not seen or use it ... would like to hear some comments from someone who is an actual user - hopefully a profitable user.

Pardon me. I have no real items that I would like from them but a fellow trader was asking about it. Their triggers seems quite good on their youtube videos. Obviously I would like to learn more ABOUT other trader's comments on them and / or their effectiveness. Just a caveat - NOT looking for the holy grail but looking for another potential tool.