RichardHK

Been here for a year now which is when I first started on forex. Soon dropped forex for the ES and much more satisfying there. Thanks for your welcome.

No, I am an ES guy! Will take a look at HSI now I am on IB. Also want to try the European Bund and similar when my tape reading skills are up to it to give me more afternoon trading choices. Will trade the ES Globex this week using Jigsaw tools only (no charts) to accelerate my learning. Been tape reading with the TradeStation T&S and DOM for some time but as you know, just not enough info available. Thanks for your setup pic. I like the price centred (centered) and have adjusted mine to same. Now training my left eye for bids and right eye for offers! Got some practice time to put in. :missy:

Hi XS, I finally got going with NT+IB+Kin+Jigsaw yesterday and so far so very good. Have a 2 week window for a money-back guarantee on Jigsaw tools but not looking like I am going to drop this setup. Thanks for your positive feedback which reinforces staying with NT+. Only 'problem' is I cannot get the complex screen setups I have with TradeStation, but then again, why complicate trading? Ninja is forcing me to focus on the minimum screens needed which I believe is a good thing. I have several workspaces setup on TS purely for trade confirmation, but they are just an excuse for taking the trade!! Thanks again, Richard

Is this really the case for ALL? Is it not true that I can get clean tick level data from Kinetick? And other providers most likely? (1) Further to IB topic, I plan to use IB soon with NinjaTrader front end and Kinetick feed. Objective is to then use the JigsawTrading tools to give a reasonably accurate Time and Sales and DOM to identify large trade sizes. Has anyone any experience with this? Or is there a better way? (2) Lots of old 2009 talk on CME breaking up the tick data to not show large orders, yet I find nothing being said on topic for last few years. Is this CME order size data still broken up now? I often get very large orders on TradeStation T&S (500+, 700+...) which makes me wonder. Any comments appreciated. Not much up to date discussion on this valuable topic as said.

>Auction Based Trading Markets Are Unfair By Design Most of the trading markets nowadays are open auction markets. Auction markets are designed to favour players with intimidating position size capacities.< This is true but plenty of free info out there already on topic. As noted above you would likely be wasting $$ and time randomly downloading unverified ebooks online. (Been there, done that!) Search for resources on reading the tape/order flow and you can tap into this area easily. A good 'required reading' for all traders is 'Reminiscences of a Stock Operator' where the shenanigans of early 1900's Wall Street are still being played out (more easily) on the electronic exchanges. This book can be found for free online but best version IMHO is the illustrated and annotated Edwin LeFevre version. A beautiful and valuable book.

Correct ZDO... the limbic brain patterns are responsible for my issues, as for 98% of all other humans doing trading I would say. My system is fine and works well if implemented in a timely fashion! Working on my self-awareness through mindfulness to fix the psyche issues, which I will. Really should be more emphasis on fixing our reptile brains as part of developing a trading system. Too much BS on the need to lose money to learn trading. That STOP USING STOP LOSSES webinar was Ok but really selling their spread options methodology so not much use to me at the moment. I started with FXCM end last year on forex and in Hong Kong we can have long and short trades on together for simple hedging. It was easy to manage on one chart. So do not see any major problem handling the ES vs SPY or YM with two charts. Still cannot see why some of you think index hedging is so complex. If I go short say, on YM to ride out a 5 point pullback on an ES long, and then the market turns around, I take profits on the YM and even go long on YM if market indications support long direction. Not rocket science as we say. Funds used for hedging this way are not wasted if they minimize/prevent losses while earning extra returns in the process. A catastrophe stop is then second level protection.

Sure... I am one of the many that left hard-earned money with so-called financial 'experts', in big banks to manage. And like many others learnt about the conceited BS that the industry has been pushing for years after losing lots. Buy and hold, yeah sure. Biggest con ever. Sorry, but that's why so many of us 'Muppets' are taking their funds off these idiots/crooks. You are right to say we do need to do the necessary work to manage our own money so please forgive the naive (Muppet) questions sometimes. We've all been there, right?

Reminds me of the following Zen Buddhist story that applies to trading equally well: A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I'm devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it?" The teacher's replay was casual, "Ten years." Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I'll work very hard. I'll practise every day, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?" The teacher thought for a moment and replied, "Twenty years." This story version from 'Mindfulness for Dummies' book. The moral - hard work and attaining a goal do not necessarily go together. Let things unfold in their own time. If you are anxious you may just block your understanding. KISS for sure.

I enjoy listening to JC and HS but can switch off OK when it gets to the sales pitch. Spent 2 days in their trading room recently on a freebie and did learn a few things. Market was very dull as it has been so no good setups. I did learn that JC loses too though, but it didn't stop him placing another trade soon after. I still suffer from needing time to reassess market after exiting a trade. Got a webinar invite from Barchart.com tonight and would you believe it is called "STOP USING STOP LOSSES - Learn To Turn Your Losing Trades Into Winners Instead". Amazing coincidence! I am guessing they will cover hedging with options (as webinar sponsored by OptionsAnimal) and similar which is what JC has mentioned several times in his free videos and free webinars over the last few months. I was going to try hedging the ES with the SPY but need a little more time to get more fluid with order entries. There's not much out there on hedging techniques so I am guessing (again) that there must be something valuable in it. I might need another monitor or two though.

Thanks all for your input on this topic. Still digesting the comments and just one point for now. Comment above from MightyMouse does fit my original query well. If one of the main reasons for amateurs to lose money is 'not cutting losses, and not letting profitable trades run' then by tackling this directly - ie cutting losses aggressively (giving up lost opportunities after being taken out) and letting profitable trades run, we should be able to make money. This is what I feel the pros are doing, and the majority (losers) just follow the accepted analyst type behavior of managing their trades with fancy stops, etc. Various pro traders make these same points now and again, John Carter for example, which is why I am studying same. John Carter tells us that most traders are simply 'analysts', rather than operating like 'market makers' who hate losses. What's wrong with that idea? Seems to make good sense to me, hence my original query. I do not wish to sit at computer all day long trading (12 hours ahead of EST for one) and just need several good trades a day and the occasional elephant walking by. Further, as for Al Brooks too, my number 1 goal is not losing money, making money is goal #2, and making lots of money goal #3. This suggests cutting losses quickly, etc... ... I should quiz Al more on topic as I cannot see him sitting through many pullbacks. Would be interested to read more about DbPhoenix's money management ideas. Like where do you put a catastrophic loss, for example. And how do these stops not get hit on stocks that are flash crash whipsawed by greedy HFT algos, a common issue these days. I trade the ES for now but looking at stocks there is no safe way to leave a trade on overnight given the opening lack of liquidity thanks to HFTs. See premarketinfo.com for lots of examples of this unfair/illegal market behavior. Thanks again for your inputs guys. Much appreciated.

Talking of scalping, as SunTrader noted above, moving to breakeven makes good sense for a scalp & run style of trading. For say 3 contracts on ES, a 2 contract scalp at 1 point could then have stop moved to BE for the remaining contract to run to either a 2-3 or more point target, or to run back to close at breakeven. This makes sure you never give anything back other than commission. Also, this topic makes me think about market makers who are reported as hating losses with a vengence. Is this how they work the stops? Would they go to BE as soon as sufficient headway made, with or without taking profits? For trades that go against you, it is fine to have stops at previous highs/lows or whatever price point makes sense, but why risk so much if you can just get out and re-enter again? Again, is this how a market maker operates? Do we get brainwashed into setting stop losses just to feed the pros? RichardHK

@40draws >...As a matter of fact, my recently funded trading account began as a $60,000 investment with a Merrill Lynch broker in a group of diversified mutual funds over 13 years ago. In 13 years, that $60,000 had "grown" to $58,155.29. So I am not new to being a market participant. I am new to be an active and informed participant.< A great example of the wonders of 'buy and hold', thanks. I like many others have lost significant sums of retirement money through so-called safe and conservative mutual funds. Thanks to the corrupt banking 'pros' of course. That's what drove me to trade for myself earlier this year. A monkey could have done a better job of investing, assuming 50/50 choices, than my 'personal wealth' advisors. Have what's left in cash at the moment and it's earning more than the last few years by going nowhere. What a joke. Wishing you and all the greatest success. Richard Hong Kong

Here's a useful presentation from premarketinfo.com that addresses how to trade vs the HFT firms/algos. Trading in an HFT World/ I visit this site every day before the open to listen to their free review. And lots more HFT info and videos here to learn from. Richard Hong Kong

Thanks mate. Will see you over there on that thread too. Richard

Would love to see a list of those books, including the six you didn't like. Any chance? I have read 'Techniques of Tape Reading' which I found to be a disappointment as not really much in there about tape reading actually. Not much good anywhere on tape reading which is possibly due to fact that so many algos are playing games. What we need is a book on 'The games HFT algos play'. Good luck with your quest. For what it's worth I do think you should set aside more than six months before deciding to continue or not. All depends on your goals of course, and you also need a lot of live experience in that time with real money to really know if you can do it. Richard Hong Kong

If you follow the shenanigans of the high frequency trading firms you can see that stop losses can be very bad for you if you trade US stocks. Getting more and more common to see whipsaws due to rogue/stupid algos that take out stops and rebound to pre-whipsaw prices. You can see lots of examples on premarketinfo.com where they follow (and hate) these guys.

Would suggest 30 minutes a day minimum studying your previous day's chart and entries. Reading the financial press is just gonna confuse and/or distract you even more.

For what it's worth these charts do not show trends to me! Looks more like a lower and higher trading range with a short bull spike between them. Great how we can all see something quite different.

Surely the only reason to enter a trade is to make money, right? I am studying price action with a simple EMA to help decide when the probability for a profitable trade is coming up. If it doesn't work, I get out quick.

Any bar, whatever the time, is not finished until it closes. Just observe how many times bars can transform themselves in the final moments before a close. If you are trying to gauge the market before the 4 hour bar ends then it seems you need to work on a lower time. As suggested above, analyze the 5 minute breakdown of the 4 hour bars if you want to understand what is happening. But as also mentioned above, there really is no useful point in trying to average out or similar... take each bar as it is, going to a lower time fractal if you are getting impatient. I work on 5 minute bars for placing and managing trades but also have the 1 minute and 15 minutes for reference. (And like to see the 1 hour and daily charts too for the bigger picture.)