mister ed

Tin, what ranj said sounds good to me ..... but can I throw a spanner in the works? This has been said before on this forum, but what do you think of the idea that the price must move to prove your position right in order for you to stay in the position. So its not enough to hold a position because it hasn't hit your stop, it must move in your favour in order to be held? So the stop is a worst case scenario, the idea is to move the stop in your favour ASAP. I know this is not an answer, its another question, and apologies for that. And I don't have the answer.

Thanks Waveslider, BrownsFan and Darth - I suppose these things work as reference points, just I seem to have so many of them. And Darth, "I think its interesting that if you randomly draw a line on a chart, you can probly convince yourself that price is respecting that level to some degree even though its just random." I think you are right...which is scary - LOL!

Will do Tingull - I saw some of your contributions on their site!

Thanks for that - sounds like that is the go - shouldn't you be asleep by now in NY?

Are you referring to the Value High and Value Low of the day? See VAH and VAL. Both of these are Market Profile terms, and to be honest to understand them it would be a great idea to read some of the introductory posts you will find here at the Market Profile forum. Very educational indeed and well worth the time spent. In brief, the value high and low are plotted around a central price referred to as the Point of Control (POC), which is the price that traded most frequently during the day according to time at price. The POC is the longest line of TPOs on the Market Profile chart. The VAH and VAL are plotted so as to contain 70%, or thereabouts, of the day's trading, again as measured in number of TPOs.

Decision made. Thanks everyone for their replies. Both Ensign and IR/T do the job I want, and like Reaver said the support, upgrades, responsiveness from BOTH is just OUTSTANDING. Deciding between the two was almost down to the toss of a coin; I went with IR/T. Gone are the days when making a decision like this was an expensive one to get wrong, spending $1000 or whatever on a charting package, each of these are about $US40 a month for what I want (plus the gouge from the data supplier of course - wounded bulls aint in it). If, for some reason I want to change over to another charting package the process is painless and $ cost-free.

I have a computer-related question if anyone can help? I recently changed my video card to a dual head so that I could run two monitors. I couldn’t believe how easy it was nor how little it cost (ebay). High-end video cards for 3D games run into big $ but the card I got is for 2D applications like …charts! OK, now the problem is I want to add another monitor (I have replaced the addiction of adding more indicators to my charts with one for adding more monitors…). The card I installed went into the AGP slot, and there is only one AGP slot on my board, so I cant add another of the cards I recently installed. The solutions I have thought of, in the order of attractiveness for me follow, can anyone comment on their experiences or thoughts on these possible solutions? 1. Buy a dual head PCI-compatible video card. A pretty cheap solution again but my concern is I hear is here can be a lot of compatibility problems. 2. Buy a piece of software called MaxiVista (nothing to do with Windows Vista, I run XP by the way) that will allow me to run a third monitor without adding anything to my existing PC beyond a USB cable. It does require a 2nd PC, but an old one will do; I have one not being used at present (it is very old….). Again, this is a cheap solution. 3. OK, now it starts to get expensive – buy a peripheral from Matrox called DualHead2Go – I plug it into one of the outputs on the current dual head card and I can run two monitors on that output instead of 1, so 3 monitors in total. Or TripleHead2Go, same set-up, but will allow up to 4 monitors (I will stop at 3, really, honestly….) but VERY expensive. Really too expensive to even consider, could almost buy a new PC for the price of these. 4. There are some freeware programs that do the job of MaxiVista (point 2) but they look too complex for me to manage. 5. Buy a new PC with two AGP slots (do these even exist?) and two dual head video cards. Lest you think I am spending too much, the monitors I have are all CRT 17 inchers, gathered over the years with PC purchases.. The only LCD display in the house was claimed by my wife for her computer – best not to argue with her… Over to the collective....

As a fan of VSA and all things Wyckoff I would like to nominate Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. for its portrayal of professional players, albeit in a different but nevertheless related field. Honourable mention to Trading Places (not the stockmarket but you gotta love it, "Lookin' good......". " Feelin' good.....") Winner, for its portrayal of the emotions, on the buy and sell side, has to be Boiler Room for me.

Before each RTH session on the ES I prepare the “pivotsâ€Â, the classic floor trader pivots plus others that are not strictly pivots but I call them that. The ones I use are: The classic pivots I already mentioned, from the top: R3, R2, R1, PP, S1, S2, S3. I also make sure I have Yesterday’s H, L and C. I also have the overnight trading’s H and L. And finally yesterday’s VAH, POC and VAL. When the RTH session opens I also make note of the opening price and use that too. Can I be honest here, I HATE doing this. I wont draw these levels on my chart, the chart looks like a football field if I do, I just have them listed, from the highest to lowest next to me to refer to. Why do I do it? Well as you are all no doubt aware the market tends to respects these levels. When I say this, I mean they are generally respected as zones of support or resistance, not meant to be relied on to the exact price, and as often as not completely disregarded. If I ever figure out the exact prices that are going to hold, I will be sure to let you all know. Trading for Tue. Nov. 6 (2007) was a great example. I had the o’ night high at 1514.75, R1 at 1515.25, & Monday’s high at 1516.25. That’s 3 in the space of 7 tics. The first little swing up got to 1515.75, right between R1 and Monday’s high, tested there twice. Then swing down to 1511.50, 3 tics below the VAH for Monday at 1506.25. Next swing up to 1516.50, one tic above Monday’s high. Extended swing then down to 1503.50, with pivots just above it 1503.75 (Monday’s close) and 1504.75 (the day’s PP). Next good swing up to 1511.75, 2 tics below Monday’s VAH. I wont go on, and I am not really sure what my point is. I suppose my point is that I am quite capable of looking at a chart and coming up with reasonably good support and resistance zones myself and then monitoring how the market is trading when it gets there and making my decisions accordingly. What I don’t get is these pivots, apart from yesterday’s H, L & C and today’s open) are just there because they are there…(Let me just add that I think the VAH, POC, and VAL pivots are rock solid and well founded in science – there, now I should avoid the death threats from the MP crowd). Does anyone have any thoughts on all these pivots, using them, not using them and so on?

I'm late to this party sorry, hope the contribution is useful. I looked up the hanging man in Nison's first book and sure enough he says that if the hanging man occurs after a rally the move "may be ending". I must say I much prefer BF's interpretation - the bears trying to pushing it down and it bouncing right back at them. I have attached a diagram.

Reply to Blu-Ray's post 595 re the month of more volume at bid than ask. My first thoughts when I looked at the period in question is to check the integrity of the data. There is 18 consecutive days of red over green, before beginning any analysis that would set off alarm bells in my head. If the data is correct then on with the analysis...

I can think of a few things... Mr. Paul, I like the self-referential Google results! Oh yes, I have a point...I have heard some people find such books on file sharing services too.

The only other backtesting software I know of is Tradesim and Wealthlab.

...I cant eat a whole one.

A Volume moving average; I like the idea so I know if the volume in the market is higher than average, indicating outside money flowing in/out and good potential for a trend move, or lower than average indicating the locals might spend the day playing with stops and we have a range sort of day. That’s the (simplified) theory, but the practical side of it is that volume varies depending on time of day so using a normal moving average calculation (take the last “x" periods, add them up, divide by “xâ€Â) will not give a reliable indication of what the average volume is for a particular time of day. Better to take the volume for a certain period of time, say the 15 minutes between 8.30 and 8.45 am, and compare the volume during this period to the volume between 8.30 and 8.45 am for previous days. Maybe add up the volume for each of the 8.30 to 8.45 am time slots for the previous 20 days, and divide by 20 (20 is not carved on a stone tablet, use whatever number of periods suits; also this calculation is for a simple MA, could also use an exponential, weighted, or whatever suits). Do this for each 15 minute period during the trading session, and at a glance we can tell if the volume is above or below average for this time of day. I suppose plenty of software packages will do this sort of thing, I know Ensign does it, but I don’t have Ensign. So what I did was get the volume data for each 15 minute period of the ES from 8.30 to 3.15 (Chicago time), put it in Excel (if you don’t have Excel, you could use the Open office spreadsheet software – free download) and did the calculations, this is what I came up with for the average volumes (simple MA) every 15 minutes using the data for the dates between Sep. 19 and Oct. 17, 2007 inclusive: Chicago time: Average volume (15 mins ending…) (no. of contracts traded) 8.45 86,985 9.00 74,498 9.15 83,731 9.30 64,551 9.45 67,687 10.00 56,384 10.15 57,069 10.30 52,050 10.45 47,209 11.00 36,678 11.15 31,807 11.30 24,842 11.45 25,120 12.00 22,855 12.15 28,098 12.30 35,421 12.45 39,401 1.00 36,565 1.15 49,971 1.30 51,979 1.45 52,430 2.00 47,979 2.15 60,035 2.30 58,578 2.45 58,518 3.00 79,956 3.15 67,798 I don’t know how often I will have to update these figures, if they change dramatically each day then there would not seem to be much point to them, but I doubt they do. I might update them each day for a couple of weeks and see if there are any big swings in values; if, as I expect, there is not, then I will probably update them once a week, or even extend the period out to 30, 40, or more, days – it’s a simple matter of just adding more data. I have attached the spreadsheet I designed (ummm…. designed is too fancy a word for what I cobbled together) to do the calculations, for those who may find it useful. Any thoughts, suggestions, modifications ? es vol data.xls

Hi Ranj, Bozo refers to a Marubozu (sometimes spelt Marubozo) candle, basically candle with very minimal shadows, or no shadows at all. I am sure someone will be along with an even more detailed description, but this is the gist of it. If you Google Marubozu or Marubozo, there is more info out there, I found some at : http://www.streetauthority.com/terms/m/marubozucandle.asp and at http://www.iqc.com/101/candle_marubozu.asp

BF, I would try a few things before taking it to an expert, CCleaner (find it at http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/) will rid the hard drive of unnecessary files, may help speed things up. FreeRamXP (find at http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/) is invaluable in keeping RAM available, doesnt sound like your problem but might be of assistance. Try using Firefox instead of IE, see if it makes any difference?

Thanks Reaver and Fulcrum, appreciate the info.

Some great ideas in this thread - great question to ask if trading is an art or a science. These sorts of "philosophical" questions (as opposed to practical questions- "what value of MA should I use...") can add real value to trading, it forces me to take a step back and think about what I am doing. Of course on many forums such questions quickly degenerate into a war of flames, thankfully not on TL. My $0.02 is that trading is a craft, or a "trade": sure there are elements of science, many elements of art, but combining the two on a day-to-day basis is practising a craft.

Thanks Tingull - appreciate the info.

Great post Reaver. I would almost go one step further and say that there is enough information on this forum, and some others, so that there is no need to buy any trading-related books... A great advantage this forum (and some others) has over a book is the ability to ask questions, engage in debate, amend viewpoints, adapt to new information, and to engage. Note I said almost, I reluctantly admit there some books out there that are useful too!

Hello, I have been researching both Ensign and InvestorR/T with a view to subscribe to one or the other. I am specifically interested in the Volume Delta capabilities of each, for use on the stock index eminis. From my research it appears that InvestorR/T is well advanced with the presentation of the Volume Delta, with options to chart it in various ways, on time-bars, tick-bars etc. Also from my research, though, it appears InvestorR/T works very well with Apple Macs but does not seem stable/reliable with Windows PCs. I am in the PC camp, and wonder if there are any PC users with InvestorR/T using real time data and analysis that can provide feedback on how the platform performs? On the other hand, Ensign has the reliability and stability but it appears their Volume Delta studies are more limited, and such studies need to be designed by users using Ensign's "Design Your Own" tools? Any feedback from Ensign users on the Volume Delta tools in that software would be appreciated. Thanks !

Pivot, you got the reply in faster than me, and more eloquently too!

EDIT: I posted this before I read PivotProfiler's reply (above). Having read Pivot's post I urge readers to save themselves some time and don't bother reading mine - Pivot's is much better and much more insightful! --- Hi Shreem and all. Great post Shreem, and I wonder about signals on a New York Friday afternoon and whether they fizz out just due to lack of interest! In this case, though, can I highlight a point that may have been missed? Let me say first that one of the dangers of an analysis like VSA, where the signals are somewhat open to interpretation is a tendency to find an explanation for every failure of a signal. One of my strongest criticisms of a method such as Elliot Wave is that many practitioners will find a reason why a clear signal did not work, often going to ridiculous extremes to explain away a failure. On the other hand, traders that use technical indicators of the "buy when the blue line crosses the red" type school will accept that sometimes their signals do fail. They will either accept that a signal failed, or go and rejig their system parameters. At the risk of appearing to be trying to find an explanation for a signal failure, here goes! I have attached your chart with the support/resistance zone created by the WRB coloured in. One of the points of the hybrid VSA-WRB analysis is to seek low-volume signals that fall within the zone created by the WRB. The bars that have been labelled as upthrusts are not within this zone, so this may perhaps be a reason why we would not consider them as the sort of signals we are looking for? On the other hand, they do lie somewhat within the upper shadow of the WRB candle, so maybe they can be considered as being valid signals? Also, do you have a lower timeframe chart, perhaps a 15-minute candle chart, this may be worth looking at for evidence of signals? Thanks for the post Shreem, like Tasuki said, lots to be learnt from failed signals too!

There are different types of CFDs, depending on the CFD provider you are dealing with. These are not standardised products and each provider can have different brokerage rates, interest rates, dealing platforms, and so on. Also, some providers are market-making in the CFD (these are most likely to be a "bucket shop" operation) while other providers will have a DMA model (Direct Market Access) where each deal you do is automatically dealt into the exchange, such a provider is much less likely to be a "bucket shop". On the face of it, and with only the information you provided, a 40USD round trip charge would seem to very strongly suggest that the CFD provider you are referring to is indeed operating on the bucket shop model.