daedalus

I'm really trying to focus on trading pure price action and candlestick analysis to advance my trading and one of the setups I really am trying to expand on is the "pin bar" setups. Many of you know what these are... heres an example of a few... My question is do any of you have set rules on what qualifies a pin bar as an actual pin bar? I would like to code up a rule set in easylanguage so for backtesting I could at least see at a glance potential entries. Obviously this would just be a rough approximation but it would make things much easier. But to do that I need to understand what really makes a pinbar and pinbar. They are obviously not the same as a hammer candle so for long setups High <> Close and vise versa... Is there any kind of "the wick should be greater than 50% of the candle" kind of rules or anything like that? Any concrete rules that I could code would be appreciated. I'd be happy to supply the completed .eld and .pla when finished.

Tradestation right now. I was planning on using OEC. I resolved the data issue, but I had to go into TS and refresh each data feed there... My fear is that when I get rid of TS and go to OEC I wouldn't be able to have that "out" to fix it? Or I guess maybe i'd just have to open up OEC Trader and refresh from there?

Ok... So i'm trying to use multicharts and this is what i've found to be wrong... a couple things are just things i'd like to see but if any of you use multicharts and could tell me if indeed there are issues with some of these things or if its just me not knowing how to setup the program correctly please let me know! Heres my lists of problems. Don't get me wrong - I love the idea of multicharts and I think it could be great but i'm staggered by how much of the program just flat out doesn't work and that they are charging money for this thing. A small list of things that just don't work... The resolution link on the charts. There is no way to link resolution to the scanner window. The workspace tabs can't be moved to change their orders. The move buttons don't work and they can't be dragged. Indicator alerts don't work consistently. The dialogue box comes up maybe once out of every 20 times. While the audio alert does work, it leaves me scanning 20 open charts to see what candle actually fired. I think it is related to if you have the platform running actively ontop of everything else... it like if you are already looking at it and then the alert fires, it doesn't label it. And even then its a crap shoot. A small list of things that need to be included... HOTKEYS! How hard would it actually be to code this? Honestly? I can do it in VB in about 20 minutes? Yet this feature requested by their userbase has somehow gone undeveloped for years. For those of us who use drawing tools a lot having hot keys saves us tons of time. Having to click the damn tool bar and then come back to the spot on the chart we want to draw on is a huge inconvenience. And a small list of things that always seem to go bad with its interpretation of data... Soo all of my charts this morning linked to Tradestation data? Multicharts is convinced that from the time I shut off the charts last night until I turned them on this morning no market movement occurred.... and it translates this into one massive bar from where it left off until where it is. Chart refresh maybe? Sure- but it doesn't do anything. Its just unacceptable. Fix the SERIOUS flaws and then i'll switch. Until then I continue to be dissapointed and waiting for you guys to get your act together. And while I sound like a scathing a-hole let me make something clear. I want to buy multicharts and use it. I would love to eliminate my monthly platform fees with tradestation. The program is so lean and fast - I love that. A lot of their features are very innovative and the overall package I think is better. The easylanguage editor is very nice and much more robust.... BUT the platform has yet to address underlying issues in the foundation of the program IMHO.

^^ Thanks for that... i'll modify the code.

Ok, so I add the "And LastBarOnChart = True Then" to the end of the if statements and then compiled... I set the timeframe overide in the scanner box to act as if the data ended on 5/21 (the last time there was a signal on the KFT symbol) and whamo! It shows up with the data but everything else is left blank! Beyond awesome guys. Thank you so much for the help. I just needed a quick push and the little part of Tams code shoved the idea to the forefront of my mind. Such a cool feeling when you have an idea and you see it come to fruition in code.

Dahhh... I just did that and I think it works!!!!

Thanks Tams - Would it also be possible to add the LastBaronChart to a conditional IF statement? I have the statement built with one big If statement that if high = such and such and low = such and such plot a dot above or below the bar... Could I just add another AND LastBaronChart = true to the If statement and then alert "sell signal"?

Thanks! It looks like that might work! I'll have to wait until markets open at 4 on sunday to confirm it doesn't do the same behavior as before but I think it could work. Thanks man!

Thus far, as a pseudo fix until I can get a bit more help from people in the know I used Tams "Masthead" code and fixed the counter to the top of the screen for the time being. It would work I suppose. I just wish I could get the standard code to work. If you all have any ideas or suggestions I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, thanks Tams as always for giving us the tools to fix some of our problems on our own.

Thanks TAMS, but my concerns is that as of right now the show me is just keeping the last valid data point in its entry and on the print command it will just print out the last data point on all of the symbols rather than telling me if it occurred in the last day won't it?

I have a show me indicator that shows a simple candlestick pattern. I'd like to be able to have a list of say 300 stocks in a market scanner table in MC and then be alerted the when the criteria is met. I'm planning on swing trading equities part time and it would be great if I could just check the scanner table once a night and see out of the list of stocks the 3 that have potential trades as of the close of trading that day. Right now as it is the scanner shows the last value of a valid signal on a given stock. But what I really need to be able to sort out or identify is how long ago that occurred so i'm only focusing on setups that have occurred in the last day or two. Is there any way to make this a reality? I'm thinking of modifying the show me indicator so that there is some kind of "false" default flag that would get modified to true when the condition is met on that bar and then going back to false the next bar... but it seems complicated and I think my logic may be a bit flawed. Any of you guys know a quicker and easier way to skin this cat? Thanks for your help!

I've been with TS for 4 years. I'm dropping TS for Open E Cry. Free data, no platform fees. Done deal. I'm sick of TS screwing me out of 99 bucks a month if I don't pay them 100 bucks in commission.

^^^ I like your thinking!

Here ya go. Attached. Volume Spike.ELD

I've used both the "TickCountDown.eld" available on this forum and the "Tick Counter 2000" available from TS forums and while they technically work... the countdown moves from out of view on the far right hand side of the chart, and inches closer and closer to the actual candle with every tick, then gets there and gets kicked out again to the point where you can't see it. Does anyone know of a workaround or fix for this to make it behave like in TS where it just stays a space away from the current bar on the chart? I've attached a small 0:43 .avi file of a chart showing the behavior. Thanks for your help!!! capture-1.avi

Dude... you're the man. Thanks so much!

Can any of our resident Multicharts gurus *cough cough TAMS!!! cough* point me in the right direction on how to using free quotes with the platform? TSSupport says go to yahoo/msn finance... but beyond that i haven't found anything on how to actually get the data into the platform. I've seen the ASCII walk through and that would work but where do I source the ASCII files? I'm canceling my tradestation data feed but would still be able to use a pseudo tradestation environment for analysis. Obviously i'm screwed for intraday stuff, but for end of day equity analysis this would still be possible no? Thanks for the help gents!

Thanks for the clarification guys!

One thing i've been confused on with the H2/L2 entries is where the actual entry is? Because this is how i've been interpreting it? Or am I supposed to be dragging a sell stop up the pullback outside the lows of each candle?

Yup that did it... first chart only had like 1 day of data. Thanks!

A couple great ideas given in here. I would second the idea of using rangebars to eliminate some of the natural consolidation in the charts. Also, think about the natural indications of chop... what does it look like on a chart... typically its bars without large dense bodies, and lots of wicks, usually on both sides of the candle. But the other thing I want to suggest is that you limit the time of day you take setups. The first hour and a half of trading there is a lot of movement right? Then this is a good time to look for setups because "chop" is unlikely when the market is moving and all of its players are taking positions. Midday... not as likely... and chop is more probable... last half hour - hour of the day can be big and directional but can also be complete crap... I avoid anything after 2:00PM CST. Basically I take signals from 9:00AM CST (First 30 minutes are a gamble IMHO) to 11 and from 12-2. The last thing I would mention is this use of chop... I think we are talking (potentially) about different things here. You are using a squeeze indicator which means by definition you need the market to consolidate (ie chop) to give you a squeeze for a potential trade right? So what you are really talking about when you say chop is probably more "how can I avoid false breakouts without follow through?" And that... is probably a different answer than whats been given. I think your best bet is to focus on money management and potentially skipping trades that signal beyond the prior swing high/low and trying to have a way to reduce risk as the trade progresses towards those natural areas of rejection and failure (if you are already in the trade). Hope this helps. Cheers!

Good stuff... I gotta admit I didn't know the difference between the two either. Thanks for the info.

Keep at it Hal... you'll figure it out. I think the suggestion using the Heiken Ashi as entries and exits can be a very simple and straightforward method. But... focus on waiting for the swings to be nice and smooth... lots of doji's and big wicks and you need to walk away. When the markets are moving... its all good. Maybe applied with some simple patterns (higher highs, high lows, etc) it could be very good. I know the TTM folks do trades called "TTM Rotations" based on the same concept. I'm sure if you search their website you can find some video examples. Cheers!

I would go with Oanda... it is web based which is a bit annoying... but what I would do is open up a demo account with some place like FXDD get the MT4 platform for free - use that for charting and then place orders through Oanda's interface. Back when I was trading FX and was looking for brokers (I ended up going through MBT) I was really impressed with Oanda's low spreads. While they are variable to an extent most times I was getting 1 pip or less on the EURUSD during normal trading periods. Quick execution and I think their spreads (IIRC) were 1-2 pips less than most other "fixed spread bandits". And they have no account minimum's and you can trade micro lots. Great for starting out and keeping the size REAL small. Honestly, If I go back to FX at any time I think i'll end up using them as a broker over MBT because while you can get in at the bid and out at the ask, etc. with MBT I rarely found myself using those types of orders and more often than not getting worse fills just exiting and entering at the market in addition to having to pay comissions. I'd rather just pay a spread and be done with it I think. Thing that peev'ed me was in MBT i'd set a limit order to enter or exit my trade and depending on what the spread was at the time I may or may not get filled... but since the spread was always changing you couldn't calculate what the correct price you needed to set it at to get a fill. It lead to a lot of missed exits and entries by factions of a pip due to the spread. Fixed spread bandits aren't the demons we all make them out to be. Depends on how you trade I suppose... but for most people its much easier and simple to just use a broker like Oanda and be done with it. Cheers!

^^^ Or just use Internet Explorer to open them... file > open > ... it works.