NeoTrader

Automate. Wycoff. looking at that together for me is almost a downright oxymoron. I must say I am very intrigued by your thoughts/suggestions

Hello again, I commented on your other post and I will comment here as well. Forex would be a good place to go to start out. You can hold a day job then trade Asian/Australian/European currency pairs in the late afternoon/evening after work. Forex also allows you to start really small even down to $200 starting accounts in some cases. This allows you to learn the ropes and come up with a solid strategy before committing larger amounts of capital.

Hello and welcome. I will take a crack at answering your question. I personally believe Forex is an excellent place for beginning traders for 1 simple reason. Very granular risk management. What do I mean by that? In Forex you have the option to risk anywhere from under 10 cents per pip/point on a trade on up to any amount. In the futures market the minimum you can risk is locked into the contract size. As for the other points raised in the article I will comment on them each Liquidity: It is true the Forex is one of the most liquid markets, but at the level you and I trade this is almost a non factor. This is more of a concern if you are trading huge lots and need to get a good price on your fill with lots of size. 24-Hour Market: This is also true however this isn't necessarily a major "plus" for forex. Just because it is open 24 hours doesn't mean you should be trading it 24 hours. It does have the advantage however of allowing you to trade the Asian market hours in the evening say after you are home from your day job when the US futures markets are closed. Minimal or no commissions: This is a bit of a deceptive statement. While a forex broker may not charge commisions like you would have in futures, what you do have to account for is the pip spread. Typically when a broker charges no commisions you will have a bit larger of a spread. This is just a very general statement and commissions and spreads vary widely. It's best to do some homework on the brokers and look for one with direct order filling (no middle man or order desk) and low comissions/spreads. I personally use MB Trading (no affiliation). Price Certainty: This is almost an outright false statement in my opinion. Execution of your order depends on many things to include your broker, market conditions, and liquidity. You can get slow and bad fills in forex just as you would in Futures trading. It's all about finding a good broker here. Guaranteed Limited Risk Ths is a very very deceptive statement. You and you alone are responsible for limiting your risk, whether that be with a protective stop loss, or trading at a responsible level of leverage or both. These factors are the same accross all markets and platforms. There is nothing "guaranteed" here. Forex does however allow you to really limit risk and trade smaller than you could in the Future markets. Hope this answers your questions.

I am no guru, but I have studied VSA pretty closely for the past few months and I believe I can give you some answers. I'm sure others that are more practiced can correct me if I am wrong. 1. An UP bar is simply a bar where the close is higher than the close of a previous bar and a DOWN bar is simply the opposite. As far as "on the same day" a bar is just a bar whether its a 5 minute bar or a weekly bar. It is simply a comparison to the close of the bar prior to the one you are looking at. 2. In VSA "spread" refers to the high and low of the bar. You'll find that VSA basically ignores the open of the bar in all cases. 3. & 4. As you seem to realize the terms "high" or "low" volume and "high" or "low" spread are relative terms in VSA. Specific to your question about a bar being "narrow" this means relative to previous bars. Narrow on one chart might be 5 points/pips/cents and on another chart narrow might be 100 points/pips/cents. Also be aware that when you make these comparisons the most recent price action is more relevant. You might find that what was "narrow" 6 months ago on an instrument might be "wide" in more recent weeks because it has become less volatile. As far as what to compare or how much to average that can vary quite a bit. I've seen everything from the average of the last 100 bars to 10 bars to any variation between and beyond. There are also various ways to average the spread and or volume. I'm sure you can find many methods people have shared on how they like to compare spread and volume but as far as I know there is no 1 "way" that works for everything. It really depends on the volatility of the instrument and your own psychology. While someone might use a 100 bar average and it works perfectly for them, it may seem too slow or frustrating for you. Hope that was helpful.

Hello to all. I was hoping some one could give me some assistance with a piece of code to help correct my volume data feed. Allow me to explain: I use the Ninjatrader platform with a live data feed from MB Trading. The problem lies in the fact that the MB Trading data feed multiplies live forex tick volume data by a factor of 10,000 I believe. This causes it to majorly distort the volume data as compared to the historical data that is loaded when I first open up a chart. To summarize, if I open up say an hourly chart of a forex instrument, everything will load properly and look good. As soon as a bar forms live, the calculated tick volume is reported 10,000 times higher than actual and it is blowing up the volume histogram. Is it possible to code something to divide incoming tick volume reported by a certain factor? If this is not possible, would it be easier to multiply historical tick volume by the proper factor so that the live tick volume is not grossly disproportionate? Thank you in advance for any help

He walked up one side of the bridge, crossed over and walked back down the other side.

MM I always find your posts refreshing, to the point, and helpful. thanks

Will look to reenter USD/JPY if I get a signal. Feeling a lot less secure about this support level however.

Thank you sir. Unfortunately I did not move the stop according to the system, so it was a bad trade all around really. I'm sure its not uncommon but what particularly frustrates me about this trade is that the entry was barely triggered and it did nothing but go against me since it was triggered. I think I need to analyze my entry technique and refine it some, or rather my money management. I need to resist the urge to set the initial stop too tightly or at least get a better feel for the timing. On a minor technical level I'm having a hard time reproducing the StochRSI as accurately as I'd like. I know that it's more of a training wheel and ultimately I will learn to get a feel for when price will mostly likely respect a level of support or resistance. Need to get back on the horse and stick to my rules. Strive for better execution.

Stopped out. Bad news galore for USD. flipping annoying

Well I must admit to anyone still following this thread that I moved my stop loss based on price action late last night. I decided to watch price as the market opened in Asia to see how support held up. I didn't like what I saw and bumped my stop down 2 pips then 3 more pips. Price came within 4/10ths of a pip of stopping me at one point. This isn't much of an adjustment considering my previous stop and target but I still feel like I cheated and it seems like the market will take notice and swing violently to take me out at my new stop level in the next few days anyway. Seems it would serve me right. On the one hand I felt good about seeing what price was doing, and realizing my stop was a bit too tight. For now it seems that buying has stepped in and I might be ok. On the other hand I'm not happy with what in my opinion was a mentally weak move to meddle with the trade mid flight. Obviously need to work on the "fear of loss" aspect of my trading. :crap:

Entry Triggered at 81.15 Stop set at 80.47 Go dollar go

Looking to Enter USD/JPY depending on today's close. Depending on the high and if StochRSI hooks up on closing basis I will use approx 65 pip stop around 10 pips below recent swing low with my objective being retest of recent 84.00 high for around 6R return.

Forgive my ignorance, because I am certainly not well versed in the matter, but isn't simply buying a put or call already binary in nature? You either collect a profit or give up your premium. Profit or nothing. Right?

IMHO I think we will find some support here around 1.030 to begin the move up

I understand up to this point. I guess my question is, how are we deciding that the trend is no longer moving favorably? Obviously this is answered quite quickly if 3 days after you enter your position your stop loss has hit, but what about in cases where it moves to 2 or 3R then starts to slide? Do you move your stop to 2r after it hits that? To break even? I get not using a profit target, but how to you keep from handing it all back? So far I've tried using the EMAs and the 65 seems too sluggish unless the trend really explodes and the 21 seems too sensitive as pullbacks in the trend often will cross it. I am reluctant to use support/resistance, because that seems to more fit profit targets and short term trading. Maybe I'm just floundering around too much and thinking too hard. Maybe just pick a method and suck up the 15 1R losses and be patient for my 20R gain. I guess I was trying to get a feel for what others who are more successful like to use. ATRs? Support/Resistance? Volatility? R multiple? Dartboard? :crap: As always, thank you for the time you all contribute. It is much appreciated.

It's sad to see this thread die. I have greatly benefited from it. I am hoping there are some out there that still check back on it to offer some feedback on a question I had. Specifically related to the methods outlined in this thread, how many of you adopt a "fire and forget" mentality to it? Do you set your target and stop then wait for the position to close itself? Do you review positions daily and consider updates? If so what grabs you enough to close the position if it hasn't reached target/stop? I realize there is no right answer, but I'm interested in the though processes of more seasoned traders than myself (i.e. just about anyone)

As of right now I only trade on the daily. I haven't done enough testing itra-day to start pulling the trigger on that time frame. I too am sticking with just the EMAs and the StochRSI. I also will draw in levels of support and resistance that I see to look for levels of confluence. Ultimately I'd like to be able to ditch the EMAs and such and be able to read the price naked. "Fixing" a working system is also a concern. I have seen, heard, and read about all the pitfalls of taking a system and trying to force it to fit your biases and comforts, so I am very wary to fiddle with things too much. Like you I am just going to focus on taking all my setups, sticking to my stops, and focusing on making good exits. Some weeks its more of a struggle than others. As we all know a range-bound market is death to a trend following method but I worry about applying filters. I believe you start eroding the effectiveness of the system and begin missing moves that would otherwise keep your expectancy up. As for instruments, I focus on just 1 or 2 currencies and I trade spot. Don't have capital for futures. Some day....

Thank you for your detailed response. Using the previous swing high makes a lot of sense to me compared to the 65 EMA on the daily. I'll have to do some of my own testing on the shorter time frames. I am currently testing with the 7 and 21EMA with 3 period RSI respectively on the intra-day time frames. I find these settings more comfortable for setups. Effectively just cutting the averages down to a third. It just seems that 21 and 65 is too sluggish intraday. (this very may well be stating the obvoius) I am still on the beginning half of my trading journey if that's not already painfully apparent. You've inspired me to do some research on my own regarding the use of range bars. I use them currently to find support and resistance levels on higher frame charts, but not usually during live trading. :missy: p.s. Looks like the shorts are on in EUR/USD and GBP/USD

IWShares I would be very interested in your new exit strategy. I have been struggling with coming up with a decent alternative to trailing the EMA as I am not comfortable with that either. thanks in advance

Short entry not triggered, price is still headed up. At least this might provide me a lower risk entry. Will be watching.

Hello all. Been a while, but thought I would come back and post some trades. Hope all is well with everyone in the new year. Wanted to thank OT again for sharing his insight, it has helped me break through to the next "step" in my trading evolution. I have struggled some with setting wide enough stops, and controlling my urge to hop out early. As they say though, the only way out is through. :bang head: On to the trade. Setup on GBP/USD Signal forming at 1.5532 Stop placed at 15775 about 2.5 X ATR14 at previous resistance Keeping a close eye on all that support around 1.5300, we shall see. cheers

This may be way too late, but the original poll question might as well say Would you rather: A: Eat a candy bar B: Stick a fork in your eyeball Maybe, a better question would be: What is easier: A: Steady small profits B: Many small losses with occasional home-runs

I agree with Avarice that keeping consistent with your entry rules is critical to having a working system and his answer is the "right" one. However, this particular trade wouldn't sit right with me at all. I think if the EMAs have no separation that a new trend hasn't quite defined itself yet. While the system may technically generate a signal I would see the probabilities of the trade skewed badly against me. I personally would wait for another swing high if it ever came and generated a signal after the EMA's separated a bit. I don't want any part of trying to grab the exact moment the trend changes, I think that leaves you open to chop. Case and point is the EUR/USD. That thing has been chopping with mostly flat EMAs for a while now. Maybe this just showcases how inexperienced I am, but unless there was some other screaming reason to take this trade like a multi-month unbroken support level where it bottomed out I wouldn't do it.

Position Update GBP/USD showing +180 pips On my chart price is trying to work its way through some resistance but looks promising so far. In hindsight it seems my entry was early (entered Aug 3 on the break of Aug 2 high.) Price was tickling but not touching the 21 EMA. To me this seems like an indication that I personally may want to wait till price crosses firmly into the 21/65 EMA zone and has an aggressive hook on the StochRSI before I enter. I know this will end up filtering out some legitimate trades, but I think it will increase my odds and help reduce the size of my stop loss. EUR/GBP showing -25 pips I felt good about my entry here but price seems to be having a really hard time breaking the .8650 support level thats held for 5 some months. Time will tell.