Hlm

In my opinion those fixed areas reacted as expected today. Yes, price hugged that LVA but did you notice what was also there? The previous days POC. Look at how price reacted when it went through it on the downside. That area has been a point of interest over the last couple of days. Without some extremely strong internals and a nice PA (candle) entry I would have been very cautious at playing the actual BREAK into the Value Area. Later in the day you have the so called "flip and test" of the HOD which also so happens to be the previous UVA area. Do you go back to the previous day and manually draw possible important S/R areas? Whenever dealing with potential S/R areas you MUST understand the other areas around you and how they might affect your risk reward. This is where you seem to be having trouble Gene. That being said...after reading your comments it appears that if you had stuck to your plan and had not made that silly contract mistake, the day might have ended decently. Of course when starting out with REAL money problems like that will occur. The key to success is to stomp out those problems as soon as possible. And yes, easier said than done...welcome to trading. Have a great weekend!!

Hey Brownsfan. Here is just some QUICK replies since the market is currently open. I am sure others will pop in here and answer a little more detailed. 1) Take a look here 2) Depends on the pair and your lot size. 3) I personally remove money on a regular basis. It depends on the broker. But yes, no account protection like futures. 4) Again, just depends on the lot size you use. FX is very flexible. Haha, very helpful, I know. Main reason to post so fast was the link in number one. I have found that to be a good link to show people. If anyone has a better one please share. Edit: Here is a good link as well. It is the "preschool" section of babypips.com --> HERE

First of all...I agree with everything that brownsfan said. Second, it would be very helpful to know a little bit about your trading style be it Candles, VSA, MP, Indicators, Divergences, etc. It doesn't have to be specific but could be helpful for future comments. I like seeing that you have a 3M chart with Market Profile since that is what I trade off of . Do you pay attention to any other possible fixed S/R areas like pivots? For example today you had a Pivot Point at 12304.33 and a S1 at 12199.67. As far as the fed day for a BRAND NEW live trader. :doh: You appear to be off to a great start. Keep it up!

I added the new DLL to the Indicator Section located HERE I would appreciate it if a moderator could remove or change the link located at the beginning of this thread. Thanks.

**This indicator was specifically requested by a TL member.** This indicator gives you the current Bid Volume versus Ask Volume over a selected number of bars or seconds. It also allows you to view three different intervals for each added study. When added, the indicator does not go back and graphically fill in the historical data. The reason being if you have a large number of bars or seconds it would be too CPU intensive. Also, if a large amount of bars are created at once on the chart (e.g. tick chart during an active market), it will only calculate the value for the most recent bar. This should not be a problem for any trading strategy and may only affect visually back testing extremely quick tick data. Install Directions: 1) Download the ZIP and extract the DLL 2) Place it in your SierraChart directory 3) Right click chart and select "Studies" (or press F6) 4) Click "Add Custom Study..." 5) Click on "Bid/Ask Volume" 6) Select desired indicator 7) Click "Add" 8) Highlight and click settings (and change as desired) 9) Click "OK" and "Apply" as necessary Please let me know if you have any issues or concerns. bidask.zip

Here is a list of some online charts: http://www.freeforexcharts.com/ If you want software MT4 is the way to go. If you want a LARGE selection of instruments other than Forex (ES, CL, ZG, NI255, APPL, etc) download MT4 through WHC. http://www.metaquotes.net/files/whc/whc4setup.exe Of course you won't be able to read their news unless you can read Russian.

Yep. However the majority of virus complaints (that I know of) are no different than opening e-mail attachments or clicking on links. The rest usually come from programs that claim free payed service or admin access. They key is to only trust links and downloads from people you know. Exactly...first we need to see what type of interest there is. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. If the interest is there I think it would be extremely beneficial to have a program where charts can be shared live. Also, this could be a good way to really see what everyone wants to discuss (specific hot topics) and could possibly lead to the creation of more videos for the website. An easy way for everyone to share their paltalk name is to click on the link Soultrader posted and "Join" the group. Here's the link again: http://chat.paltalk.com/g2/group/1038141155/DisplayGroupDetails.wmt

Unless you are highly experienced I would stay FAR AWAY after the first few minutes (if not the whole thing). If the numbers come out unexpected the market can easily skip levels. Your stops could be worthless and fills could be horrible. Just in my opinion of course.

This is precisely what has happened to me over the last few months. I have gone from a discretionary trader with some mechanical rules to mostly mechanical. The biggest change I have seen is how I manage my money. With my discretionary style I would put large positions on and start the scaling out process quickly with a distance target area for the last trailer. With my mechanical trading I use less leverage and exit at one to three target areas depending on the setup. The surprising result is that my average profit has almost stayed the same. However, these two systems are not equal by any means! The mechanical style has been more consistent (less draw down) and has allowed me to explore trading multiple instruments. These advantages are extremely important when scaling up. My current goal is to make the research and recognition part as automated as possible so I can keep track of dozens of instruments and only trade the highest probability setups. Of course like everything else in trading...easier said than done. Programming can be a PAIN IN THE A$$.

I think this is an EXCELLENT idea! I truly believe that getting together and discussing concepts and sharing ideas is way more valuable than people sitting around and just randomly calling trades. This is exactly why I have personally stopped calling my trades in the current TL chat room. Paltalk would be a great place to start. Especially since James already has it set up. However, depending on the meet up and topics being discussed it may eventually be helpful to have a room where charts can be displayed live. I know tradingrooms can be a pain but it does get the job done and is free (or at least use to be). Of course we can cross that bridge when the time comes and IF indeed the interest is there. BTW, I should be free all day Friday.

If you had bothered to look at the time stamp you would have noticed that only three minutes had passed between our posts. It took me more than three minutes to post that response. They picked one standard deviation which is NOT "out of the air". It's a commonly used point on gaussian distributions. And yes, part of Market Profile is to know which value areas are normally distributed and which aren't. Blub blub blub bluba blub, blub blub. Blub? See above. Also, do you have a better way? Have you looked at TPO's on a chart lately? Have you looked at how non-normally distributed value areas still create good areas to watch? All standard deviation means is that on a normally distributed curve 68.2% will be contained. Does that mean if the day isn't 100% normally distributed those values don't have ANY worth? Their meaning may be less but to say that it has "no meaning" is in my opinion ignorant. That's a strangely worded comment. What if price trades around level A for the majority of the day? But then some big buyers push it up and a large amount of volume takes place (way more than level A). However, the rest of the day price falls back to level A. Price spent the majority of the day at level A but the majority of the volume was at level B. Of course this may not be what you meant. However, you have been harping on being "specific" but here you are not. In my opinion it's a good idea to know what the TPO MP AND VWAP are doing. This comment right here puts some doubt in my mind that you are a successful trader. If this is not true, the by all means I apologize. However, any trader that has been around knows that there are many variables that go into figuring out numbers like this. For example: current price action, internals, clusters, other s/r areas, etc. If I could right here, right now, be able to tell you those %'s and exactly how price would react then wouldn't that be the holy grail? You are asking for "red light - green light" trading. And for now I am going to just leave it at that. Yes, you may come back and say this is all "blub" and that I am not giving any "specifics" because blub blub blub. But to be honest I don't really care. Because any other successful trader on this site (or any other site) will most likely stand by what I just said. The former, expect maybe the "all" word. Have to have some mysteries in life . However, through research I have been working with and developing a more intraday and dynamic market profile like system that relies less on time to take into account some of your more 'legit' issues. But again, to say that the current theory of MP holds NO worth to a professional speculator is absurd in my opinion. My many statistics and programming classes in college came before I ever started trading. Also, see the second portion of my last statement.

Since this topic is about MP I will focus on that and not Internals and Price Action. Also, my charting system is currently processing data from the previous week so I will try to describe it without illustrations as best as possible. Value Areas (by the day they are used (in case Bannor is reading this)) This is also off the M contract. LVA POC UVA (or VAL POC VAH) I tend to randomly use both. 3/11: 1276.25 1281.25 1290.75 3/12: 1289.50 1302.00 1308.00 3/13: 1318.25 1323.25 1328.75 3/14: 1298.75 1315.75 1324.25 Let me start by saying that to keep this short I will focus on what did happen versus giving a bunch of rules and different scenarios. So on open what do we have. We have an open above today's Value Area but still inside yesterdays. Take note that yesterday price was unable to find interest above the POC (1323.25). We also have a gap below us that is right above today's POC (1315.75). When opening outside the Value Area I always look for reasons why the market may want to return or test the Value Area (Gaps, *Internals*, Previous VA's, Distance, etc). On this particular day any interest below 1323.25 and I was looking for a gap fill. BTW, this may sound hindsight but anyone who has spent time in the chat room with me knows otherwise. Once inside the VA we look for the market to find resistance at the UVA and for Price Action and Internals to show no interest on moving back out. This lack of interest to the upside was confirmed when we bounced off the POC, returned to the UVA and previous POC, and held while internals continued to become more bearish. Depending on your entry strategy you would have been short somewhere between 1324.25 and 1317.00. At this point as long as PA and Internals stay bearish my initial target is 1298.75. This is what we call the 80% rule. When entering into a VA there is an 80% rule that it will trade to the other side. Of course we have the VA from 3/12 to watch for signs that we may want to get out. As you can see, price DID hesitate and rotate around the UVA of 3/12 (1308.00). Of course we have that emotional number of 1300.00 around there as well. After reaching 1298.75 you could have taken off some. Any trader watching the Internals hopefully would have held on to some at this point though. The next target would be between 1289.50 (3/12 LVA) and 1290.75 (3/11 UVA). I personally went completely flat on the bounce when the market was unable to find interest below 3/11's POC (1281.25). Also, a few observations: Where did price pull back to and continue to consolidate around for the rest of the morning? The LVA and 3/12 POC. When did price stop using this area? When it broke into 3/11's VA and found resistance on the other side. Where did the market return to when it found resistance at the 3/11 UVA? Straight down to 3/11's LVA. In the afternoon, where did price spike to? The LVA. Again, this is very basic and there is MORE to MP than what I just described. The purpose was to show Bearbull some basic MP concepts that aided my trading on Firday. ALSO...I wrote this up VERY QUICKLY (I do have another things to do on my weekends ) and hopefully I didn't mess up any of the numbers or areas.

Previously you stated: With your current remarks I would have to guess that you haven't studied Market Profile "well enough". Currently I am confused if this is on or off topic with what the original poster expected. I hope the original poster can step in here. AgeKay, I would suggest that you start another thread stating exactly what you would like to discuss.

Sorry, I just figured you would have made a new thread as I suggested and just linked to your reply. The value area is not arbitrarily defined. The value area that most short-term traders use is created during one day of regular trading hours. Why is this period significant? It is because that's when the big players come in and take positions within high liquidity. Now that we have a definite starting and stopping point, we want to know statistically where price spent the majority of the day. This is where the standard deviation comes in. You do make a good point that StdDev works best when you have a nice single distribution day. However, MP takes that into account. There are different ways to trade single distribution versus double distribution days. Even without taking into account any of the more detailed MP rules (distributions, # of prints, etc), just looking at the daily TPO lines you can see that price reacts very well with the current and past value area lines. Again, I agree that Volume MP (using vwap) is very important and I use it right along side TPO MP. However yes, it is my "opinion" that pure price market profile is also very important. My reply was not written to put down any trader that does not use TPO MP. Let's face it, if you can make money consistently trading moon rotations then more power to you . My reply was to counter the false (or what I believe to be false) accusations being made about the worthlessness of TPO MP. EliteTrader: HlmRegistered: 05-01-06 # of Posts: 4 Last Post: 09-29-07 I have nothing to hide. You're right, EliteTrader is somewhat a joke in my opinion. I am not saying there isn't good information, but the skew is heavily on the garbage side. I check it a few times a week mainly for comedic purposes. Also, I am very "reasonable". I doubt anyone on this forum would say otherwise. My posts are created without any negative emotion. I like to cut straight to the real point at hand. Here...some smiles to make everything happy. :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

:o This is extremely hilarious. After the first part of this thread I was planning to write out a detailed explanation with examples and illustrations, but this thread has taken a turn. How can one think they've studied TPO MP enough and have no idea where the 70% comes from? It's just simple solid statistics. Also, to say that standard deviation has no place in the market, wow. I do agree that it depends on the distribution, but MP shows you the distribution so you can act accordingly. I take it that you just use VWAP with no StdDev? I guess when you told the OP to check out Jperls threads you should have told him to ignore the second half of them as well since they deal with StdDev's. I will leave it at this...I believe TPO MP and Volume MP can BOTH be extremely helpful to a trader. I personally use both and have been very successful with them. P.S. I give MP credit for getting me in and KEEPING me in for the majority of the move down on Friday. Most of my "big winner" trades come from MP areas/setups. EDIT: If you don't plan to post another comment on this thread you could always start a new thread to discuss the problems you see with MP and Standard Deviations and/or what you find useful

Congrats Blu-ray!!

Sure Soultrader. I am going to add a couple things first. For example it would be nice to have one that counts bars versus time. Also, with the current dll, it's built to be extremely efficient since it runs off the tick chart. If a spurt of orders (bars) come it at once, it won't go back and calculate the value at every single bar. It will, however, calculate the CORRECT value at the current bar. So unless you need correct bar by bar (tick by tick) data for some extreme scalping, it should be fine. I might make an option where you could load historical graphic information and true tick by tick (for the extreme scalper and then the individual decide if it's too cpu intensive.

A nice program to block harmful IP's when downloading (especially with P2P) is PeerGuardian. It's always a nice program to have running so you can see who is trying to watch you.

Sorry about the wait. I have been extremely busy trying to get parts of my software completed. This afternoon I went ahead and threw something together. Download dll here Place in your SierraChart folder Open up a new chart and set it to 1 tick Change it so it only loads 1 day Go to Chart Studies Click "Add Custom Study" Choose "Bid/Ask Volume" At the current time it does not calculate all previous bars (fill in historical data graphically). This could create significant load time (not sure). However if it's really wanted I could add it. On the first bar created after being added, it WILL go back and calculate the correct and current count though. Also, since it goes off the current bar historical display will be erased if chart is refreshed. Now, like I said, I just threw this together. I am NOT guaranteeing that everything is working EXACTLY as expected. I did set the three intervals to 3M 15M and 60M and it seemed to match up to the same numbers given when you use Sierras indicator on those time frames. Please let me know if bugs/problems or any other features or requests.

My Infinity Futures review has been posted. Also, could you add EFXGroup (http://www.efxgroup.com) to the list. It is the Forex ONLY branch of MBT. I could write a review under MBT but EFXGroup has a separate office (different customer support) and is currently rolling out their own software and charting so the review should be separate.

Nothing to tweak. It's just a statistic that works well with keeping you in a trade if you know the other concepts that Soultrader listed. However, I believe that those other concepts are also very easy to understand and are many times over complicated as well. Once you understand them it just goes back to screen time - screen time - screen time.

When looking at the possibility of retaliating against an individual just don't look at the number of recruits. It appears that there are strong combinations that don't require a large amounts of recruits to do damage. An individual that has an extremely high level, key weapons, and defense systems (with very little recruits) can do more damage and be harder to fight back than an individual that has a large amount of recruits. Terrorist seem to use this approach. However, this is currently just a casual observation that may or may not be that important (still just in experimentation mode). For the next round it may be important that we cover all grounds when developing our forces.

Mishnas- I must of missed your reply on the 25th. If I have some free time this week I will see if I can get something working. This would be very simple to program, but I am currently hard at work on another trading software project.

That's great to hear James. Awesome job! :thumbs up: As brownsfan said, keep building on this momentum.

Before the next round begins we should get a plan together. A basic list of how to maximize our resources.