jacobnbr1

What kind of trading system( non automatic) do you guys recomend for somone papertrading and getting familuar with? I like using sma's in a manor that when the lines cross they give buys and sells but have a lot of whipsaws. I get the stocks from a oversold scan type filter. chris

Ok i have been looking at some charts and seems as if when i scroll from chart 6 month to chart 3 month and then zoom in closser to the days i just get mixed signals of what is going on. Any advice on this? Perhaps i need to draw the support and resistance lines 1st along with any divergence lines? thanks

I would say if i had not already tinkered in the markets- Yes it does seem easy.. Unfortunatly it is not and i already know it.. That is my purpose for further knowledge of t/a. It almost seems to me that if you chart one out at support and you do everthing according to some text-books they breakdown and fail. I guess this would be a normal trendless market action? However you will find one that actually does do what you thought it would do and further over confident yourself as beleiving you have figured out the nitch for trading and thus overtrading the same set-up to lose at the same play causing confusion of why it didn't work...I personally do not think there is anything wrong with the set-up but bad market conditions for this style... Perhaps my issue may be from never interacting in a good forum of discusion of why things are the way they are...

No i can't pop out time and sales... So let me get this right here, I need real streaming qotes as in e-signal- worden or tradestation. Plot a chart to identify the term of trend is up for bullish trades and down for bearish-shorts.. Most of the charts i plot are in the middle of some type of cycle where they look momentumless. infact most of the ones i hold now as insider buys look as if the trend is straight line accross. Is there somthing i can do to find candidates for a trend up? When i do find one that does have a good upward trend i will then be plotting support and resistance for an enty point by focusing closer on the charts as in 30-15 minute charts and then the entry point by 3-5 minute charts upon support touch. correct? thanks. chris

I am not sure what you mean by working with delayed qotes? As of my prophet charts it says it is a java real time qote. Can you please explain. chris

Sounds pretty good. I have a prophet type service with scottrade and most of my studdies are there and bigcharts. I know you had said i need to look at the charts in a monthly, weekly, hourly,15 min and 5 min scale.I can set differant time frames in there, what am i looking for? do i want a yearly chart or 6 month or maybe even a 3 month chart? My charting programs work as follows- prophet min time frame is 1 month and max is 10 years. big charts 5 min to 10 years- big charts being a little more defined. Hope these are not too dumb of questions

All do respect of your comments and advice, do you think it would be wise to purchase this software when one could familuarize himself 1st with a free type charting program such as StockCharts.com - Simply the Web's Best Stock Charts or BigCharts: Stock Charts, Screeners, Interactive Charting and Research Tools telecharts is 99.95 per month and tradestation is 249.95 per month- unless you are trading 5000 shares per month and i can't really say i would trade that much while learning to swing trade.. I figured i could start with the basics and when the need to go more technical comes then i could expand to newer and better things. thanks. chris

And market profile charts are what? Are these charts needed to swing trade? thanks

I do not have a data vendor like tradestation. I am not sure how tradestation works, I am sure there is a fee for the data correct? Do you have to have a trading account to veiw their data? How about telechart service? i have been looking at that. sounds kinda cool. thanks. chris

Ok i have some books and a few audio books on the way also. Until the can somone help me with setting up a chart? I normally use BigCharts: Stock Charts, Screeners, Interactive Charting and Research Tools and i want to try and explore a chart with some dma's, or ema's with a few indicators to get familiar with. I have read in many books that dma works well. I was thinking if i wanted to place trades with an idea of holding for a week or so i should plot them on a 10 day charts with a breif look at the 6 month chart to confirm a trend is preasent? would this be accurate? chris

Well i normally keep an eye on the form 4 sec filings daily, then when i find one that meets my criteria i will focus on the company to determine if the insider buys are " SMOKE AND MIRRIORS" or legit. If the company seems to have a good fundamental background i will chart the last 6 month and then three months and then find a good buy point and start with a small position and add on pull backs etc. One stock i will toss out as an example is TAG as being a earnings play turn-around. Massive insider buying on the direct markets.. MFLX is a stock that has smoke and mirrors, as insider buying is listed but not on the direct open markets. These buys that are going on are what appears to be a ira, trust, or some kind of individuals retirement plan. Which would reflect nothing on price action in the near future. chris

I totally understand. It simply is not me to day-trade intra day, i do not want to tie myself to thin as i have a full time job that requires a-lot of attention but does include computer internet work. I was thinking that an idea would be 1-5 day hold time. The reason i am asking for the advice is because i do not want to use the wrong tools for the right job.

I did'nt think about the chart setup photo's in the book... I will buy the book also. What other methods are there other than breakouts?

Some day i will sell all these books i have bought over the years and get a hefty return... I got three sets of cd,vhs programs of the "WADE COOK METHODs" , and pretty close to 85 books. Anywho the book in mention is on the way to me, i got the audio version for 16.95 on e-bay. hope this is what you wanted me to get? So what can i do til then if i wan't to be a swing trader? Is there an easy chart pattern i can be looking at? I went to a few websites today and some had video feeds of how to swing trade and looks as if you are setting these things up as breakouts. I had a few good insider trades this week as the markets retraced. most of the insider stuff has very little volume so a retracement does very little to the positions... Lucky me. thanks again. chris

Currently i am long term fudamental trader based on insider buying preasure, I use some technical indicators as in - obv,dmi,and rsi and volume. I am in search of a better method and quicker turn time. I really do not want $$ tied up for 6-8 months when there are big moves going on each day producing some of the gains i wait 6 months to get. Aside from trading the usual way i do I would like to have a cash generating system that would consist of a portion of my port. for trades between 1-14 days that can generate moderate gains repeatedly. Does that make scense?? So as i had stated in another post I tried breakouts, options, stock splits and have not found a sucsessful way yet. I try most of my methods on a simulator 1st but seems most trades go your way when using the sim??? chris

You have a very valid point to this stock that i have considered. I have found on some small penny stocks that when massive insider buying is preasent they tend to break out and double the percentage, sometimes multiply.. most midcaps a 10% increase is great but i can do 50-100 on most trades but i have a 40% win rate. I need to get to at least a 60% win rate to be doiing nicely... Which led me to this wonderful site to try new things and explore the options of technical trading. By the way, I am currently using a simulator for all tests therefore not using cash for testing purposes. The simulator will not accept stocks under 2.00, using midcaps in the sim will be for sure. I currenetly rank 4th with like 3.8% this month using value trades. chris

I don't always trade the penny dogs but at this moment there are a couple of trades that i am working on that are penny dogs... Actually the stock in mention is- was a midcap stock that has been beaten down to the dollar range and against better judgement i took a small position of it and was just looking at it with this method to see if something of value can be used. For the most part when i buy a stock i pretty much ignore all the noise and let the stock do as it needs to do and recheck it every 15 days or so to see if anything has changed. Thanks for explaining the pp as my question was answered. I have tried trading a break out of rissistance levels and have found that when i do this they fade back and few actually take off, maybe this is the method most traders are doing know... chris

Ok.. Now i know you said it was a bad idea to calculate the penny dogs but what if you calculated the weekly chart thus giving a wider spread??? Also i have plotted a stock that i own and i have come up with mid points as well, what exactly is this telling me if the price is in between the mid point and pp in the negative?? ie. what is the pp function? thanks again for all the help... chris

Ok i have found some things out here. So i plot an example. was a very tight day- low-1.04 high 1.12 close-1.07. This gave me a piviot point and four r lines and 4 s lines.. what exactly is this suposed to tell me? the example is ticker tag and is closed at 1.07 seems all the r and s lines are within a few cents of themselfs. I guess i am not understanding time frames? I will play with this during market conditions to see what exactly goes on

I use a method from a text book of john murphy where the peaks and throughs consist of the support and resistance levels.. And then the mental support and resistance levels of even dollar or 1/4 and 1/2 dollar... Is this an incorrect way or is it out dated?

I hate to be a stick in your side... But, what do all the r's 1-4, pp and s's 1-4 mean?? What is the differance in formulas? ie.. classic, woodie and camarilla? And one more. what advantage does this give by knowing where the piviot points are v's support and resistance? I got a tight distant friend that i chat daily with as we toss things back and forth, he seems to come up with future calls of prices stopping and turning when a certain price is breached. Although often right, he will never reveal his secret. I always come up with a support and resistance differant than him. He always tells me he got the real support and resistance prices from price actions... I wonder if he is using this method right here? I mean piviot points. He always make himself out to be like he is the grand-puba of traders??? I asked him today and he said he was not using this method.Y-R. thanks for all the help.. chris

"Investment purposes" Yes.. as in a year or so. I never did mind holding a stock as long as it shows life to expand higher. This is really not what i want to do but is what i do cause i have had good luck doing it. I spent some time in a classroom at "STAR TRADER" and what a waste of time. But i started by trading stocks that had announced a stock split and that fell apart seems like after one year. So yes i lack a plan... I dabled in options and lost a great deal there after being warned 1st. chris

No i am sorry i do not use trade station. I use scottrade and i don't think there is anything like this to add to their platform? there is however another charting software that is free that you can link your scottrade account to but i am not sure how or what the name of it was.. do you know of anything? I for the most part traded anything that has had massive insider buying preasure and have done pretty good... Anytime i have strayed and tried a momentum trade or swing trade and shorting have resulted in loss. Although insider trades pay off they are very time consuming and i would like to do more volume of trades with less hold time.. I go to this filter scan site and many traders are having good luck with some of the most confusing stuff i have ever read, I read till i was blue in the face and still with minimal loss didn't find my true calling.. chris

being a trader from technicals for 3 years, i have never explored piviots or even tried to learn how... where would one begin to learn how to use them and what they are???? also, is there a software that plots piviot points for you? i have seen some of your charts from tradestation and see them on there. how can i plot them on say Bigcharts or another program. chris- new member. p.s- great site, wish i would have found this sooner.

is there a chart service that already shows piviot points as in your tradestation charts? thanks