Reading Charts in Real Time

[thalestrader 14]

Euro is UP ...

 

 

Euro is still up ...

 

 

Up ... Up ... and Away ... (well, up any way, and tapping on minimum resistance target ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[BlowFish 10]

Not a stretch at all. He knew he was given a set of rules by some successful traders and that he was smart enough/intuitive enough to know that it was in his own best interests to follow those rules. A direct quote....

"My intuition told me that the most important factors would be how well we displayed the spirit of our training, took advantage of the opportunities that arose, managed our risks and handled the trading on an emotional level. Most of the the other Turtles thought our goal was to make as much money as possible"....

"My instincts told me otherwise. If a trade came that met our criteria, I took it, no matter how risky it seemed. I was concerned with performing well on my own terms, not making money per se. My intuition paid off"

 

I don't want to get into a big debates on semantics but intuition is not required when presented with quantified results (evidence if you like). Still if that's what he attributes to his success so be it. Faith, trust, respect or a whole bunch of other things seem just as plausible.

 

Having said that I guess it was a sharp observation that managing risk and handling things on an emotional level where the important factors.

 

They shipped my new kindle (after running out of the new models) a good candidate for a download. Vacation coming up too! Did you every read Covel's turtle book? Always though it worth reading both. I remember watching there rather public spat as it unfolded over the interwebz, damn fine entertainment.

 

Incidentally I thought Faith was a big time proponent of fully automated systems? Of course there is room for intuition in the design of such systems but not something you might immediately associate with them. All the more reason to see what he has to say.

[thalestrader 14]

... Faith, trust, respect or a whole bunch of other things seem just as plausible....

 

I agree. Intuition seems t be the least plausible understanding or characterization of his success with the "Turtle" system.

 

... Did you every read Covel's turtle book? Always though it worth reading both. I remember watching there rather public spat as it unfolded over the interwebz...

 

Covel's Trend following book was hands down the biggest waste of time I have ever lost to reading a "book." He'd have to pay me at least a year's trading profits (my profits, not his, as I doubt he has ever made one penny trading) for me to spend anymore time reading anything he manages to get published.

 

My currency trading friend once left a rather negative, but very substantive review of Covel's book on Amazon. Covel successfully lobbied Amazon to have the review removed. From Covel's comments made to my friend's review prior to the review's removal, it seemed he thought my friend was actually Curtis Faith. That was entertainment!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[SIUYA 11]

Still if that's what he attributes to his success so be it.

Did you every read Covel's turtle book?

 

Incidentally I thought Faith was a big time proponent of fully automated systems? Of course there is room for intuition in the design of such systems but not something you might immediately associate with them. All the more reason to see what he has to say.

 

I guess I lumped faith, trust, intuition all the the same boat, and just went on what he wrote in the book. Given your reason for wanting to read the book, then yes read it....as for me that was the crux of the book.

 

Re Covels book. I was actually alerted to the book, his website etc by the spat and it helped alert me to a more formal version of trend following, which to be honest, while at the time we were trading in a similar manner, we were not systemised, we were using long volatility options (Taleb style). So for me the book was helpful. However it really was more a cut and paste of everyones ideas using quotes and ante dotes, but not rules etc, a summary if you like.

Again it is a book I rarely refer back to, unlike something like the market wizards books.

 

Interestingly enough over the last few years for various reasons I have tried to be more formalised, systemised and less intuitive. (Plus we are using less options). For me its more scaleable, less stressful, but also less profitable....everything is a tradeoff!

 

(OK, while related, I guess this is not a book review thread.)

[Kiwi 16]

Can't resist.

 

On Covel: derivative rubbish and not a patch on either Faith's book or the Market Wizard books. My Amazon review was also removed. I no longer trust Amazon and in fact buy almost all my books now from The Book Depository who ship free anywhere in the world!

 

 

On whether his decision to follow the rules and trade each signal (which we are all supposed to do but so few do):

 

Intuition may refer to:

Intuition (philosophy), the act by which the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas

Intuition (knowledge), understanding without apparent effort

 

So I would suggest that intuition is a reasonable description of the choice. Especially given that virtually everyone else followed their own intuition and tried to make each trade work better than the system. Surely they must have come to such understanding without effort.

 

Although I do think that Faith had Faith in Eckhardt et al.

[BlowFish 10]

One quicky before returning the thread to normal programming. For anyone that has a passing interest in trend following or systematic approaches in general it is well worth tracking down a copy of the Original Turtles Rules (available in PDF). It's a simple but elegant system, the money management is the key. I believe that was released into the wild by Faith in response to Covell selling high price turtle courses.

 

Edit: its on google docs :-

 

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ImDynOd6eVQJ:www.metastocktools.com/downloads/turtlerules.pdf+original+turtles+pdf&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShYCX9wFJcBQqMJfvwjx_xaYYBvauQ1hU0CgprRusgE7GDCluQE6Bt5kUp8xTPA5Hnbhl2Xg1mLQDrHpUnQ5xZIdkxi6xvbwECeBYpoKxi-YQ_pZGLhqEf2CygBR3UUmkryp7MX&sig=AHIEtbTtu05PqQnw4eDow4X0KbRtHv0gCg

[thalestrader 14]

EURUSD rally has been a very easy trade to ride since it broke out ... impulse ... pause ... impulse ... pause ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[pricetrader99 10]

This recent run in EURUSD has been pretty insane. I caught some very decent pips out of and and beginning to wonder how high it will head. We are approaching some pretty decent resistance near 1.3820 that could cause price to stall out in the near term. It will be interesting to see what happens next week.

[thalestrader 14]

Rallied to within a few ticks of the upper boundary of the target - this is as good a place as any for the EURUSD at least to put in some rest ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[thalestrader 14]

Rallied to within a few ticks of the upper boundary of the target - this is as good a place as any for the EURUSD at least to put in some rest ...

 

EURUSD resting ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[pricetrader99 10]

I first got interested in trading through day trading and then I started learning about raw price chart reading and this is now how I read charts in real time. I enjoy trading off raw price action now and looking at charts with no indicators, I feel like it really helps with reading charts in real time.

[thalestrader 14]

EURUSD resting ...

 

... a mere cat-nap, it would seem ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[BlackBison 10]

Not sure what euro is going to do shorter term but it looks to me like next big swing level is 14220

 

If it rallies hard into that level over next week or so that will be a great sell with a 13840 target and a wide stop (200+ ticks)

[thalestrader 14]

... a mere cat-nap, it would seem ...

 

Current view of the EURUSD with next rally target. While a reaction of several hundred pips can occur at anytime, this rally looks intent on carrying for quite a ways. I suspect the long term (years) uptrend in the EURUSD is now resuming, and new all-time highs (US Dollar lows) will be seen in 2011-2012 ...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[Cory2679 11]

Just for fun...I thought I'd post a chart for old time's sake...haha...

 

Potential long on the EU...

 

[Cory2679 11]

Potential long on the EU...

 

No? Ok, sorry...

 

 

[Cory2679 11]

Chart of the day...

 

Potential EU short...

 

[Cory2679 11]

Potential EU short...

 

Small loss...

 

 

 

Due to the time of the day and the time of the week, I won't be opening any more new positions today.

Edited October 8, 2010 by Cory2679

[Cory2679 11]

Small loss...

 

I'm annoyed that this was the only chart I posted...I actually had two winning trades this morning prior to the chart I posted (and I'm up about 1.5R/48 ticks today). Today's trade-log is attached to this post. haha It was a similar situation with yesterday's post.

 

 

I normally don't like having a position on in front of NFP, but this time I couldn't resist...the overarching uptrend, the recent test of support (yesterday's low), etc.

 

----------

 

Anyways, you guys might remember a discussion a little while ago in this thread that began like this...

 

Hi Thales,

 

I have a question...why do you suggest that the daytrader's focus be on the main intraday swing?...

 

.....I see no reason why not to try for smaller swings...

 

...Here's a 1-minute EUR/USD chart from today...

 

...Why would you advise not trading a chart like this?...

 

Well, I've basically gone back to the more "reasonable" daytrading timeframes. I'm using the 15 minute chart as my primary summary chart, but I also have a 1 minute, 5 minute, 240 minute, and 130 (13 ticks) range chart open. I use the 240 minute chart to switch to hourly, daily and weekly, and I use the range chart to view different range settings. I'm using all of this combined to do my best to try to identify the main intraday swing and identify good entry points.

 

I've abandoned the pursuit of fast time frames. For a while I was focusing primarily on a 1 minute chart. Let me explain part of the allure...it's tempting because if you bracket 5 ticks of risk, get a 50 tick impulse move, you've made 10R in one trade!...and this actually happens!! The problem is that at that time frame, the market is often quite "noisy" and can whip you around a lot (me, anyway). If you pull up a 15 minute chart and then a 1 minute chart, you'll see what I mean...they actually look quite different...especially during times of lower volume. Another downfall is that risking something like 2% of your account on something like 5 ticks is a bit much...and it's quite a large position size. I had actually reduced my risk to 1% because of this.

 

Kiwi also had a good post about some of the downfalls of trading timeframes that are potentially too fast (I'm just basically providing the "link" to save space...)

 

...my opinion based on watching myself and seeing what others have written Cory....

 

You guys had good advice but I wouldn't listen. haha I just had to find out for myself the pitfalls.

 

Note: Please realize that this is all in the context of the method primarily discussed throughout this thread...I understand there are traders/programs that take trades that last a split second, etc.

 

----------

 

I may start posting to this thread more often. Trading the "main intraday swing" is a fairly leisurely activity, much of the time. I need something to do. haha I may also get some new reading material...I haven't read every book that Thales has on his blog, yet.

 

I enjoy trading/action. I get bored, otherwise.

 

While I like action/activity/stimulation, what I like more/most of all is trading in a way that's profitable, sustainable, ideally low-stress, etc.

 

I think that's all I've got. Sorry for such a large post...just had some things I wanted to share. Have a good weekend!!

 

-Cory

 

EDIT: I forgot...I wanted to include this quote from Reminiscences of a Stock Operator that I think is relevant to some of this discussion...

 

"It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine--that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon."

Edited October 8, 2010 by Cory2679
forgot quote

[Cory2679 11]

fxThunder,

 

You asked me via visitor message how to get that trade-log with MB Trading. Here's how...

 

 

(Neither visitor messages nor PM's would let me do an attachment.)

 

Note that with this particular window, only the current day's activity is displayed. You'll notice that my activity from earlier today is already gone after rollover.

 

Also, this is MBT Desktop. I'm not sure if all of their platforms are the same with this.

 

-Cory

[fxThunder 10]

fxThunder,

 

You asked me via visitor message how to get that trade-log with MB Trading. Here's how...

 

 

(Neither visitor messages nor PM's would let me do an attachment.)

 

Note that with this particular window, only the current day's activity is displayed. You'll notice that my activity from earlier today is already gone after rollover.

 

Also, this is MBT Desktop. I'm not sure if all of their platforms are the same with this.

 

-Cory

 

Thanks Cory,

 

I use Navigator Pro. I have been searching for this functionality on and off - even called in and was directed to their reporting on the website. Was looking for a log buttun of sorts.

 

Also found the Orderbook functionality on Nav pro - thanks for the help!

 

Cheers,

fxT

[SIUYA 11]

Cory - "While I like action/activity/stimulation, what I like more/most of all is trading in a way that's profitable, sustainable, ideally low-stress, etc."

 

the holy grail!

[Justaguy 10]

I have always enjoyed pure price discussions. Since the EU is the recent subject, I thought I would post up two charts of my thoughts.

 

One is a weekly chart. I am comfortable with longs up to the shaded area where shorts may be in vogue. Depends on how the charts setup as we progress into that area.

Second chart is a 1hr. I'd like a pullback into the shaded area where a low risk high reward long may be taken. There is a level a little further up around the 3700 area which may be a nice quick long trade.

 

We all know that using pure price, we have to be fluid in our approach. We have interesting areas and we see what happens in those areas.

[Cory2679 11]

Possible long on the EU...

 

Perhaps the uptrend will resume and test/break last week's high?

 

For the record...I'm not trading today...Columbus day...just observing...

 

 

[thalestrader 14]

Weekly chart of the EURUSD ... looking for 1.50 over the coming months, with 1.65 and 1.88 before the EURUSD rolls over again...

 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales