Reading Charts in Real Time

[hunnybunny 10]

Just thought that it would be easier if the annotation would be on the chart.

I hope you don't mind.

 

BTW Shouldn't #2 be SHORT trades and #3 LONG trades?

 

Gabe

 

Thanks very much, Gabe! Emm, about #3 being a long trade ... beats me It looked like a B/O of the low at #2?

[Gabe2004 10]

I would like to suggest that we use a common system of annotating charts.

SOLID RED would indicate a short.

Dashed RED = Stop Loss (SL) for a short entry

SOLID GREEN would indicate LONG

Dashed GREEN = Stop Loss (SL) for a long entry

BLUE = Profit Target

 

If some one has some other suggestions, please put them forward.

 

Gabe

Edited November 9, 2009 by Gabe2004

[Gabe2004 10]

Potential short trade in EJ Nov-09-2009

 

Gabe

 

Trade triggered

[Gabe2004 10]

It Ain't Over, Till it's Over.

 

It does not look good..

 

Did I do something wrong?

Was the Supportline the entry point was at, the problem?

 

It could still work out in my favour but i am not so confident.

 

Gabe

 

Had enough. Took a hit.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Gabe2004

[forrestang 10]

Post deleted..........................

 

-----edit-----

Approaching potential Support here.

Edited November 9, 2009 by forrestang
Useless post.

[Gabe2004 10]

New trade on GU.

So far so good.

1st target hit (+34 pips).

Moved my stop to BE +4 pips and entered a Limit Close on 1/3 at half the distance between the low anf the entry point.

 

Gabe

 

Couldn't take the heat and Futures started to move up.

Closed the other 2/3 for 21 pips gain (total in this trade 76 pips)

 

Gabe

 

Do I feel crappy now

Edited November 9, 2009 by Gabe2004

[daedalus 10]

Gabe - why did you take the second entry as opposed to (at least what I would consider) the first LH in the series?

 

 

Cheers!

[thalestrader 14]

I would like to suggest that we use a common system of annotating charts.

SOLID RED would indicate a short.

Dashed RED = Stop Loss (SL) for a short entry

SOLID GREEN would indicate LONG

Dashed GREEN = Stop Loss (SL) for a long entry

BLUE = Profit Target

 

If some one has some other suggestions, please put them forward.

 

Gabe

 

I typically use solid blue for entry (whether short or long), solid red for stop loss (whether short or long), and green for profit targets. I have several friends with who I share charts, and this has been our convention for years. It is very simple and you know at a glance exactly what is being communicated.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[Gabe2004 10]

Gabe - why did you take the second entry as opposed to (at least what I would consider) the first LH in the series?

 

Cheers!

 

I took it because I missed the 1st one.

As it stands now I left about 50 pips on the table because I chichened out

 

Gabe

[thalestrader 14]

Had enough. Took a hit.

 

 

Couldn't take the heat and Futures started to move up.

Closed the other 2/3 for 21 pips gain (total in this trade 76 pips)

 

Hi Gabe,

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

So what is your total PnL in ticks/pips between the two trades?

 

It does not look good..

 

Did I do something wrong?

Was the Support line the entry point was at the problem?

 

The short EURJPY was fine, it just didn't move as you anticipated and you took your loss, and thus you move on. Losing trades are not what is going to hurt you. What is going to hurt your results cutting your winners short. If you already had 34 ticks profit in the bank, and a stop loss at BE +4, presumably assuring you of at least another 4 ticks profit on the remaining position, then from where was the "heat" coming? You need the runners to take care of your losers and to feed your family.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[fxThunder 10]

Areas I am watching on the EUR.USD.

 

Please comment etc - like Thales says - just making notes

Edited November 9, 2009 by fxThunder
added some wording

[Gabe2004 10]

Hi Gabe,

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

So what is your total PnL in ticks/pips between the two trades?

 

 

 

The short EURJPY was fine, it just didn't move as you anticipated and you took your loss, and thus you move on. Losing trades are not what is going to hurt you. What is going to hurt your results cutting your winners short. If you already had 34 ticks profit in the bank, and a stop loss at BE +4, presumably assuring you of at least another 4 ticks profit on the remaining position, then from where was the "heat" coming? You need the runners to take care of your losers and to feed your family.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

 

EJ -39

GU +76

 

Net +37

 

The HEAT was emotional.

On the EJ the best I could do was get out at break even (there were 4 opportunities to do so after my exit at a loss.

On the GU trade, it never hit my 2nd target but in hindsight, I could squeez a few more pips out of the trade.

Had i stuck to the stop loss rules based on the most recent swing point - which was not hit yet - I would still be in the trade with 2/3 of my position.

The problem would have been that 3 and 1/4 hours after my exit and almost 5 hours after my entry the trade is not getting closer to my 2nd profit target but getting away from it, so my thinking is that if my profit target was not hit in such a long period - it will not.

One can argue that if my SL was not hit after such a long time that IT is a valid SL which was placed well.

 

Gabe

[forrestang 10]

 

-----edit-----

Approaching potential Support here.

 

Follow up.................

[Gabe2004 10]

Post deleted..........................

 

-----edit-----

Approaching potential Support here.

 

 

That was a good call.

 

Gabe

[Gabe2004 10]

Areas I am watching on the EUR.USD.

 

Please comment etc - like Thales says - just making notes

 

I would have chosen the same targets but I don't know about the entry.

 

Gabe

[forrestang 10]

Areas I am watching on the EUR.USD.

 

Please comment etc - like Thales says - just making notes

 

Not sure I understand your entry either?

[fxThunder 10]

Not sure I understand your entry either?

 

I am looking at the area where previous resistance became support = 1.4980 area - looks like a definitive decision area

[daedalus 10]

Thought I would post up my trades from the day. What I need help on is getting my management down solid in some kind of semi-consistent manner. I recognize that some of these timeframes are VERY small in comparison to the 15min examples being shown and thus, the stops/targets reflect that.

 

Rules:

- I'm trying to take entries that allow "room to run" to prior S/R zones and avoiding the entries that are near congestion.

- Taking entries that are at rejection of prior S/R.

- Exiting when/around candles that shows opposing movement or letting strong trends run to prior S/R as targets.

 

Any thoughts / ideas on the entries themselves and more specifically a consistent trade management approach of locking in profits and trailing stops would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Ended up the day:

BP: +2, +25, -9: +18

EC: +5

JY: +6

 

Net: +250.00/per. I'm perfectly content with the overall results, however I feel like I need a bit more consistency in my management approach rather than going purely off of "feel" on some of these exits. I've tried to at the very least let the winners run until there is evidence of potential failure (other color candles) and in those cases allowing trades to run to their predetermined exits at prior S/R. However, one trade (JY - 512T) I felt I kind of had a BS exit, and while there was some backfill I could've gotten more from it had I used a different management technique.

 

Cheers!

[Gabe2004 10]

Rules:

- I'm trying to take entries that allow "room to run" to prior S/R zones and avoiding the entries that are near congestion.

- Taking entries that are at rejection of prior S/R.

- Exiting when/around candles that shows opposing movement or letting strong trends run to prior S/R as targets.

 

Cheers!

 

What is the time equivalent for the 89/512 tick charts?

 

Thanks

 

Gabe

[Kiwi 16]

Comments:

 

Gabe, IMO you must have exit rules in place before the trade takes place. Preferably have some very solid guidelines for all trades. Why? Because cash and the need to be right raise emotional levels and while they distort perception before a trade they distort it far more once in the trade. Unless you are a robot you should determine your rules when you are not affected by fear, greed, or the desire to be right.

 

Later, when one is truly confident in the method then intuition can be permitted because it won't be swamped by emotional responses. Up to you.

 

 

Daedelus,

 

Tick bars on forex are not going to be helpful. First, everyone else here is using time bars so they make comparison difficult. Second, tick on forex is almost as much rubbish as volume on forex - its just what your data provider decides is the tick rate and has no true representation of the "real" forex market. If your data provider is honest then its a representation of his microcosm of the market but you'll probably find that even the "honest" inject ticks at slow time to make the market move - and at any time the ticks are not the real market.

 

I mean, you can choose to use them, but they are not real. And they confuse others.

[Kiwi 16]

Thoughts on stops:

 

- stops almost always reduce profit simply because they take you out at the worst price (so far) of a swing

- that means that if you are very well controlled the combination of a disaster stop + exit with price improvement after a condition is met may well be best

 

- many markets test one swing but not the second so stops two swings back are recommended by some

- some forex markets seem to stop for the swing, and some overrun it a bit so stops should be adjusted for that

- often swing stops have the worst slippage because everyone's stops are there so sometimes a stop 1 tick inside the swing can be better ... defense of the price still exists ... but you'd have to check how this market and your data/price provider represents thing to find out if thats true.

[MidKnight 12]

Just to add to the forex and tick data thing.....a tick in forex is only a bid change and to my knowledge it is not an actual transaction. This is how it used to be 5 years ago. Maybe it has changed somewhat if your feed is from an ecn, I don't know about that though. I'd steer clear of tick charts on FX personally.

 

Currently eur/usd and eur/jpy are at significant resistance. Can it break? They both traveled up into the R area like a bat out of hell. I'm keeping my eyes open for 'obvious' shorts, but also want to keep my mind open to the idea that it may break higher.

[daedalus 10]

Daedelus,

 

Tick bars on forex are not going to be helpful. First, everyone else here is using time bars so they make comparison difficult. Second, tick on forex is almost as much rubbish as volume on forex - its just what your data provider decides is the tick rate and has no true representation of the "real" forex market. If your data provider is honest then its a representation of his microcosm of the market but you'll probably find that even the "honest" inject ticks at slow time to make the market move - and at any time the ticks are not the real market.

 

I mean, you can choose to use them, but they are not real. And they confuse others.

 

I respectfully disagree. I'm not using ticks on spot forex, but on the CME futures contracts. How is this any different from any tick chart on a regulated exchange?

 

I get that for example purposes everyone can't follow along due to data provider differences but I feel that tick charts clean up the noise and show the real swings that time charts just can't replicate.

 

I should add that I understand and agree with what you are saying about it not being a "true" represenation of the market because each data provider can give you different data - HOWEVER my counter point would be that its no different from basing a buy/sell decision off a time chart bar that has no relevance in the marketplace other than being created due to 5 or 15 minutes passing in the day. It all evens out in my mind.

[thalestrader 14]

Tick bars on forex are not going to be helpful ...

 

 

 

I tend to be of the opinion that price is price, no matter how it is bundled. For example, I have and still do use range charts when trading currency futures. I do agree with Kiwi that if you are using tick data from a bucket shop you are opening yourself up to trading on "bad" information. I may be wrong, but I think daedalus may be trading futures, not spot, and tick counts on futures should be accurate versus "tick counts" at a bucket shop.

 

Also, what is more important than the particular "price bundle" being used is the manner in which the trader identifies opportunities in and around potentially meaningful price levels. I myself do not use tick charts at all, but I would not discourage anyone else's use of such charts here.

 

At any rate, I would like to keep the thread open, and I would like to encourage daedalus's continued participation. One never knows from which direction inspiration might strike.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[thalestrader 14]

Areas I am watching on the EUR.USD.

 

Please comment etc - like Thales says - just making notes

 

The targets are fine, but like Forrest and Gabe, I do not see this as a short, at least not yet. That does not mean that price cannot or will not simply break lower and reach the targets. But if it does, it will, at least at this point, have to make its way without me.

 

I have mocked up the current EURUSD to show what I would like to see prior to getting short. This is not a prediction.

 

Another scenario would be a poke to a higher high with a reversal down (see the GBPJPY chart posted in post #946 of this thread).

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales