froggy

Ooops! Sorry, I'm from England - possibly a bit different in terminology but Futures encompasses everything to me...stock futures, forex futures, index futures, bond futures, commodity futures etc. I might be wrong...again ...but do you mean commodity futures? Apologies if it seems I'm being pedantic but any pointers in the right direction of what to concentrate on would be really appreciated - after a promiing start my pitchfork profit has diminished to zero so far, but I've been mainly concentrating on forex which it sounds like is probably the wrong way to go.

Thanks Waveslider - I take it that by futures markets you mean forex. You've probably helped quite a lot as I was thinking that trending markets would have been good for pitchforks as long as you catch the right pivots on a temporary downdrift (for, say, an upward trending market).

I've been spread betting for the last 15 months and one thing I've learned is not to use too much margin. For quite a while I kept my net "Trading resources" balance ( (cash) minus (open profit or loss) minus (margin requirement) ) to around 10 to 20 percent of my net overall balance ((cash) minus (open profit or loss) ). I found that when markets went against me, I was ending some stock trades at time I'd rather not, in order to free up the margin. Currently I'm aiming for keeping a 30 to 40% ratio of "Trading resources" to "net overall balance ". If trading stocks, especially in the current markets, you may want to aim for an equal(ish) ratio of up bets to down bets too. Hope this makes sense and helps.

Hello everyone (my first post here on the forum). I've been trying Pichforks for a couple of weeks and they're looking quite interesting. Only had 13 completed Pitchfork trades, with 7 successes and 6 losses, resulting in a small profit so far. Do you think Pitchforks work best in particular markets? For example I'm mainly trying forex currently but have tried coffee (success) and wheat (loss), and I've got a dodgy-looking 5 minute downward pitchfork going on Euro Schatz bonds currently. Would you think forex is best for Pitchfork-based trading or individual stocks, indices, commodites etc?