Kiwi

That depends on whether you are a sensitive little child or a battle hardened market warrior. Bring it on!

The trade what you see argument is always interesting. The skill is in seeing something useful. In the case of the chart above I don't trade currencies really but if it was something I did trade what I'd see is: "Its just done a down extension and a small pullback. In this extension from the 05/06 high point it has had 4 small pullbacks so far. This is the 5th." I'd say "5 similarly sized pullbacks is a lot ... hmmmm." Then I would be saying "what does it take to get the maximum number of people offside so that the next extension down would start with plenty of liquidity and the chance for good extension when everyone piles on?" And the answer to me would be "a little push down to engage some suckers and then a failure - even a slight extension beyond the lows which could suck a lot of folk in." So my personal view, simply as a trader who looks for good risk reward situations would be: a short now is not a low risk trade. I wouldn't be surprised to see a pullback into 80 or so. But who knows. If you can get a good reward for a little risk setup then trade it.

There is a good arbing business on the mhi so it doesn't matter as much as you might think. Re the ES being the only one ... the SGXNK is a mini for the full N225 (about 1/3rd size) and is very well used by everyone from retail to banks and funds.

An interesting perspective and not one I wish to negate. I would just like to point out that there may be others. I used to be a strong user of trendlines and then parallel channels (which I found to be better at containing and proving trend). More recently I have pretty much abandoned them as unneeded. Why? Because horizontal s&r does show trend and it shows it better than trendlines show it (because it isn't gamed as much I suspect). So I use progressions of horizontal s&r to read trend (read that also as market profile progressions although I use volume clusters rather than tpo clusters). The thing that's missing from that which was provided by trendlines was tests and test failures. So instead of trendlines I use a couple of lazy man's trendlines ... mas. It seems that enough people use mas (smas on longer term charts and emas on intraday charts) that their probable s&r is as useful as the probable s&r provided by trendlines. Not saying you're wrong - just that one of the big joys of trading is that one can be right in so many different ways. Cheers

I've been asked by a couple of people about more info on Frank's approach. I can't really give it without giving away what he's doing so, because he's charging very little for it, I don't feel I can do it. For me its just a nice way of using profile concepts to get a better read on trend and non-trending conditions. But it also includes some sound setups. I originally went through his material and thought "that's nice, but my approach doesn't need it" and put it aside; but more recently added it to my approach because it gives a cleaner read on the real trends of the day than my mas were by themselves. Its not anything big if you already have support and resistance etc but it can complement your existing knowledge (as I found with the Trend Dynamics material).

Actually RE time based comparisons can be worth doing. You take the rth hours only and find out how many ticks in that period. Then you create an equivalent tick chart to your chosen minute chart. At that point your "fast period gives quicker response, slower gives relaxed response" comes into effect. I don't personally do it but I know people who do and are satisfied with the effect.

Yes. I bought the course because it was cheap and some of the guys I was trading with were using MP. It's a nice sound way of trading and I use it to give me my primary read on direction and where a trade is likely to go. I have rules for entry, management and exit within his framework.

James, for some reason I couldn't edit my message. I was going to add an extra paragraph. It's fast so if you use 5 minute charts on YM you might want to try 3 minute or 2 minute charts on HSI. Quite a lot of people seem to use 1 minute but I found that too fast for my signal development. Maybe we were using different trading principles.

As James says its a low cost contract to follow. Its also technically good especially now that the bsds from Shanghai ran out of money and stopped screwing up the HSI (good riddance you b'stards). It's highly manipulated but the manipulaters are technical in nature and so you can rely on the patterns you develop by watching and testing on the HSI. Be aware that some days will be "different" to others; so I always used to use big stops on the first couple of swings until I got a feel for how the day was behaving. You will notice that it's very thin but it is strongly tied to the HSI so very rarely diverges on the sub 5 minute swings by more than a tick or two. You can even trade MHI by charting HSI. I strongly recommend IB for HSI/MHI trading. The charges are good; the margins are conservative; and they have a server right next to the HK exchange so you get minimum latency to the rest of the world.

Liver disease is hard to spot in humans too. I hope things to well for you and your dog and look forward to your threads.

I too look forward to your exposition on FACTS. Having lived in the land of probabilities and theories I think that someone who can offer FACTS could well save us all from stochastic despair.

A statement often seen on boards. I have never seen it made by one who has traded long and trades their own money at a significant size relative to their equity. So far, all of the examples I've seen have either been made by a clear newbie or someone who has been later show to be deceiving us for some reason. Often there seems to be a touch of "supporting ones own opinions" to avoid cognitive dissonance or a rigidity of opinion. Perhaps this is not the case here. Never having met an emotion free trader I am genuinely curious. Feel free to give a little history that would support your expertise Mea.

Actually Blowfish, given the commonality of language I'd say that traderpsyches was Denise. Having recently invested a grand to get her web workshop I'd say my radar was fairly finely tuned. Come on Denise; reveal yourself :shocked:

His other book is good too.

Everything other than this is in some sense a summary of the underlying statistic (trade by trade information). So, just as an ma or more complex indicator summarizes price bar information, price bars summarize trade by trade inputs. The question cs, is what speed are you going to trade at (slower suggests more summarization is acceptable) and are you capable of getting more out it by letting your brain summarize the trades rather than letting software do it by creating bar/candlestick/xxx charts?

Thank you blowfish, The one at the bottom answers the question "are the market's predictable." I just wanted to get there slowly so that people would better understand my argument.

That's true. I spend the first 15-25 minutes building a directional bias then hold it until the likely turnaround time ... at which point I reverse bias or hold, depending. The probable trend is my best buddy

"In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly. [1] Fraud can be accomplished through the aid of forged objects. In the criminal law of common law jurisdictions it may be called "theft by deception," "larceny by trick," "larceny by fraud and deception" or something similar." Wikipedia The case turns on the question of what the men knew when they told investors they were hopeful about the funds' prospects - at a time when their performance was deteriorating and some investors were trying to withdraw money. The article "However, rather than alerting the funds' investors and creditors ... the defendants made misrepresentations to stave off withdrawal of investor funds and increased margin calls from creditors in the ultimately futile hope that the funds' prospects would improve and that the defendants' incomes and reputations would remain intact." The article You don't seem to be questioning if there is a fraud Frank; you are only questioning whether their emails can be used to prove it. As always we shall see whether the prosecution or defense lawyers are more convincing. You can see how the Aussie CEO's having moved to talking up the Chinese and Indian economies instead of their companies have learned from their American peers' experiences. It's still fraud at heart though. If there is a god, they will still join Bond and the Enron execs in hell for the damage they have done to the naive, greedy and stupid.

It becomes fraudulent if you show confidence about something when you can be shown to know that you shouldn't - hence, a confidence trickster. I've noticed in Australia that the CEOs of the big minerals companies don't say good things about their companies prospects. Instead they talk up the Chinese and Indian economies. So the sucker's go "demand is good" but no one can imprison these guys next year for lying about their companies. There are many ways to suck in the stupid. :deal:

I like this too. I know predict is foul language for many but I personally believe that you can't trade without prediction. Its just that the prediction is not absolute; it's statistical. For example: - I predict that I will make money this week (nearing 100%). - I predict that I will make money today (70%+ because 4-8 trades are involved). - I predict that this trade will make money (~70% because thats the ratio of trades that win with my "system.") - I predict that if this is the context (my criteria for "it's trending" and "it's retraced into the right s&r) and this happens (my tested price action) then there is a 70% chance that price will reach target zone before it retraces to where my stop will be sitting. I don't "know" what the market will do; in fact I plan for it doing the opposite of what I predict and what I will do next if that happens. But I do predict with statistical certainty Note: For anyone who's ever had a problem with reentering after a loss (often called revenge trading :crap:) I think that I finally eliminated it by planning the trade to follow a loss. Once you have a plan then doing the wrong thing is much less likely.

Yes. More time = less impulsiveness; more time to correct mistakes; more time to plan; getting used to being patient.

I have read versions of the document twice and would advise anyone reading it to realize that like most good trading strategies it is one strategy that suits particular markets, timeframes, and men (man). The "Positions established must be reduced and removed until or unless the market proves the position correct" rule is a perfect example of this issue. I see lots of people start off with this sort of approach typically by snugging stops up to be+ or getting out because "its not going my way." This works for some people with some entries I'm sure but most seem to strangle their trades this way - and the trade having been killed, the market then proceeds to go on to its target without them. Its an interesting read but I recommend you evaluate your strategies trades carefully before you apply this or any other idea to them.

Basically agree gj but mainly because our comments don't intersect, My IQ is in the "tester said he'd never seen anyone get a score like that before" and "you mean these questions at the end of the test were wrong" range so yes, I am only talking about myself and a few others. I go to the occasional learn to trade seminar just to be amazed at what is coming by way of fresh liquidity. So, yes, agreed. On news I think we don't really intersect so neither agree nor disagree. On T2W I saw a lot of "we get xxx in ms" comments from some of the shop guys but realized I didn't care because I don't listen to xxx ... I just let the market take me with it or out as the other participants wish. On size I suspect we agree except that we trade different markets. I don't really trade forex so I can't be sure although I have seen it move away from good entry points very fast in the asian timezone. I used to trade fx futures before forex got "big" and size mattered there outside of the core hours; actually size even mattered during some periods of the core hours. My real trading is index futures which vary from very thin (hsi) to thin (spi, dax maybe) to deep (stw and nk). In STW I still see a lot of work by the bigger pros to get filled at the right price. Precision isn't available to them at all in spi or hsi (which makes for great technical markets if you can get your fills and stand the slippage).

An interesting question. One element is "how would I or anyone else discriminate between one chain and another?" I have watched people big dog / small dog themselves into frustration most unprofitably with market delta. How could one do better? Personally I don't think most "pros" are cleverer than me or know more except for faster news (so I have no news to defend against that). What I do believe is that they have to trade differently when their size is big relative to the market they are trading and that this is both an advantage (behave as james said) and disadvantage (have to take the noise while enough people reach the agreement). On the other hand I am small so I can wait for consensus and be surgically precise about my entries and exits (on my best days).

You always have to ask why you're here too. I almost never learn anything new on a board. I learned (or got inspired to realize) something new at Forex Factory back in January. I learned something new when a bunch of forex traders here got to chatting. I got inspired to realize the importance of something when I slogged thru the trend dynamics stuff. Actually, that's a lot in one year! I'm not sure I learned anything new in 2007 so 2008 rocks! I still go to elite for entertainment and because there is the odd discussion there that really reaches a very high level for a short time (there are some very very experienced traders there), here for entertainment and the possibility of something new, and T2W for entertainment mainly. Once I'd got that learning out of ff there didn't seem much reason to keep going back there.