Kiwi

No. I often fill another's limit order with my limit order. That prevents me getting an unexpected fill because of the market moving between my computers decision and the arrival of my order at the exchanges matching engine. (via my software, tws, internet delays to hk, ib's server side software, delays to exchange computer, delay in exchange computer (cluster?)). Exactly what your options are for orders and how they are treated depend on the exchanges software ... and they do differ quite a lot.

I will add that I enjoy your posts Steve and the thought processes you stimulate. I also enjoy the detractors though because the debate seems to reveal even more of interest. Then again, I still enjoy elements of ET.

Thats why you've got to both do the sums and make sure you can stand the win ratios on those third trades.

There are two parts to it: - It is something that can cause people trouble if it is an emotional response to a currently losing trade rather than part of the plan. - To add it to a plan you need to do the stats. Entering low will have a poorer win rate than entering higher (you miss all the winners that take off from a higher point) but in return your loss is smaller and your win is bigger. So, as with each potential entry do the expectancies. Also ask yourself: if entering initially has a win rate of 65% then given a low entry will have a win rate of 40% or 30% (say), would I be doing this trade by itself if I hadn't already invested in a (now losing) position. If the entry low down isn't something you'd do normally then you shouldn't double up (lower win rate, fewer trades per day, but higher win/loss). Something to test is "what happens if I buy the stop loss + a couple of ticks" on every trade I might have entered?

What time though ... they vote during my day ... or maybe they don't. Its 2200 in London now and 8 am here. I start trading at 12:30 for HSIs main trend move so I guess the leprechauns will be tucked up in their little beds.

And in your market at a particular timeframe you may discover oddities like this: 1 bar over twice the recent average range and no bars that move beyond it ... gives a high probability of reversal but a couple of bars moving a couple of ticks beyond it ... give a very high probability of retracement only You won't get this with an indicator, You must watch price and be asking yourself why. And studying the distant and recent past for behaviours and changes of behaviours.

I explicitly do not take time into consideration. If I did I might well be shaken out of a trade that moves, coils for a bit while further accumulation occurs and then moves again. If the price action doesn't say that the conditions have changed I wait for the originally planned conditions to occur before exiting. Patience is a virtue.

No. What you suggest might be true if my trades took a significant portion of the day which they don't. For index futures they might only be a few minutes. For forex they might take longer but the day doesn't end until the weekend so can be largely ignored.

I suspect the bomb he drops will just show you how the US banks really think about their customers. You won't be pleased but you probably won't need to withdraw your money because most of them think the same of you. As a hint ... if you were a girl they would bed you but they wouldn't be there in the morning. With the worse banks, it might hurt a bit and you just might not remember what had happened. In some cases you might catch a nasty disease and lose your house. Hasn't it been interesting to find out how the polis etc think about the other scum out there. I often wondered if they believed the bs they spouted in the press when my own opinions were so different. Now I know that they were not as stupid as they looked. Good I guess

If it was just greed leading to an agreement without sufficient verification then there is likely to be no remedy. If the guy is now defrauding him then he has a chance. He needs to request proof of the losses - the complete set of account statements for the period where the loss occurred. Be aware though that a sophisticated scammer could produce legitimate statements showing the losses if he traded two accounts and took a win on the second one whenever he took a loss on the first - hard to do though. If the losses were not there then its time to visit the law.

Agree with that last sentence MMS - "traders who actually work on trading less and not more are more profitable on average." Just putting the other spin on it. One can be more selective for trades with a larger probable excursion or for trades with a higher probability of reaching a smaller target. Sometimes both can be achieved with the same setup although sometimes they are different. Personally I favour the Trend Dynamics style of taking part off at the Non-Trend Liquidation point and part played for trend ... when the setup has large excursion written all over it. Non-trend liquidation is a term they use to describe that point where you'd say "if the trend doesn't continue here, what is the point it is likely to reach anyway before the trend continuation fails." I wouldn't call it a scalp but it might have an 80% probability of being hit and might return less than 1:1 whereas the trend trade might have 10:1 or greater potential if it really ran. But in either case selectivity is the key to really hitting it. Then the only problem is: "if I am this selective, assuming I miss 35% of trades, will I be getting enough trades per day/week/month to achieve my objectives?" (I trade HSI on 1m bars so there are 270 bars in a day - two sessions with a 2 hour lunch break In the old days I used to get 10 trades or so in a day but now I get 2 or 3. But the quality is really up there. I'm not trying to take anything away from the 3:1 or better trades. Just point out the potential merit of having both views.)

I don't use 3:1 or 1:1. I use the exit target that makes sense from the recent price activity and then tune my entries a little to make sure that I have enough to give a good expectancy with my likely win/loss ratio. In other words I have a heuristic like "no worse than 1.4 to 1" say. I assume you are not going for precisely 3:1 either.

MK is right. But dont forget to look at the Nikkei (both Osaka versions + SGX version) and the STW on SGX. One way of looking at HSI is as an index with a tick size of 5 but with subticksize stacking of liquidity. That way the liquidity slippage and range of movement might seem more normal to an ES trader.

I don't trade stocks at all with IB/SC Siuya; I just recalled IB's announcement that they were supporting ASX Stocks.

Interactive Brokers via TWS Universal Account (includes Aussie Stocks and Fx) Sierra Chart for charting, programmable customization, and order entry/management.

I trade HSI instead (shorter hours and lots of movement). I did trade SPI when HSI went nuts for a year but never bothered with the stocks. But lets be real - support and resistance trading will never die it will just morph from time to time and the traders job is to watch and ride those changes. Look up Sam Seiden on the net - you'll find a lot of stuff with a slightly different spin on S&R, Supply and Demand which might add to your efficacy. If you're daytrading ASX stocks then the #Tradit room on Othernet of IRC is a group of people doing that. The tend to trade channels and pitchforks but there are a variety of preferences. Seem to mix day and swing trading.

There is a reason you can't find anything about him/it with google. 1. Most of these guys change their names frequently to stay ahead of the last generation of sheep. 2. Most of the sheep are far too embarrassed to post about it. They wonder if it was just them. But the "millionaire" bit is a complete giveaway. Show some brains and stay away.

Tams, Since when has being banned on other forums meant you were not welcome here. One of the posters in this thread comes to mind. There are a couple of other threads out there. So, I reckon EMC2 has the same rights as the rest of the scum as long as he doesn't start hundreds of threads to promote his book and his ego. EMC2, Seeing Urma baby is just here to promote his own snake oil or his pathetic ego you probably couldn't get a good review out of him if your book was the next trading bible. A shame but it wouldn't happen. Have a look at MM's thread of good posts and perhaps make the same offer to some of those people. They might be willing and unbiassed. Good to see you stirring the pot here. Cheers :applaud:

A really interesting article bamford. I liked the bit where he hadn't found one in his time involved with the markets. Worth reading for anyone trying to understand the markets and perhaps reduce their paranoia levels a bit.

Elder's multitimeframe approach is valuable. High for trend; Mid for setup; and trigger on some price action (you only need two timeframes here not 3). (Moderator: Removed 3rd part URL) Focus mainly on pins, buobs, ibs etc. But remember that price action without context (the higher trends say and the pullback point) is just another way of losing money. You need both.

Lots of good stuff. And lots of confusing stuff. Because this is complex and different exchanges do behave slightly differently. Two clarifying things though re the last post: - if you have two limit orders, a buy at 10 and a sell at 11, the best matching algorithm in the world won't match them, a new or modified order is required - most worst case exit and even standard exit stop orders are stop market orders; many or maybe most entry stop orders are stop limit orders and the limit may actually require a better price than the triggering stop.

It is pressure + power. Power is something like the size of the buyer. And Pressure is a combination of motivation + time pressure. In the sense that a large buyer who is highly motivated (they are going to buy their parcel) may still decide to spend days acquiring a position so they are not in a hurry and may in fact sell against themselves to try to avoid paying too high a price. Tams is correct that there do not have to be an equal number of buyers and sellers .... available at any one time. There will be an equal number of buy units + sell units for the number of contracts/shares/widgets actually traded but there may be unsatisified buyers or sellers sitting on the sidelines ... either because the number is unbalanced CURRENTLY or because one or both parties are unconvinced that current pricing represents value. The language really isn't precise enough in these conversations but I would recommend the op use true markets as their analogy for trading rather than shop keepers and other distorted markets. Line up sellers and buyers with xx units of stock and then work through scenarios of how they act and thus how price changes. This points to the value added to markets by day traders ... without "honest participants" how would people get filled and the value/price equation get tested. Think about the thin markets you've traded ... palladium, lumber etc.

OK. Simplify what I said. Build models in your mind. You have a market of 10 sellers and 10 buyers. Each has only 1 contract. The starting price is $10 but 8 of the buyers suspect price is likely to move up to $15 very soon so if they're going to participate they need to buy now. They are motivated. 2 of the buyers are ambiguous about what might happen and think that current price represents value. All the sellers but one are ambiguous and wonder if price is going to move down or up so are thinking about selling but are in no hurry. Bring them together. The one ultramotivated seller rushes in and hits the first buyer. 1 for 1 and price stayed still. Then the other sellers hang back. As the next 7 motivated buyers rush up the sellers sell 1 at a time or 2 at a time and each time the next sellers drop back. With each 1 for 1 buy/sell the price moves up. Finally all of the motivated buyers have bought and all but 2 of the sellers have sold. And price has moved up. What happens now? 8 buys. 8 sells. Price moved up. 2 more buyers exist, a bit annoyed that they were not motivated at the beginning but not at all motivated now so they just hold on. As do the last two sellers. Until perceptions of current prices value change (and thus motivation) or new buyers and sellers with different opinions arrive. You now have everything you need to know in my posts and gregns. If it doesn't make sense then why not go and read the auction market theory and wyckoff stuff. In the end you will have learned something and it will make sense to you.

First, there do not have to be any market makers involved. Price moves because there is a combination of quantity and motivation that is stronger in one direction than another. So, say, the next buyer is more motivated than the next seller (and there is enough volume) then price will move up as buyers willingly pay what the seller asks and the sellers are able to pull back a little rather than having to advance to get filled. Moves with increasing volume are classic trend moves with (say) sellers selling strongly even as buyers advance and soak up all of the supply. But often there will be very little supply as sellers retreat or pull their orders and the buyers move up with little volume - until they reach the point where they start to wonder if price has gone to far. Etc etc. But in every case there is a transaction with 1 buy for one sell. If all the sellers disappear then ...

Good post Robert, I recently decide to use as much free software as possible and you mention of mindjet (of which I own an early version) made me think to list what I found useful. Someone else might like: - Freemind is a free mind mapping tool that is good - yEd Graph Editor is a tool like Visio for drawing flow charts etc and is excellent - OpenOffice is a 100% free substitute for office originally developed as Sun Office - ChromePlus is the best non-google version of the open source Google Chrome browser - Thunderbird is the best of the free mail clients (and excellent calendar) out there - TrueCrypt for creating obvious or hidden encrypted disks, files etc - KeePass for saving all those passwords with strong encryption - JDownloader for those big video files etc that come from sites with passwords and Captchas - AusLogics for a better disk defragmenter - Comodo and Clam or Antivir for firewall and virus protection - Foxit for pdf reading - Speedcrunch and Calcute for calculators Enough already