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markl67
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Posts posted by markl67
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to some, trading is an obsessive compulsive disease, no different from drugs, alcohol, or gambling. (or sex to Tiger). Once you are hooked, there is no escape until the house and wife are gone.I can feel the "pull" - I'm not going to be one of those statistics...
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This has to be one of the more entertaining threads.What I think is missing is nobody is sharing their drink of choice. It's like when someone posts here and boasts about their trade success but then doesn't give any details on their system
"If" I was to drink while trading I think I would keep it simple -- an Absolut Citron & Tonic with a lime. Smooth and long lasting.
LOL - Gin and tonic here...
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I wouldn't say I'm long gone, but I do have one foot out the door for sure. I'm basically watching and demo trading several strategies that I've "backtested". I use the term backtested loosely because I've seen that backtested strategies have also failed for me in real time - why? I don't know...and trust me the backtesting has been thorough - tick by tick through various trends and volatility - ad nauseum. As someone pointed out perhaps my expectations are skewed and/or I just have a hard time stomaching draw downs (risk averse).
I'm keeping in touch with the markets for now in between looking at job ads, sending out resumes and talking to recruiters about my skills and why I would be the best person for the job, etc. etc.
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Funny, I've played this trading chart game, and I'll be damned if I don't knock it out of the park after a couple drinks vs. completely sober...
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Anyone ever try trading with a good buzz going on...?
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Are you talking about margin requirements? There are different margin requirements for "patterned day traders" which is a term used in stock trading. I think firms have different rules/requirements regarding futures trading for those who employ stops and don't hold overnight vs. those who do. I'm not sure if these requirements are regulatory or firm risk management related.
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The way I understand it is, if the trade goes south, the loss amount should not exceed 2% of your trading capital. i.e. $20,000 x 2% = $400.
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Alright, so I took a few days off after the long weekend and I logged on out of curiosity - lot of interesting/varying responses. I sent out my resume for several, fairly crappy looking job ads, so we'll see. Just sitting here looking at these charts today and thinking about a statement that I read in a Steenbarger book where he says that trading and/or markets must be your calling. I don't feel that....unless I suppose I could make a boat load of cash and help others, etc. My problem was/is I feel like this MUST work and I think that's a dangerous mindset as I'm burning through my severance pay and savings. Anyway, thanks for the replies/support.
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Well, after 18 months of researching, demo trading, live trading, webinars, trading groups, books, magazines, I have finally decided to throw in the towel. I hate giving up, but I have a family to support and this just ain't workin', so back to looking for another 9-5 hum drum job - oh well. Good luck to everyone...
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Thanks for the responses. I got a private message from someone telling me to avoid putting on an OSO type trade making the stop public as that could ruin a good strategy. I guess insinuating that stops are intentionally "run"...and, to be honest the "consperacy theory" part of my brain has thought that could be true. Opinions on that...do you think stops are intentionally run?
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Who do you use for data feed?Mark,You have to make sure you are going back to the same day each time you load up your charts. If you don't you are going to be starting at a different point which is going to change the range sequence. So when you test just set a date and then make sure that is the starting point each time.
I'm using Tradestation. Looking at the current day's activity, the range bars are forming bla bla, but if I close the session and come back the bars are different using the same exact range/criteria, etc.
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I like the way range bars appear in real time, but I've noticed that once you close the chart or session and come back, the chart is different - the bars are not the same as they were. I don't know why that is, but it has prevented me from back testing using range bars.
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Carter has mentioned exiting a squeeze trade on 2 TTM bars in the opposite color of your direction. I receive his free daily videos and not to dis the man, but it seems like every other week he's showing a chart with a different time frame using a different indicator - now it's the TTM wave.
Back to the original post, I didn't see anyone mention using tick levels to determine trend or strength of the trend...
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I just went live (real cash) a couple weeks ago with the TF using a volume bar breakout strategy which I backtested to Jan 4th with a 70% win ratio. The trouble is to achieve that win ratio, my risk/reward is 1:1, sometimes slightly negative and when the losers occur they are "large" which shakes my confidence to be honest. This strategy calls for basically putting on the trade and walking away which I think is best for my personality as I tend to micro-manage, but when the losers occur I say to myself "damn it, if I had been watching I could have managed this better" bla bla....
Not to ramble on or hi-jack the thread, but I'm interested if others have tried this "walk away" approach...?
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I'll begin by sharing some of my work over the past few days. I have been going through the YM (dow emini) with a new trade idea that I have. I spent a few hours over the past couple days backtesting my idea to see if it might hold up. Granted, I have a lot more work to do but I did manage to backtest over 100 trades, May 3rd thru May 12th. The results we quite encouraging and I think I will meticulously go through the remaining sessions up through the current date, although I might no finish for a few days. I can't sit all day and do this type of work without going stir crazy so I try to do it little by little. Anyway, as I mentioned, the results look good so far. I don't have the UTA yet but I do use my own spreadsheet that can at least give me some basic details.So far I have looked at and entered 103 trades. 65 were winners and 38 were losers which is a 63% winning perecentage. That's not too bad. I believe just by scanning the charts that this will either hold up or improve as I record more trades. My idea would have worked nicely during this brief time period which is very encouraging. The 103 trades would have made 337 points. Positive is good, right?
The idea I am testing uses a 377 tick chart and relies on two types of trades. A breakout trade and a reversal trade. Sometimes I have to stop out and then reverse into the opposite direction and I am finding that when a reversal trade fails, the opposite direction trade tends to win a lot. I am hoping to track this kind of trade more thoroughly and if I understand correctly the UTA would be good for that. Is that right? Is anyone else trading the Dow emini or backtesting it? How is it going for you and what kind of results are you getting?
As I put in another post, when I brainstorm and think of a possible system/strategy to backtest I immediately go to February and March and test these two months first and see how it worked during lower volatility periods.
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I also trade the TF and have been examining and back testing several different strategies. I'm not sure what your system is, but it would be interesting to see how it performed in February and March of this year. Many of the strategies I've been looking at fell way short during those months due to the many tight range bound days.
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SIUYA makes a good point. I personally don't believe that automated backtesting is terribly useful in the context of what we are discussing though. You can not get a feel for your market and the dynamic relationship between the wins and losses and the equity curve, trade after trade unless you can live through those trades, one by one. To me, that is essential. I believe you have to set your charts up at some random date in the past, and begin clicking forward, looking for your trade setups at the right edge of the chart. As they setup and trigger in, record it in your spread sheet and manually build up a record of trades. To me, you gain SO MUCH from this excercise that there is just no way to duplicate the benefits in any other way. It's exactly how I turned my trading around. Is it a lot of work? Ahhh... Yeah! Harder to recoup lost trade capital though. And what you learn is priceless information.Yeah, I've been backtesting going back to Jan 4th various different strategies for weeks now - 8 to 10 hours a day. I feel like my eyes are gonna roll out of my head. I'm really hoping one of these days to actually find that edge...
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This is a joke...right...?
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You must backtest your method on all futures markets to determine which specific market your method produces the best results. With that data...you can determine which trading instrument to trade. Thus, it's possible your method is more suitable for another trading instrument in comparison to the Emini ES. In addition, the goal is to be profitable. Therefore, it's not uncommon that your backtest results will reveal that you should be trading another trading instrument that's not your preferred market for trading (e.g. your method may perform better on Oil CL futures in comparison to S&P 500 Emini ES futures).My point is that too many newbie traders follow the herd via getting married to a particular trading instrument without backtesting to determine if their method will perform better on another trading instrument in comparison to the Emini ES.
Never get married to a particular trading instrument because if you're trading something you shouldn't be trading...the divorce will be ugly (e.g. account blow up, not reaching profit goals). In fact, the few profitable traders I've met and watch trade in person...they all are trading something that's not at the top of their list of favorites...they are trading something because it generates the most profits along with allowing them to reach their profit goals.
Yep - thanks, I've recently found that out, for example backtesting has shown the ES reacts well fading the prior day highs and lows whereas the Russell - not so much, however, the Russell reacts better with the prior day close.
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Personally myself have gained some edge on es these days and became profitable after i forgot following herd and to trade the trend. Here is my 2c what one should do to be profitable on es:1. Throw away all the time-based charts, instead use fixed-ratio range, renko, volume or tick charts. They eliminate 70% of the noise.
2. Throw away sup/res from traditional charts. Instead use MP levels, it works really really great especially when Europeans are trading. They are good enough at the local usa time too but you can get false breakouts more often.
3. Don't day trade till 17:15 it will kill you. Instead, day trade, but leave position overnight if there is some reason to do it.
4. I'm heavily using worst-recognized techniques as the martingale but it just works fine for me, so you must have at least 10000 bucks in your account to leave position overnight and to add to the losing position. You can research historical data, and you'll see that there is 95% of time when next day's bar overlaps previous day bar by at least 3-5 full points. Here is a statistical edge if you are not correct with you entry. 1 basic rule - never martingale downtrend market there is always some chances to get a day like May 6, 2001/09/11 and so on. 2 basic rule - never martingale market till 17:02 if you are not correct with the entry and shorts are covering. Just try to add when everyone got margin call. You could see, how locals will correct this market in next 13 minutes till the close.
5. Try to learn not sup/res but where do big players want to see this market in next few days and trade just this direction, inventory really matters and where someone need to unload this inventory. These principles are very well desribed in wyckoff studies.
It seems thats all
really will be happy if it helps in your trading.Yes, a little more explanation would be appreciated - I can't picture exactly what you're describing, but I do like the 95% overlap statistic...thanks.
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Thanks for that bathrobe. I can see what you mean with the ES. I have approached the ES in the past, with a similar method/way of trading. Personally, I don't really like the ES. I rather trade the other eminis. So many times I have hit my projected target, only to wait in a long cue to get filled. Then the price backs off 3 or 4 ticks, and now what? I hate that dilemma. It is such a thick market. I don't like the 1/4 point ticks either because of what I just said. That's not to say it can't be accounted for or traded profitably. It obviously can be. I just don't want to deal with that extra layer of complexity. I could trade other markets and get filled easier and with less slippage. That's just my view and I'm sure there are many who will disagree.
Yep, I have seen the same thing on the ES which surprises me given the extreme volume. Like today, I had an order to buy at 1102.5 (prior low) and I couldn't get filled on 1 contract after several failed "touches" so I moved up 1 tick and got filled. But on the Russell with far less volume I seem to get filled almost instantly most of the time...
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Ok - thanks for the replies everyone. Yes, I must change my approach. Trading breakouts fuels my lack of patience and my need to be right.
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Thanks - hopefully attachment works. (5 minute chart from yesterday)
Note at 1100 how price breaks thru but then quickly retreats. I was buying the breakout of resistance with target at next level of 1101.5. I'm determining the levels by scrolling backwards to view what price did previously at these levels and picking out what appear to be key levels.
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After having thrown away every indicator from charts many months ago and deciding to strictly trade ranges I have a question for more experienced traders. Would you share how you trade around s/r levels? My main problem seems to be setting stops. For example, resistance is at lets say 1100 on the ES. I set an order to buy just above 1100 on what appears to be an up-trending move and get filled, only to get the usual head fake and watch price decline below 1100 and continue to decline, then get stopped out only to watch price reverse in my direction.
And, of course, if I hadn't put on the order at all then price would blast thru without me on board, etc.I know there's no cookie cutter answer or solution, but any suggestions are welcome - thanks.
I'm Done...
in Beginners Forum
Posted
Yes, I think a mechanical system would be best for my controlling type personality - set it and forget it. So that's what I tried to come up with - breakout strategy using 5000 share bar on the TF. Backtested back to Jan 4 with great results - 69% win with a 1:1.2 ratio. So, here's me a couple weeks ago, "oh yeah baby, I got this thing, screw you corporate america". So, I began real time trading it and promptly took 3 losses in a row to the tune of $450 each, so I stopped and said WTH. The last time this thing took 3 losses in a row was 5 months ago! So, then I start thinking about conspiracy theories, mkt manipulation, etc....