notouch

It was just a hypothetical question. :p The point is that to be a successful trader you have to follow rules and any rule-based system can be automated. Your rules can be as strict or flexible as you like.

PivotProfiler, I think the multiple time frame approach is key. If you relied on VSA using only the 5 minute charts they you would get squashed on a regular basis. The bar I referred to was a bounce off of the daily pivot I believe whereas the one you highlight was a bounce off of R1. Obviously with hindsight we can see that R1 held but the pivot didn't. In real time that would have been a lot more tricky if you had been using only the 5 minute charts. A problem I see is that there will almost always be high volume supply followed by a bounce near a pivot (assuming you're looking for longs). Wouldn't just placing a limit order at pivot levels be a better strategy? The trouble with multiple time frames and waiting for bars to close is that you'll be late for many moves.

There appeared to be climatic selling on high volume followed by an up bar before the one you have highlighted - the 8:30 bar. With hindsight it's easy to see that this was not a great buying opportunity but in real time how would VSA have kept you out of that trade?

In reply to syswizard: "emotional and psychological aspects of market behavior" are presumably reflected in the charts and tape or how else would a discretionary trader see them? So if they're reflected in the charts and the tape then they could be automated. And yes it is possible to analyse and interpret news events. In fact it's extremely simple to code an Excel macro that enters an order on the basis of an economic data release (released real time by Bloomberg and Reuters). Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones also use XML tags that enable automated systems to react instantaneously to news events. Why do you think the market reaction to news events is instantaneous? Because automated systems are reacting within milliseconds - much faster than any discretionary trader could react. Brownsfan: you could be as flexible in coding an automated system as you are in implementing a discretionary system. What are you looking for in interpreting your candles? For price to swiftly reverse on high volume? That can be coded into an automated system. Soultrader: I'm sure it would be difficult to code a system that automates tape reading but definitely it's possible. I personally don't think the majority of successful intraday traders are discretionary traders. I think the majority of successful intraday retail traders are discretionary traders because it takes a high level of programming skills to write a successful automated system. I think the majority of intraday trades are executed by automated systems run by investment banks and other institutional traders. Definitely successful institutions are moving away from discretionary traders toward automated systems. Just to clarify, I'm personally a discretionary trader but only because I don't have the programming abilities to put all my trading rules into an automated system.

I see the point. With hindsight it's easy to look at Friday's price action and think that VSA would have got you into a perfect trade but in real time you would have been stopped out several times on the way down. E.g. on a 5 minute chart you would have gone long at 1140 EST only to see YM go down another 80 points.

This website is focused on day trading the mini stock index futures but I thought we could get a bit of a discussion going about longer term trading. Looking at the YM charts it seems set up for a big weekly rally next week: a 50% pullback of the previous rally plus a dragonfly doji on the daily charts. Zooming in to the 30 minute charts high volume was coming in on the lows. To me the close of the 30 minute candlestick well above Friday's low was a good signal, confirmed end of day by the doji. So I kept that position open but I'm using very wide stops to keep me in the trade. I see maybe 500 points in a few weeks with a 100 point stop. What do other people look for when swing and position trading and what money management rules do you use? Does anyone use options? That would take away the difficult issue of stop placement but raises complexities of its own.

Windows 2000 is supported for another 3 years yet. I have an old laptop with a Celeron 500 and 64MB of RAM running Windows 2000 and it's amazing how well it runs - very stable. You can make Windows XP look identical to Windows 2000 by switching to classic windows desktop. I think it looks a lot better than the kiddie-looking XP default.

Automating tape reading would be pretty straight forward. What are you looking for when you're tape reading? Large orders hitting the bid and a fast moving tape to give you a buy signal (in combination with other aspects of your system of course)? That could easily be incorporated into an automated system. I don't think there's any aspect of a good discretionary system that couldn't be automated.

Those are NASDAQ stocks. I see you're following John Carter's set-up but he recommends following the actual stocks (NASDAQ stocks can be traded pre-market) rather than the SSFs. If you are going to look at SSFs I would have thought Dow 30 stocks would be more useful. Just a helpful suggestion...

No need to get defensive ST, I'm just adding a bit of friendly discussion. Do you mean the SSFs of the DOW 30 stocks? It seems to me that volume is too light on these contracts to really give us very useful information. I would have though YM premarket volume would be more reliable. ES is good because the DOW 30 is a subset of the S&P 500 and YM almost always moves in tandem with ES. ES volume is much higher so probably more reliable (no one trader could cause an abnormal volume spike on ES, unlike YM or SSFs).

I personally think most discretionary traders would be automated traders if they knew how to code. The only true discretionary traders are "instinct" traders who enter trades without any rules. If you have a set a rules then it would be possible to put those rules into an automated strategy but it would take very advanced coding. Investment banks are spending more money on coders now than traders.

What do you mean exactly by the majority of sectors being red or green? I think I know what you mean but maybe you could clarify that. Also what's the value of using SSFs instead of ES or YM (or whatever ) volume. SSF volume is very low so I would have thought ES volume would be a better because it's the grandaddy of volume.

The problem with that keymoo is that wishful thinking often takes hold and you start cheerleading the market hoping that "just one more push" will get you an extra 50 points. It all depends on your style of trading. Do you want 10 points twice a day or would you rather capture 100 points a couple of times a week? Whichever way you do it I think you need a target before you enter the trade because it's difficult to be objective and rational when you're in a trade.

The classic S3 pivot worked better than the Woodie S3 pivot. The Woodie pivot provided very temporary support.

My all time advertising revenue from Google AdSense for this site is $0. Am I doing it all wrong? Has anyone else made money from it?

No offence but it's slightly pointless just posting numbers based on some mysterious "old geometry system" unless you're going to explain the working of your geometry system.

You don't have to go through all those steps torero. Step 1 is all you need then post that and the image is in the message.

I find WRBs are great entry points if it hits support/resistance on high volume then reverses. I wouldn't necessarily enter a position on the close of the bar but may wait for a little pullback before entering. Often they're caused by a knee jerk reaction to some news release (e.g. today's Existing Home Sales) or stops being triggered.

ICE's main contract is Brent Crude Oil which is the world benchmark for crude oil and the most traded oil contract. EUREX is the world's biggest futures exchange.

I looked up trepedicious in the dictionary but it's not there. It sounds like such a good word though.

It's real in that if you start your trading day thinking "Today I'm going to hit my profit target" then you're more likely to because you have control over your trading decisions and if you think you'll make the right decisions, you're more likely to. But it's just silly to think that once you have a trade open you can control what direction the market moves in with the power of your mind. We have no control over the market, only over our own decisions.

The chart speaks for itself. Don't get carried away with bullish sentiment right now. That may be exactly what "they" want us to think.

The ideal trade would have been to place a limit order at the VAH (12385) as soon as the big breakout became obvious. Personally I was listening to a news squawk service and got in as soon as I heard "Fed removes tightening bias".

The whole day was a dream from a MP perspective. Open inside value area, test of VAH, fall to VAL, breakout of VAH, pullback to VAH then a take-off.

This was posted on this forum a few weeks ago. What surprises me most is that anyone is at all surprised by what he's saying. Spreading false rumours is hardly a new thing. It also surprises me that anyone takes this self-publicist too seriously.