notouch

I would say the ideal entry level would be a fib pullback. Interestingly ES hit the 38.2 fib and then rallied while YM went down to between the 23.6 and 38.2 fib. Friday's action certainly looked very bullish so you may have already missed the ideal entry level. If you're an end-of-day candlestick trader then the fib pullback followed by the bullish piercing pattern was bullish. A lot of traders were buying into the close so expect the buying to continue on Monday. On the other hand it may retest the lows. We may even go down to the 50 or 61.8 fib. I wish I could predict these things to perfection. The yield issue may not be as critical as I had suggested in my first post. The market needed an excuse for a pullback and that was it. On the other hand if yields go much higher that can't be good for stocks. Summer is traditionally a volatile time for stocks so day trading or swing trading may be better than position trading.

Came down exactly to the 50% line. Pretty impressive I'm sure you'll agree. If today's candle closes in the top half of yesterday's body then that's what Nison calls a piercing pattern - a bullish pattern. It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of day to day trading so it's useful to look back at past analysis.

I think you hit the nail on the head GCB. We do it just because it makes us feel good. People tend to contribute to "feel good" charities with a human face more than they contribute to charities like medical research that do more long term good to those who need it. Likewise it makes a trader feel good to see that he has helped out someone he can relate to (a fellow trader). Imagine being a large trader who runs stops and generally makes money from 'cheating' other traders. That's all part of the game but I wonder if it makes them feel good.

The big fall on 27 February and in the week or two after was just a technical 38.2 Fib correction of the previous uptrend. The 10% fall in China was the trigger but that's not really a fundamental reason for stocks in the world's major stock markets to fall. This week's sell off, on the other hand, isn't panic selling or purely technical. The bond market is capitulating with yields on the 10 year note going above 5% and breaking a long-term trend line. This is bad for stocks. I'm not saying the rally is at an end but there is good fundamental reason for the fall this time so it may be longer lived than the February/March correction. It's a great time to be short ZN.

Geez man relax. A lot of your posts seems to be personal attacks against me.

I don't believe it's good ethics because you're just helping one trader take profits from another trader. The other points I agree with. We help others to help ourselves. We learn and grow from helping others. Discussing set-ups and strategies helps clarify things in your own mind and you learn new things from others.

Here's an issue I was pondering because this forum is full of helpful traders (including myself at times). Why would any trader help another trader? Futures trading is a zero sum game which means if you help other traders it's going to make it more difficult for you to make profit. The guy you helped may be on the other side of your trade taking your money the next day. I thought maybe it's just our natural inclination to help others we feel we can relate to (altruism) but then how is it altruistic to help one trader make money off of another trader? My conclusion was that it's similar to the old story of the lion with the thorn in his paw. We're hoping that if we help someone out today, that person will be helping us out another day.

This is the Market Profile forum. :p

I don't think you need to post charts for obvious stuff like single prints in ES. I know what you mean. I think Dalton calls it the open test drive.

Japanese markets last time I heard.

The chat room here used to be very active but in the end I found it more of a distraction than anything. I think the chat room is less active now that Soultrader is no longer trading the US markets.

Blue is opening 2 minutes, red is IB, yellow is IB x 1.5, green is IB x 2 then IB x 3. They come as default, I don't use them apart from IB.

I think I can safely say it's time to drop the long bias for the time being. The next few weeks should be good for MP day trading.

I went long today to catch the traditional afternoon rally and entered mainly on the basis of VSA rather than MP (there was a single-print buying tail) but here's how I see tomorrow based on today's profile. In YM we have almost a double distribution day. The afternoon rally pushed us up to close in the upper of the two value areas. I'll consider a long tomorrow if we open or push above the VAH and the VAH provides support or if we test the VAL or yesterday's low and price is rejected leaving a single print buying tail.

Unless you're scalping for a few ticks I don't think there's anything you can get from tape reading that you can't get from a candlestick chart with volume. A fast tape just means more volume. More green doesn't mean more buyers (of course there's always an equal number of buyers and sellers in futures trading) it just means more contracts are made at the offer and you can use a bid/ask delta indicator for that if you really think you need it. Reading the chart allows greater objectivity in your trading.

I think a newbie needs something concrete to work with, like VSA for example. I've yet to see a workable tape reading strategy and tape readers usually fall back on claims that it's a "feeling" that can't be explained. I think any newbie hoping to scalp a few ticks on the basis of some mysterious "feeling" is in for trouble.

I think newbie traders should steer well clear of time & sales, except maybe as an educational exercise.

Interesting video. I'm more inclined only to trade in the direction of the migration of the POC which for the past few days has been up so today for example buying the rejection below the value area was good for a bounce. I can see how you determine your exits but how do you determine how to enter a trade? Would you wait for a bearish candlestick before selling or do you have some other entry criteria?

I lived in Osaka for a year - had a lot of fun there. I've also lived in Taiwan and South Korea and taken holidays in Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia. Angkor in Cambodia is the most stunning place I've ever visited.

Anyone can makes changes (including deletions) but anyone can revert the changes back to the previous version. You add and delete content by editing the page. I'm not sure about copying from Wikipedia (I can't see the point in copying something that's already available) but it's important to cite your sources.

Orders are sent straight to the bank offering the best price. With IdealPro you can see which bank executed your order: UBS, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan etc. They also match client orders against each other. Either way unlike a bucket shop they only make their money from the commission so it's in their interest that you win rather than lose.

The 2 non-bucketshop forex brokers for smaller retail traders are EFX/MB Trading Forex (same company) or IB's IdealPro. The only benefit is more flexible size (any size above $25,000 for IdealPro). I wouldn't call the higher margin offered by the bucketshops a benefit. It's just another way for newbies to blow their accounts.

I'm curious about the 15 minute EMA one because the 15 EMA is constantly moving so it could move wildly against your entry level and even if price returned to the 15 EMA it would still leave you heavily in a loss. As for Market Profile, there is no catchy one sentence rule for its use. It's all about reading the market. Yesterday for example we had a higher value area, a single-print buying tail and then strong initiative buying into the close - all very bullish. Is it likely to touch yesterday's POC or would you be better off with another strategy?

Maybe today was the exception... The 13,500 level was a round number, the next resistance was the gap fill, then yesterday's high then the all-time high. It seems we had some nice confluence with pivots today though.

I used to have an account with Oanda and have a lot of evidence that they are a total bucketshop. Someone posted a video over at ET showing they had a 200 pip spread for one second after a data release (enough to take out plenty of stops) and I have screenshots of their spread widening and slippage games. I'm not going to spend hours carefully documenting ever post I make on this forum though. It's up to you what you believe.