tjnoon

Cool. Great thread. I like to use a 233 tick chart for daytrading this pair. I have found very consistent results over a long period of time. Here's a look at how my session went today with the GBPUSD. I Marked up the chart to try to explain it. Hopefully it is clear. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

I posted this recently, on the SST blog (http://www.sevensummitstrader.com) and thought that the information might be on interest to readers of this UTA/SST forum. So hear it it. How Does the SST Deal With Choppy Forex Price Action? During our live demos of the SSTFX yesterday, a common question kept coming up, "How does the SST deal with Forex chop?" My answer was that it actually handles it pretty well. "How?" It is a combination of a few critical elements: We acknowledge that there will be losing trades within a winning strategy. We go onto acknowledge that you can not divorce the losses from the winners or you will NOT get the winners. Instead of trying to avoid the losing trades (which in our opinion is 'holy grail' stuff and does not exist) I designed the SST (and SSTFX) to mitigate the losses. It is a combination of great setups that take advantage of edge of the chart price action, smart confirmations, smart RULES that include how to make minor key level adjustments, disciplined dynamic goal setting (we call it, "Power of Quitting" and it really works), tight and concise tradeplans that should be followed the same way every day, a dynamic stop strategy that cuts risk and seeks to get to a risk free position AND two types of targeting -- a high percentage pretuned fixed target and an effective trailer. With all that, we then accept the losses that we do get, trade through them, and let the magic of the system work itself out, which is why we keep getting all those attractive equity curves you've seen. The losses get you to the winners. The trade examples today, exemplify ALL these elements, working together, producing the winning edge that the SSTFX will give you IF you have all your '7 summits' covered. The EURJPY 233 tick is one of the original FX daytrade charts that I used to help create the SST. To this day, the plan continues to work. The Session had two trades and two winners, including an add-on position which can be thought of as a third trade but really it is apart of the trade you are adding on to. The first trade was a Reentry short which hit full target for +17 pips. The trailer came up and stopped out for +12 more pips. There was a real nice early move down but it was before our start time. But the time this trade hit its target, there was no more momentum to the downside and our trailer locked in what it could. Net on the trade was + 23 pips after spread. We reversed to long. This trade took us into a long, slow, grinding, messy 'chop fest' but at the right edge of the chart, how could we or anyone else know. We aknowledge this 'impossibility of knowing' as stated above, but here's a great example of all the elements listed above working together. Notice how many entries showed up in the choppy action that didn't get triggered in and cancelled out. The price hitting the entry IS the final confirmation. Notice where the yellow arrow is, a possible add-on position that we did not take. A minor key level adjustment kept us flat on this entry. A 3 pip adjustment to get around resistance is acceptable in this type of price action and that was enough to stay flat. Same thing happened on the lower side of the channel. A minor adjustment kept us flat. These adjustments are part of the 'smart RULES' as stated above. Finally we get to add to our original position and get long. The trade has been retuned to the market condition making a much smaller trade. Maybe we'll make it up with our trailer. We almost get stopped out but again, a key level adjustmet that moved the stop one pip below a key round number, kept us in the trade for a possible greater potential. Of course you can see, that didn't happen. The trailer took out both positions and only gained a pip or two. Still though, we hit all of our full targets and were done for the session as per our 'dynamically self adjusting goal setting strategy, the Power of Quitting." The Net on this lengthy, slow grinding session was +37 pips. We could have kept trading and if you look at the chart, you can see that more profits were to be had in this market. BUT, that is NOT our tradeplan, the very tradeplan that has been serving us so well for so long. If you remember the big WYSIWYT example that looked like Mnt. Everest during our demo.. the one that got over +300 pips in one daytrade session.. Well, it was the very same tradeplan. We approached today's session the very same way. How can you expect to get the +300 pips on that session if you don't trade today's session the same way? It's the tradeplan that allows you to take 'what the market wants to give you' AND 'allows you to quit positive on most sessions.' Make sense? This is SO hard for people to learn but once you do, you will have scaled a major summit off your own. EURJPY Example; Nets + 37 pips on a slow, grinding US Session EURJPY WYSIWYT example; in case you missed the SSTFX Demo or forgot this example. This is th exact same tradeplan on the exact same market on a different session. One last thing before I end this post. We had a great session across multiple markets and timeframes today. I'll try to post some more of today's trades over the weekend if I have time. But I did want to leave you with this screen shot of a live trade we showed yesterday, which is actually, still going. It's a 4 hour USDJPY. The first target was hit yesterday as I showed, for +86 pips. Our SSTFX Trailing tool has handled the consolidation well, so far, and has moved quite a bit lower. This example is on an MT4 chart. If the price can push lower, we have a chance of another leg down. Regardless, it is already another very successful trade. Check it out and follow along. USDJPY Active Trade; +189 pips guaranteed and still going

My friend traded his forex account (sim) up to nearly $500,000. When I asked him how he did it, he just shrugged and said he never exited a trade at a loss. He just waited for the price to come back. "It always does," he said. A few weeks later I asked him how he was doing, and he said he quit. When I asked why, he said he just got bored. lol... Oh yeah, he finally let on that he blew up his sim account, too. "But that was just because he got tired of waiting for the price to come back.." I swear, this is a true story. I think the grains are a great market to day trade. Thanks to Brownsfan for starting this thread. The initial points he made are still true. In my trade group, we like trading a 6 tick momentum range bar with wheat futures. We start a couple minutes after the market opens and we trade for just two winners and then we're done for the session. We also have a tight cutoff time, 11 am cst. In other words, we could trade for a few minutes on up to 90 minutes tops. It requires discipline and sometimes, due to the market's velocity, expert execution at times. This strategy has been very consistent and profitable if using responsible money mgt. Our system takes advantage of the price momentum with very concise setups, and measured trade profiles that are tuned to the current market condition at the time of the setup. We typically exit one position at a fixed target and the other, we trail with a very specific trailing stop technique. The dynamic stop reduces risk and seeks to get to a risk free position quickly and aggressively. Works great! I particularly like Brownsfan's points about it being uncorrelated and that it heats up after we are often finished with our other earlier markets. It's great for the trader who has 'more trade in him' than his primary market might have in it, which might lead him to over trade and give back his hard earned gains. With a market like Wheat for example, you can approach it with a completely separate tradeplan, uninfluenced by the results of your earlier eMini trading. Gives strength in diversity when approached in such a way.

I finally got an SF futures tradeplan posted up to the SST Owner's Club. I believe it is a good one too. In fact, I like it so much that I have begun trading it each day. I use a 233 tick chart and trade from 8:15 to 11 am with a strict "Power of Quitting" daily goal setting strategy. In short, I need two winners, one that has to have gotten to within 1 tick of its full fixed target AND have a positive result. This approach has produced a 72% winning percentage over the past 6 months and a constantly climbing equity curve. I trade two positions; 1 to an SST measured fixed target (the 3rd dot), and the other I let trail with one of the SST trailing stop techniques. One caveat to that is that I will add to my position as a separately managed trade when the SST Add-on setup presents itself. I manage it separately but I consider it the same trade as the original position in regards to my quitting strategy. Here's an equity curve over the past 6 months and a screen shot of this morning's trades, just to give an idea of what this trade looks like. I love trading currency futures vs. spot forex. I like the centralized market (CME) and the standardized contract sizes. At $12.50 per tick, you can do quite well. The SF is one of the more steady and reliable currency futures out there these days. It's slow enough to give you time to think, and reliable enough to produce solid, steady gains. Who know's how long the fun will last, but if it ain't broke, I ain't complaining!

You hear a lot about gold these days and for good reason, for sure. And while I wouldn't knock the gold bugs, I think that silver is worth looking at. It has been a very profitable and consistent trade. I like following a 233 tick chart with the trade method I use but the problem is, that the risk parameters could be quite large so if one isn't adequately capitalized, it becomes too dangerous. Even the winniest trade strategies go through their tough sessions and you have to have the trade capital to get through the losses or you won't be left standing to take the next trade which, at the very moment you throw in the towel, will inevitably begin the next 10 trade winning streak. Murphy's Law, right? BUT, there is a solution. You can successfully prosper from the nice price action in the silver market by using silver ETFs. AND, you can get good leverage by trading options in those markets. That's what I've been doing lately and I'm loving the results. But instead of daytrading, I'm using a 195 minute chart to put on short term swing trades. Below are a few screen shots of three different ways to trade silver. The first screenshot is a recap of today's 233 tick chart. It was very profitable as it usually is BUT, each trade required a considerable amount of risk, at $50 per 1 cent move in the contract. To trade this strategy safely and with responsible risk allotment, you probably need a $50,000 account. Otherwise, you'll find yourself trading with scared money when you get a few losses and scared money is DEAD money. Lost money! The 2nd chart, SLV (iShares Silver Trust), is a trade that I am currently in. It is a swing trade strategy that I like to trade with 4 positions. But rather than trade the shares outright, I am trading options with the nearest 'in the money' option to the entry price of the trade, as it is shown on the SLV 195 minute chart. I have already exited two positions and am letting the remaining positions play out until the trade ends. This strategy has won over 72% of its trades over the past two years. And, with options, you have great control over your risk and position size. The 3rd chart is another Silver ETF, AGQ (ProShares Ultra Silver). This one also has won a very handsome 72.6% over the same two year period. Makes sense, right? This one trades at a completely different cadence however. I wanted to show this chart because there is a new trade that has set up and may trigger in soon. I would make a small adjustment to get above the swing level however. This one is a much higher stock price but with options, using the same strategy as I'm using with SLV, this is a very profitable strategy. Because there is so much time left with March options, the percentage returns are not as great as they would be later in the month. You could get better returns with Feb options but you might have to roll them over to March if the trade doesn't conclude in time. This setup could cancel but for now, the setup is valid and will be confirmed if the trade triggers in prior to cancelling. We'll see. Regardless, silver is a market worth trading. It is steady and profitable. Check it out.

All great points. I can't argue with any of them, really. I would say though that backtesting is useful and important to do IF you understand what it tells you and what it won't tell you. If you have an actual tradeplan or are trying to develop one, I think you can learn a lot from a good honest backtest. Remember guys, this is the UTA sponsored forum and so.. , I have to mention that it is a tool that I use to actually manually backtest (yes, click by click, bar by bar) a tradeplan that I am considering throwing real money at. Honestly though, it has made a huge difference for me. I realize it will not be the same as real life trading. But it's a starting point for me. My next step is actually to practice the execution of the plan in real time for a while. Does it continue to hold up? Once I prove it does, I'll begin trading it for real with the smallest position size possible. That's my final test. But it begins with the backtest. What backtesting will do, and I don't think many people think of this or realize this until they experience it first hand, is confirm my understanding of my own tradeplan rules, confirm whether the idea had merit which could indicate that it still might, and, it helps me live with the discomfort of posting losing trades. Even in a backtest, losing trades don't feel good. That is very important because if the tradeplan is a good one, the equity curve will still grow as will my confidence that the winners DO follow the losers. In the end, the most success I have experienced as a trader has come from a good solid manual backtest where I was able to intimately learn the relationship between the wins and losses while also witnessing the equity curve head upwards. That increasing equity curve has within it, all the losing trades and tough sessions, yet the profits continue to grow despite that. Light bulb moments come from THAT experience, at least I can say, it did for me. One of my favorite strategies, a daytrade technique I use to trade the Russell eMini every morning, began as a backtest. Right around the 100th trade of my backtest, my stats started to stablize. It deviated a bit, a couple percentage points up and a couple down, but the overall important stats remained in a good place; a profitable place. I continued backtesting it though and recorded several months worth of trades, over 300 or so, if I remember right. The losses still made me feel uncomfortable, especially the occasional 4th loss in a row, yet my confidence in the system got stronger and stronger as each new stretch of winners followed. THAT in itself, that particular experience, is way worth the price of admission. Now, over 1000 trades later, the stats continue to purr along, like a finely tuned engine and the equity curve consistently posts new profit levels on a steady basis. Even so, this past Monday, for example, was a tough step backwards. Now though, three sessions later, I have hit new equity highs again, winning 6 of the last 7 trades. But then, I knew that would happen because that's what it does. So tomorrow, I have the confidence to show up again, and take the next trade. How cool is that? lol.. But it all started with the backtest. And for me, it was around 100 trades that established the stats that have since remained stable and consistent, and continue to manifest in the ever growing equity curve. So, needless to say, I would encourage anyone who wants to improve their trading to take the backtest process seriously. Afterall, it can't hurt you. And if it could help you like it helped me, then why not? That's my story and I'm sticking with it.. lol.. And if you don't want to go through the effort, well, I got a great robot to sell you.. It's called the "Market Destroyer," (designed by Dr. Smith himself) and it is guaranteed to deliver 95% winners. Just set it and forget it.. Trading IS that easy, right? (comes with a free bottle of "CureAll")..

How many trades do you feel are an adequate amount of trades to feel confident that the particular plan you are testing or developing would have a good chance of succeeding? With my own personal testing, I have found that anywhere from 75 to 125 trades seems to hold up. The more the better of course, but when I am looking at my results, it seems my key statistics stabilize somewhere in within that quantity of trades. Any thoughts, opinions, or findings?

One of the great benefits of being a Member of the SST Owner’s Club is not only the ongoing access to the Live Trade Room, where we call daytrades on some of the best and most popular markets, but also, the access to the fully disclosed SST Tradeplans. We’ve accumulated quite a collection. Today, a brand new quasi swing tradeplan was released, the USDCHF 4 hour chart. This exciting tradeplan has been able to produce over the past 12 months Also recently published were tradeplans for the End-of-Day swing strategies for USDCHF, EURCAD and GBPUSD. We have some great futures, Stocks and ETF tradeplans as well. The signals generated off of these charts can also be used to trade options, with great effect and enormous percentage gains. The SST gives us a high winning percentage, and consistent results. Each tradeplan is a step by step detailed plan on how to trade a particular market and timeframe. Best of all, they are easy to follow and they print right on your chart! Where to get in. Where to place your stop. Where and how to exit the trade as the trade progresses, with either a single or multi position approach. Tradeplans are very powerful tools. In fact, we believe they are critical and no one should trade without them. They give us a real edge in the market and allow us to put the “house odds” on our side, with every single trade we take. For a complete list of the published SST Tradeplans that can be found on the Owner’s Club website click on the link below. SST Owner’s Club Tradeplans For more information on the SST or to register for one of the upcoming Live Demos, please visit www.SevenSummitsTrader.com.

Kuokam and MMS make good points and I agree with both. My system aggressively seeks to get me to breakeven as quickly as possible too, but I approach my trades with two positions, one gets out at a high percentage fixed target while the other I will use a trailing stop technique and see how far I can ride the move. I call it the Hannah Montana approach; The Best of Both Worlds. I also agree with Kuokam's statement that how one enter's the business is critical. Some will never get it while other's might come to a level of success quite quickly. I believe in the end, the market will give you what you deserve and ask for. I believe that many people who have not or can not find success are probably trading for the wrong reasons. Perhaps it is even unconscious. You know, the typical ego reasons that one has to prove to oneself they they can outsmart the market, or perhaps they trade because they love the thrill and excitement. These are NOT reasons to trade. Learn how to play chess or go ride a roller coaster. It's much cheaper and will do way less damage. To me if you want to succeed, you have to ask the RIGHT question. "Why am I trading?" Then you have to come up with the right answer, and genuinely believe it through and through. "To make money!" That IS really, the only reason to trade, in my humble opinion. Once you can honestly come to that conclusion, you can then ask the next critical question, "What is it exactly, that I must do, to achieve that objective?" Again, in my opinion, there is only one answer. I have to trade the edge that my system or approach or trade syle (whatever) gives me and profit from that edge, over time. Too many traders are caught up and emotionally involved in the 'trade that they are currently in,' and wind up making very human (and incorrect) decisions. The only problem is that the market is NOT human nor does it play or care about human rules or sentiments. What about the next trade? And the next? The problem is very easy to see when you look at it like that. Then, it's just about money management, capitalization, discipline, execution and the confidence and vision to actually trade the approach that gives you that edge, at the right side of the chart. No easy endeavor for most humans and I would venture to say, that most approach the market light years away from those concepts and ideas. They don't know the proper question to ask or even that they need to ask anything at all.

This is a great thread. I've had a few major breakthrus that made all the difference for me. One at least, I'd like to share here. That is, knowing when to quit trading each day. Far too often, and I imagine many can relate, I would be profitable, but because I wanted more out of the market, I would keep trading and then wind up turning a successful session into a loser. What a horrible feeling that would quickly take over my entire being as a result! Losing sucks of course, but letting a winning session slip away sucks even worse, in my opinion. Kills your confidence and destroys your energy. It's hard not to impose our personal needs onto the needs of our trading. The problem is that the needs of our trading are most often at odds and conflicting with our personal needs. Personally, I may need to make 'x' amount of money, but on this session, the market just isn't going to give it to me. Knowing when to stop is a hard thing but for me. I use a dynamic goal setting strategy now that puts the needs of my trading in front of my own personal needs, that incidentally never has anything to do with trading. Rather than some fixed goal that I artifically impose on the market, I now take what the market will give me and quit when my strategy and dynamic goal setting approach tells me to quit. I find that I am quitting positive on most sessions and my equity curve is steadily reaching new heights on a consistent basis. The great irony is that once I learned how to put the needs of my trading first, my account began to steadily groww, and my personal needs were at last taken care of. I had to give the needs of my trading priority over my personal needs so that I could make smarter trade decisions that were unbiased by my personal needs. If you put the needs of your trading first, then you have a better chance of taking care of your personal needs but never, the other way around.

I think a lot depends on if you are just intending to look for trends to the upside or if you're also ok taking trades to the short side. The silver futures market has been an extremely profitable day trade both up and down but for the bigger, longer term trades it would require quite a large trade account to put on trades with responsible risk levels. I've been swing trading the silver market trading options with the SLV iShares Silver Trust to solve that problem. It's been great because the options are low priced and make it easy to fine tune my position size based each trade's profile as it relates to my risk mgt rules. For me, it doesn't make sense to try to predict if a market's uptrend has lost its legs or not. I may be right or I may be wrong but for me, I need to have trades that fit within the context of a proven strategy and that gives me an edge over lots of trades. I just find I can remain more objective and not rely on trying to be 'right' or 'wrong.' It just keeps things simple for me. Longer term, I've decided to trade off of some weekly charts that I have identified through backtesting and have proven to produce good steady results over the past 10 years. It's a great way to trade with a tax free retirement account, for example. Believe it or not, the EURUSD has been an amazing longer term trade on the weekly chart and with forex, as I'm sure everyone reading this already knows, you can easily control your position size and risk profile. Of course, much has to do with the trade strategy, or in my case, trade system that you would plan on using. The EURUSD might suck with a different approach than what I'm using but with my trade strategy, it's a real champion. But to answer the question that began this thread, and forgive me if this is even a bit beyond what you were asking, but I believe the opportunities will come from mixing it up and diversifying across markets and timeframes. As I rethink my approach for 2011, I'm looking to balance my trading between some daytrades, swingtrades and longer term positions trades. Daytrade-wise, it only makes sense for me to trade a couple of good moving markets and stay with a very tight and concise tradeplan. I am having a lot of consistent success with the Russell eMIni and Crude Oil Futures, both usually finishing within the first 30 to 90 minutes. I'm trading a 377 tick chart with both. It ain't broke so I'm just going to keep doing what's been working so well for such a long time. Then my day is free to enjoy and pursue other things. I'm on the West Coast so believe me, my day is really my own. Getting up early has its drawbacks but it also has its advantages. Swingtrade-wise, I am looking to add to my preferred basket of good swinging stocks/ETFS and will continue to trade options based on my system's underlying stock setups. I'm going thru my process of putting together my varsity team of stock and ETF names for 2011. I'm primarily trading 195 minute charts, 130 minute charts and some end of day charts. I'll add a few good swinging forex markets to that mix too. So far, The GBPUSD, EURCAD and USDCHF are all on my short list of end of day charts that have been performing great with my trade system so those are my 'new' forex swing trades to focus on for 2011. I'll probably add one or two more and my next level goal for 2011 is to use the same strategy to swing trade a handful of good swinging futures markets, also with options. I'll put on longer term trailing positions when appropriate as per my tradeplan. Longterm positiontrade-wise, I'll focus on the weekly EURUSD, and will take the same approach as my swing trading. I'll find a few more good pairs that have performed well over the past 10 years with my trade system and I'll add to that some long term stock plays to either trade leaps or the actual stock itself. Forgive me if I didn't provide you with long term markets to get into and hold for some sort of long winded trend upwards. I'm sure they're out there and some will guess them right but I suspect most will be on the wrong side of those trades. I'll be looking to go long or short depending on the current trade that forms at the right edge of my chart. Sorry! What started out with the intention of a quick response ended up being a long post. Lol.. But it was therapeutic and actually helped me rethink thru my goals for 2011 so thanks for starting this thread. Hopefully by sharing my own thought process I'll spark the creative process in others to also think about manageable ways to diversify their trading for 2011.

Lol.. Yeah, gee.. That never even occurred to me. I've said it so many times in the live trade room that I just take for granted that everyone is on exchange time :missy:. There's so many people trading with us, all over the world, and many different markets, brokers and exchanges all in different time zones that in order to avoid confusion en masse, we just decided to set all our charts to their respective exchange times. Glad you figured it out.

Czo, amazing how time flies. I left for Europe shortly after your post and kind of lost touch with this forum or I would have responded to you sooner. Sorry for the delay. I don't believe Mark is trading the BP these days. I haven't really looked at it either only because I've been trying to balance the needs of many different traders and had to turn my attention to some stock, etf and option tradeplans as well as come up with some MT4 friendly forex plans. The BP has always been on my list of futures markets that grabbed my interest but I still haven't really put a tp together for it yet. Have you? Kind of curious if you have done any work on it since your last post. We do have a good EC (Euro) tradeplan and a few members in the live traderoom are also trading their own EC tradeplans with excellent results. I believe they're using 7 tick range bars. Anyway, if you're still on this forum and have any interesting BP information, I'd be interested to hear about it. Thanks..

Karl, Sorry for the delay in answering this post. Did you figure out the answer to your question? You make the changes in the yellow colored fields in the TimeofDay Summary section. You have to click on the 'expand view' button to 'unhide' that part of the UTA.

Thanks for the post Raj. Sorry I have been MIA for a while. Keep in mind that the Swissie is a place where money will go to for safety. There is a big realignment of value taking place right now, with European countries' major debt problems, US record level deficits, etc. You can see it in the rise of commodity pricing, stock valuations, supermarket prices, gas prices, etc. They say there's relatively low inflation but you gotta wonder about that. Someone's trying to dupe someone, so it would seem. This kind of uncertainty in the world is going to wake up a safe haven currency like the Swiss Franc and as a result, there will be great trade oppotunities and as we all know by now, the SST will pick up those opportunities and put us in the best position to profit from them.

Ha ha! Lol.. Very funny Tio. But all jokes aside, I think you make two very important points. Rules! What about the rules? A trade system is only as good as the rules that go with it. Bharding talked about sticking to his rules but it appears the rules were drastically flawed. Also, taking responsibility for one's own trade decisions. I like to blame my wife too, but I always end up losing worse when I do that. She's always right! SST stands for Seven Summits Trader. The reason we chose that name was to remind traders of the Seven Keys to Successful Trading. It appears to me that bharding forgot about or neglected to pay attention to 3 critical 'summits' or keys; Tradeplans, Capital Preservation and Total Immersion Training (and please realize that I say this with complete respect and empathy with what he experienced and only mean this to be constructive). But we talk about key level adjustments, standing down for news events, dynamic goal setting that allows you to take what the market will give you, NOT what you impose on the market -- we call it, the Power of Quitting and believe me, there IS tremendous power in quitting at the right time each session, when to trade and more importantly, when not to trade, etc. These things are also part of the SST. Bharding mentions that not one coach explained to him the need to trade a small number of pairs. I think it is up to the trader to seek out and get the total immersion training that is needed. We do our best to make it available with a live traderoom, active owner's club, video walkthrus and recaps, published tradeplans with tight and concise rules, free informational webinars, etc. We have often talked about correlation in markets and even held a free informational webinar specific to that very topic. I think you would be far better off to actually take responsibility for your own trade decisions rather then try to blame the dog, wife, Netpicks coaches, etc.. Again, I say this constructively in an attempt to help you become a better trader. In the end, whether we like it or not, we wind up taking responsibility anyways as reflected in the balances of our own trade accounts. A few questions came to mind when I read your post. What timeframes were you trading (what charts)? WHY are you trading for 7 straight hours (5 to midnight)? Netpicks coaches always talk about 'less is more.' You mentioned 2 months of backtesting. What did you backtest for 2 months? ALL the markets you traded? Did you actually put in your time to do your 25 consecutive mistake free trades on each in a live sim accnt -- as pounded by all the NP coaches AND as suggested in the Quick Start guide that came with the SST training materials? Did you start over again at trade zero when you made a mistake on say, trade number 23? (I mean, not even a super human could trade 7 straight hours a day on ten markets without making mistakes which incidentally, would really hurt one's trade results, at no fault to the system.) This is critical to PROVE you can actually trade your tradeplan according to its rules. It helps reinforce your knowledge of the system (what if you were unknowingly making mistakes? Yikes that would lead to a disastrous end result!) while also putting your tradeplan to the test to see if the stats continue to hold up while you practice actually 'executing' your trades in real time. By the way, did you actually produce a document, a written out 'official' tradeplan? If so, you can now go back and identify the problems with it and improve it. If not, then you really don't have a tradeplan at all. At least, not one that you can hold accountable. You also mentioned your messy spreadsheet. As an NP coach myself (and a musician), I ALWAYS talk about practicing how you intend to play. Practice hard, play hard. Practice 'messy,' play 'messy.' We have a tool called the UTA which when used properly, would never allow you to practice messy. Ironically, that is what this sponsored forum began as. Are you using the UTA? Bad habits are hard to break so one is better off developing 'best practice' habits from square one. I like to compare trading to piloting an airplane. If you don't master the instruments, rules of flight, physical ability to use all the levers and buttons, put in the necessary hours of practice time, etc. then there is a high probability that you will crash and burn. Treat your trading with the same respect OR expect to also crash and burn. As MadScientist suggested, consider it tuition, learn from the experience and hopefully what you have learned will help you get closer to becoming successful and recouping. But it begins with taking responsibility for crashing and burning on your own and NOT because of something that someone else failed to teach you. We can all learn something from bharding's experience.

Thanks for starting this thread Karl. It is very satisfying to see that there are traders out there using the UTA in the way it was intended AND deriving valuable information out of their trade data as a result. I have included a screen shot of the TimeofDay Summary studies that are a part of UTA so that those reading this thread can actually see what we are talking about. The yellow fields are where you can type in a particular time and the following fields autmatically adjust to create the 'time window.' I put a few more screenshots up just so that everyone can see the same thing I am seeing in relationship to this thread. Since the SST came out, following the tradeplan(s) as posted on the Owner's Club webpage (there are two variations for the 377 tick), I too am seeing a negative result during the time period you are referring to. Whereas 8:50 to 9:12 we have enjoyed 68.5% winners, the next 18 minutes the win rate dropped considerably, as did the net result. While Foxstamp has an interesting theory, I can't say for sure why this is happening. I will say though that there really is not enough data during that time peroid to come up with any longer term conclusions. The jury is still out even if it is not looking good at the moment. There were a total of 59 trades during that time period. Remember, we are entering two positions for each trade and the UTA sees each position as an individual trade. You have to keep that in mind when you are looking at the numbers. So while it appears there were 118 trades, you really need to divide that number in half. From what I have learned during my use of the UTA is that you really need anywhere from 75 to 150 trades to establish somewhat reliable stability in your data. So for that reason, I would say the jury is still out. I went back and looked at my 610 tick trade data from last year, end of Sept to end of Jan 2009. This was the actual trade data that I used to develop the SST. During that time, the 9:12 to 9:30 time window produced 96.4% winners! BUT, there were only 27 trades during that window. Also, it was a 610 tick and not the 377. Karl, perhaps you might want to look at the 610 but it is ironic that the losingest time period lately for the 377 was the winningest time period a year earlier, for the 610 tick. A couple more comments: First, based on the current 377 evidence, it seems to me it would pay to avoid trades during that time period. I would go back and backtest it. Let the results of your backtest tell you whether you should use any winning trades during that time window towards your quitting goals (poq, 'power of quitting') or not. I suspect that if you have a plan that does not include that window, not applying them to your quitting goals feels right to me. Just a hunch though and I could be wrong. What is the edge of your tradeplan? If it doesn't include that window of time, then why include it in your quitting goals unless you can prove you need to. Second, take a look at the attached equity curve. Notice how flat the equity was from about mid Oct. to mid Nov. We really could not get any traction during that time range yet the equity still managed to hang out near to its high water mark levels before finally breaking out to the upside in a big way. Maybe go back and look at the trade data to how many trades during the 9:12 to 9:30 'dead zone' affected that sideways action in the equity curve. Remember, with UTA you can easily look at different sub sections of your data using the Enter Rows feature, A23 and A25. For those who don't have UTA, I can tell you this. During that sideways equity curve, the winniest window of time, 8:50 to 9:12, produced a 58.3% win rate while the losingest window, 9:12 to 9:30, produced 100% winners! Huh? Lol.. I don't mean to befuddle you with this information but it says to me that markets have the tendency to phase shift and sometimes a period of time will underproduce for a while. Then a phase shift will occur and the underproducing time will catch up and begin to over produce while another time will begin to underproduce. Understand the metaphor? The markets are infinitely challenging! Paying attention to phase shifting will help you interpret price action in a different kind of way. As an old musician (drummer) I actually did learn something from my guitar player friends when they connected all their electronic gadgets to their electric guitars. I just didn't realize what I had learned until I started noticing this 'phase shifting' phenomenon within market price action. lol.. See if after another 40 to 60 trades +/-, the 9:12 to 9:30 stats remain what they are, or not. By then, there should be enough data to be able to cautiously hang your hat on.

I hear ya! BP is on my list of to-do's.. I agree that it should perform great with SST. Mark is an excellent trader and if that's a market he has honed in on, I'm sure there's a good reason for it.

Has anyone been testing the YM? I realize there is a demand for a good tradeplan with the YM and SST but I still have not been able to put something together that I feel good about. Sometimes I feel like I'm barking up the wrong tree. Compared to the Russell for example, I wouldn't touch the YM at this point. If you really feel you have to trade the YM, I would begin by using the Russell tradeplan, test it carefully in UTA and see how it looks. If I do come up with something I like, I'll post it right away. Try the 305 tick chart for now. It's faster than the 377 and slower than the 233. I see a lot of good trades but I'm concerned about the win rate and the overall profitability at this point. I haven't looked at range or renko yet. That might be where the answers lie for this market.

The new calc is almost ready guys. Still debugging one last thing. Thanks in advance for your patience on this. Somethings just can not be rushed.

I have called live in my live trade room, the Russell emini for 2 1/2 years now. I'm happy to say I have a long term winning track record with a variety of different strategies. But one thing I have never done was to jump around from time frame to time frame. For nearly 2 years I called and traded the 233 tick chart. 2009 using a very simple money management plan yielded a 400% net return over 10 months. Now, with SST, I've been calling the same tradeplan since April 5th and after 720 trades, I have a solid 67% winning percentage with the 377 tick chart and the results are even better. Yesterday, we broke out to all new equity highs as we do on a regular basis; +330 points since April 5th using the 2 position SST approach. I don't say all this to boast or brag. I just wanted to point out two things. 1) I am not trying to guess what particular chart will be better from day to day. We're all geniuses with hindsight. The 377 tick has worked and continues to work, despite a tough session from time to time. I stick with it and it makes my daily decisions very easy. 2) The UTA gives me the confidence I need by really showing me what's inside my trade data. I can quickly see a 75% session winning percentage and an 85% weekly win rate. Stuff like that makes a huge difference. Confidence to show up and make the next trade accoring to a proven plan is trader nirvana, in my opinion. Check out the equity curve as of 10/12. Do you think I'll have any problem showing up to work tomorrow and making smart trade decisions at the right edge of the chart? Win or lose tomorrow, we'll be breaking out to new equity highs again before too long. That's the bottom line. That's where I want to live as a trader. SST combined with UTA is a winning combo that will put you right there and empower you to stay right there, session to session.

Alan, the UTA really gives you in depth insight into your trade data. The 5 minute plan that's posted in the SST Owner's Club is not the standard default SST settings. They have been customized to accommodate better, the way that the 5 minute eurusd chart trades. I would recommend, manually backtesting the posted OC tradeplan into UTA. If you do, you will emerge with a complete understanding of the tradeplan, how it performs, and what to expect going forward. That is one of the invaluable benefits one gets from using the UTA. I call it the 'ditch digging' of trading because it is the prelim work one needs to do to really create a strong foundation for themselves. I would put that type of effort at the top of the priority list for anyone learning any type of tradesytem/tradeplan. That is paso uno -- Step One!!

The original question I posed in the OC, was about whether an entry that has been adjusted should be cancelled if the bar goes back and closes on the other side of the trigger line. The short Keith references was a bit peculiar because the system entry did trigger in, but our adjustment entry did not. So the trade was live, as far as the unadjusted system trade goes. It was a short. Then the price went up and closed above the trigger line. It did not stop out though. The question was, would you cancel your adjusted short entry at that point, or would you still consider it valid, if the trade came back down and broke to your adjusted entry? Would you take the trade? Would you cancel it and wait for a new setup? If so, you'd have to calculate it by hand since the system was in its unadjusted trade. Honestly, I really don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. What I wanted to point out was how we have to make real life decisions at the right edge of the chart. We should try to anticipate but if something like this comes up, and we don't know what to do, it is smart to come up with a rule so that next time, you have a way of dealing with it. I doubt either cancelling or not is right or wrong. But doing it the same way every time will solve a bunch of problems from a tradeplan point of view. I had thought that since it was breaking to a new swing level, and breaking support, that it made sense to keep the trade on. Now we can see that was wrong! But if you change your mind and do it different next time, then it would have been right the 2nd time around, but since you changed your rule, you were wrong again. lol.. The market gets the last laugh if we can't be consistent with our approach. KISS should be the thing that tips the scales, when you have 6 over here and half a dozen over there. Alan, I'm not sure I understand your question still. I don't know if you're referring to a similar thing or something different. Perhaps you can try to explain it to me in the OC or with some screen shots, pointing out the steps of your scenario.

You guys are making me smile with this excellent 'trader talk' regarding peculiar and vexing real time live market action issues, that come up all the time. The market will always throw infinite challenges at us, session after session. Keith, your 10/6 question regarding the open is a good one. My way of doing it is this: If the setup was only a few bars (a few minutes, in other words) prior to our 8:50 start time, AND the trade really hadn't moved much, that is, it was still vacilating around the entry, I'd consider that a good trade. In your example, the setup bar was at 8:25, which for me is way more than just a few minutes. 8:50 is my start time, with a tiny bit of room to fudge as I just indicated. A good argument could be made that at 8:50, the price was moving lower and breaking a swing level, but for me, it is just cleaner and easier (also eliminates a 'deer caught in the headlights' potential scenario) by just waiting for a new setup. My FTOD would have been the long at 9 am. Don't underestimate the value of a clean, easy rule to follow. It will never be perfect. But if you allow for too much 'fudging,' then you will find yourself doubting your decisions, second guessing, etc., and I believe that can not be a good thing for one's trading in general. So make the rule easy and clean. That's my 2 cents.

Hein, I'm not sure I understand your V12 H/P comment. As far as the new calc, it is ready and should be up on the backoffice site now for download. Make sure you install the subscription update first. If you have any questions or need help, send in a support ticket to support@sevensummitstrader.com. I'm happy to hear that everyone is getting the feel and really liking the SST. It has been amazing since its release and those that really apply themselves to learn it will be richly rewarded. I think everyone is going to find that it really isn't so hard to learn either. It's all about the tradeplan and how one manages their trading. The SST is so powerful but without harnessing that power with control and precision, a trader still will find himself or herself faced with the same issues that haunt most traders. Remember why the SST is called the Seven Summits Trader in the first place and make sure you pay attention to ALL seven summits.