MC

2GB at a base and anything higher you can afford is of course better. 4GB or 8GB would be a sweet amount...and ram is pretty cheap right now. Just be sure to buy 3rd party ram...get the system with the least ram offered and save yourself a ton upping the ram yourself. Your saved money can then be better spent on processor speed etc... :missy:

Are you running wireless or are we talking a wired router? Wireless 802.11n would be faster than wireless 802.11g from wireless access point to card but it won't speed up your providers connection per say. What brand/model router are you using? Feel free to hit me up on AIM at elijahmadmedoit if you need more info, I work in the industry. Added---- If you need major a speed boost you could also buy a dual router that takes 2 cable modem inputs and bridges the connections for speed as well as redundancy should one connection drop.

I left Tradestation last week after just a few months. The $55 per month YM data fee was the final straw for me. Their execution and slippage were horrible. I had many stop market orders that took 5-8 seconds to get filled and with 2-7+ points slippage. I use stop market as I want out quick and can take a few points slippage for that luxury but 5+ points slippage is absurd. And I have a video of one of my 8 second fills. http://www.trousermusket.com/video/flash.html I was gonna suck it up and give them 10 trades since I love the platform, the rest of my trades were gonna be on Infinity but I've decided on Think or Swim so I can trade stocks and futures with the same account. Actually now I'm trying to see what TS overcharged for, I think they dicked my over on commish with BS fees since theres a significant discrepancy. After that I will be closing the account for good.

This is why I'm leaving TS, well it was the icing on the cake along with slippage. Sucks cause I love their platform but not enough to put up with the issues I had and now the fee for data. OEC is one I'm looking very heavily at.

I'm fairly new but I see both...The 2 days that are throwing me off are the black arrow and then Dec. 21st. Black arrows wick seems like selling but I think how it closed off the lows makes it more bullish. That coupled with the fact that I don't think smart money would be unloading there, it's not high enough yet. Dec. 21st was options expiration so I've heard that most that volume was from that. I'm curious how the 21st is looked at because I see it as bullish whether it was options being executed or not. Do you VSA pro's think a weekly is better to see broad market conditions? I can say when I stopped using a 5 minute chart for vsa and opened it to 15 minutes the signals got a ton more accurate. Perhaps for non intraday the same holds true and switching to weekly will smooth out the results a bit better.

WOW...now that is some interesting stuff there. I wish I had a broker that could feed market delta or that TS has some good free delta indicators available that were similar to what you're showing.

Daily chart Weekly chart So the red line is where I shifted 401k to stable value funds. The green line is today where I moved back in to the market. We'll see if I got back in to soon but I think the DJI is headed for the upper range again and either way I saved myself about 10% and got more shares in the 401k. Since I'm nowhere near retirement I'm not really worried anyhow and this is more for practice.

Great ideas Brownsfan. Really like the idea of the physical documentation as well as the fact that she is kind of a "partner" in the business. Do you think if I get a bill sent for a margin call she might overlook the red text and minus sign? :o J/K

Honestly if you haven't read "men are from mars, women are from venus" it's a great read. It's all logic just like the market really is, but sometimes we need to have something spelled out and re-affirmed for us as men, we don't take hints very well. :o Women are almost as simple as us guys to figure out but we have to appeal to their emotional side which we often banish to the back of our brains or lack completely ourselves. We want somethin like beer and nascar, they want to be told they look good and that you appreciate them and all they do for you. Of course I'm not saying they are dumb and you can BS them (not if they are worth keeping), you really need to see their value and let them know about it otherwise they will make your life hell till you do, and if you string it along too long they will NEVER forget it. Women have VERY long memory of bad things you've said or done. They remember the x-mas eve party 8 years ago where you got mad she wanted to dance and said "shut up b!tch I'm watching the game at the bar here". For the record I don't drink, no nascar and I don't call women b!tches that I love. I've been with my girl for 1.5 years now so it's fairly new but we have had 1 argument and I admitted I was wrong within the hour and we moved on. I feel blessed and I have the perfect woman for me. I dunno what issues you are having exactly but sometimes pride is a issue for us guys as well. If you want to share more I'll see if I can help you out at all, not that I have any formal education but I think often common sense/street smarts overrides sitting in a class anyhow. Good luck

I can make it go whichever way I want...stare at the shadow of the foot and picture it doing what you want. Seriously. Now that defeats the purpose of this exercise so your first direction I'd say is your true reading. Sorry rock...I clicked on edit instead of quote so for a minute there I was in your brain/post but it's all fixed now. LOL

I'm very lucky, my girl understands my passion and let's me ramble on and on about the markets. I do leave the laptop at work occasionally lately because I realize I've been neglecting her too much. It's a balance I need to find and make more fair but I'm a lucky guy, that's for sure. It's important to have that support system I think, I've come along way because she's always behind me...she's my better half.

Right brained, but only because there is no option for "no brain" which would better fit me sometimes. :o All kidding aside this is very interesting, Also the fact that so far 4 of 4 on a trading site have been right brain makes me feel in good company. Can't wait to see the results as more take this test.

Same to you Walter! I look forward to having my first profitable year along with you and kicking some butt next year. (October marked my 1 year point in the market, I'm a noob)

SO some massive volume on the DJI today. Stalled at the trend line which is major resistance and I can sort of see a head n' shoulders maybe forming. Spread wise it seems pretty damn bullish to me though, but I'm curious what you guys see in todays action? Thanks

I have 2 pc laptops, 1 mac laptop, one bada$$ vista ultimate media center I built and another basic workstation I built. I'm lookin for the emoticon with taped glasses and pocket protector. LOL

A laptop can work just fine, mine has 17" with vista ultimate, 2gb ram, dual core intel processing, DEDICATED video ram (this is crucial, cheaper computers share your system ram and rape your performance). DVI or vga will make NO difference for charting, maybe if you run games or watch TV on the computer. Also Vista is supported very well mainstream now, all in all the major brokers support it and IMO Tradestation works better for me under Vista than it does on XP pro. I do agree that extra software should be avoided, though I'm guilty of running a ton in the background while trading and it really dosen't impact my trades. Just my 2 cents as a tech geek that builds systems and works in the industry till I can break through on the market.

Great point guys, VSA can be tough to pick bottoms or tops for me. I'm realizing that it's more about seeing the trend change in it's early stages and if it keeps falling but big money keeps buying you know they are still bullish at the current price levels. If you are big money you probably don't stress much if you know your sucking up the float and will soon be in control, but these things take time, often lots of time it seems. Love this thread...keep teaching me guys.

Man you guys on here are programming machines. Thanks

PP I am using floor pivots, MP pivots and a few other things as key levels for VSA setups. Could you elaborate on fibs and what level you look at if any one area. I'm familiar with the retrace/ambush fib trades which seem to have lots of eyes on the 50/62 fib area, is that a spot you might focus on? Thanks for all your insight in this thread.

I'll be running it tomorrow and let you know how I do. Thanks for the work you put in.

That's my issue im sure...thanks sir.

Thanks for doing this, is there anything special I need to do on the chart? I installed it but don't see anything on a 15 minute chart, is there something I'm messing up on? Thanks Mike

Those levels are on there...Red, blue and green dot/dash lines. I have the floor pivots, MP pivots and volume weighted average price as well. In backtesting them they all can and will play key level roles so I want to apply VSA at these levels. Sounds like you have a similar game plan to mine. MP held up very well today.

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/tlchat/files/7f737e6f8ddfcfc23b4fc3fcd13f10ab.jpg YM 15 minute chart from the 18th and 19th. Nice VSA, thanks to Brownsfan and Walter getting me looking outside my tick timeframe that causes me to micromanage.

I was going to edit your post to reflect that it was a paper trade but that's your call, some get angry when paper trades are represented as live. I used to post paper trades on a few sites and despite a few posts back where I clearly said I'm on paper, that was overlooked and I was bashed like I was a liar. I know that you aren't trying to dupe anybody and you realize paper trading isn't the same as live from chatting with you in TL chat. I'll be in chat in a lil bit and we can get some more VSA practice in.