[MidKnight]

Originally Posted by jonbig04 »

Thanks I will make sure I do that.

There seems to be 456,000 momentum indicators haha. Geeze.

What does that tell ya about how hard it is to measure...

All my best,
MK

[Head2k]

An angle can be measured by its tangent. Price change / time. But I would guess one should be carefull with very steep trends, as they may exhaust fast.

[BlowFish]

Originally Posted by jonbig04 »

Since it SEEMS the steeper the angle the stronger the trend, would be it be ridiculous you measure the anlge using a protractor or something?

.

Chart time will give you an idea of 'pace'. It is easier to spot real time. You might want to try fixing your price scale on your charts. Much easier to judge if your charts are not constantly adjusting themselves to fit the bars on the screen all the time. So for example on a 5 minute chart you might fix the scale so it shows roughly 20 ES points. This has a remarkable effect on ones perception.

A simple tool to measure what you are talking about is the Gann fan. I'm kind of surprised it is not more popular. I am not recommending it, but it is basically a protractor and will immediately tell you the angle price is following. You might find it unnecessary if you scale your charts appropriately.

[brownsfan019]

One other idea I had this morning - you'll also want to test your ideas over a variety of markets unless you are trying to custom fit to the NQ.

For example, the CL (oil) can really move and is very different than an index. Yes, it's 'expensive' to trade there and a few mistakes will wipe you out, but I think it's worth at least looking at.

If you are looking for some trending markets, at times the 6E (Euro futures contract) can trend as well.

[jonbig04]

Thanks to all of you. I was up pretty late last night working on step 2. I don't know why I went out of order, but I quickly realized I wasn't going anywhere until I get step one taken care of.

The problem I'm trying to get around right now is simply recognizing trend. When the market opens how do I determine the trend (of course there are 90 ways to do this) reliably and quickly. For example the NQ rose a little on open then dropped 20 points and rose 20 points and now appears to be in a downtrend. What I need is a specific way to measure the prevailing daily trend. I think I've gotten past my momentum problem, but of course that doesn't help with showing which way the trend is likely to go for the day. The NQ looks to be in a downtrend (with slowing momentum) but I need to know exactly what constitutes a trend and opposed to just what it looks like.

I will look into that gann fann as well as the 3 higher lows (highs) and see if they have been reliable in the past.


Another thing I'm unsure of is whether to post the specifics of what I'm doing on here. If I knew if was just you all (the people tha have been helping me) I would mind, but I'm a little leary about posting exactly what I'm doing for the whole world to see. I'm not sure why exactly.

[BlowFish]

Some ideas for quickly determining trend. Probably the best....is price making HH HL? or LH LL? That can quickly tell you up down or sideways.

A quick and dirty but still quite handy way is to use yesterdays 'floor pivot' (H+L+C)/3 or yesterdays mid point or yesterdays POC or yesterdays close or todays open or or or or. Are we above or below? This can be used with other bars than daily too.... Hour bars or 240 minute bars are perfectly fine...whatever you llike for the time frame you are interested in.

Of course there are good old moving averages. Not my cup of tea but might suit you. You could eve use tradeguiders 'diamond system' that is simply a 5 period SMA and was reverse engineered here. (The diamonds are coloured depending on slope and which side of the average the bar closes on).

The problem is likely to be eliminating methods rather than finding them.

[jonbig04]

Yes there are so many. I'm going so start with the HH,HL,LH,LL. Thanks

[daedalus]

Just want to say keep at it! I am 22 and an NQ trader and i've had a rough path to get where I am. I haven't made it, but I think i've got an idea that can work and i'm working at it day after day and starting to see a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.

KEEP AT IT. I can't tell you how many thousands of hours i've spent going through charts, backtesting, trying new ideas, just keep doing it. ITS WORTH IT.

I had my "EUREKA" moment last week and I can tell you its worth it in the end.

Cheers mate!