[Gabe2004]

After seeing Michaelangelo's sculpture of David, an
art student asked the great artist how anyone could
make something so beautiful and emotionally moving
from a block of stone. Michaelangelo replied, "I simply
chipped away the excess so David could emerge from
the stone."

See the analogy?

Gabe

[daedalus]

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader »

Do you think there are a select few indicators that everyone should at least become familiar with even if they aren't going to use them?

Do you think an indicator can train you to indentify something when you are new? You can always lose the indicator once you develop the eye for it in simple price action.

To answer your first question. I think its fine to understand how a basic indicator functions - the caveat being that you don't use them. Which segways into your next question...

I think more often than not an indicator does NOT help you see something - it prevents you from seeing EVERYTHING. Again, its the looking at the trees and not the forest. I don't know about you but when I have an indicator on my charts my eye is naturally drawn to it and I focus on what the indicator is saying rather than what the picture above it (price) is saying. I think thats why a lot of new traders are setup to fail. The indicators train them to look at the wrong thing (the indicators). And consequently they fall down the rabbit hole of failure for weeks, months, and years before they realize what they should've been focused on was on their charts too all along. They just couldn't see it through the indicators.

Thats why I do feel slightly guilty about using any indicator on my charts (value chart). But I use it completely secondary to price and am very conscious of that. If price is telling me something and the indicator isn't, I respect price first and foremost. I am ONLY using it as a confirmation to take profits and get to par.

Cheers!

[forrestang]

Originally Posted by daedalus »

Thats why I do feel slightly guilty about using any indicator on my charts (value chart). But I use it completely secondary to price and am very conscious of that. If price is telling me something and the indicator isn't, I respect price first and foremost. I am ONLY using it as a confirmation to take profits and get to par.

Cheers!

Who cares? If I had an indicator that wasn't for show, and ACTUALLY helped me make money in some way, I'd absolutely use it, and have no such compulsions of feeling bad.

Let's not forget 'why' we trade the markets. It is not to be able to say that one is cool for not using anything but price, the point is to make money. Sure it's interesting, but would it be interesting if there was no potential for profit?

If there is something that you truly find makes you money, it's foolish to feel guilty about it. Wether that be a MACD, or only taking a trade when your cat walks across your trading desk and meows....

[brownsfan019]

Originally Posted by Dinerotrader »

I am relatively new to trading and took the advice of many here on TL and I haven't ever used indicators at all on futures, like none at all. I sometimes wonder if I am missing some part of the learning process since so many have used them early on in trading.

I was showing my friend a trade I made on the ZS the other day and he likes the idea of bollinger bands so he wanted me to put it on my chart. I did and noticed that it would have kept me in the trade for the entire move if I had used it to confirm when to exit the entry.
Very likely a coincidence but it got me thinking, maybe I am not taking advantage of some useful indicator that would help me navigate when price gets moving lightning speed as it does on the ZS.

I also feel a little stupid when others talk about common indicators and I have no educated understanding of them. Do you think there are a select few indicators that everyone should at least become familiar with even if they aren't going to use them?

Do you think an indicator can train you to indentify something when you are new? You can always lose the indicator once you develop the eye for it in simple price action.

Dinero - I have 1 piece of advice here.... The amount of indicators out there is like pandora's box. Once you open it, you may literally spend the rest of your life trying to find that perfect combination that works each and every time... only to find out that doesn't exist and you're back to where you started.

I know the grass looks greener on the other side, I've been there too. Like Thales, I spent more money than I care to think about on the 'holy grail' systems out there. Result was a ton of wasted time and money.

Based on your posts in the p/l thread, I think you are making huge progress and that's w/o any indicators! A part of you is saying - yeah, but... imagine if... maybe if .... But I think in the end you'll end up saying - that was a waste of time.

So my suggestion is to resist the urge but if you need to try it out, just be prepared for many, many, many hours spent on this. Have you seen all of what is tucked inside OEC trader? And there's so many more that aren't included there.

If you want to go this route and test stuff out, here's what I would do - find something that could help with EXITS. As dae mentioned, he's using the value chart to help with timing of exits. As I've said many times here, exits are my crutch and I'm always looking for something to test out. I put the value chart on my charts to see how exits would compare to what I am doing now and we will see... Even now, after all these years, I still have trouble resisting that temptation. And that's what I think a few of us are trying to save you from. So if you want to try something out, throw up the value chart and see how it looks for exits. I have a basic one that I'm using in OEC and I'll put it in the OEC area of the forum if you want to try it out. Just be aware that once you open this box, it's next to impossible to shut it back up. Thales is one of the few that I've seen be able to do that.

[Kiwi]

I support Brownsfan's view. I am a person who knows most indicators and has written hundreds of them for other users of Sierra Chart. What's more, unlike most who talk as though they understand indicators I think I really have a grip on how they work and what they are doing.

I now would only use indicators for one purpose: to summarize information for automation that can be more clearly seen with calm, well trained, unstressed eyes and brain.

They can be useful but if you head down the path of wanting to appear knowledgeable about indicators to your friends and actually be knowledgeable then be prepared to use up years of your time. And bollinger bands are such bs. They look great until they don't. I have written and dissected the Value Chart indicator (last week) and can assure you that it has NO magic - its just a comparison of 5 days movement against average bar range and declares every burst of enthusiasm to be oversold or bought. One could make it work for them but you can find plenty of other ways ... so why not KISS. Find an objective reason to exit trades (next S&R or trailing a stop for long holds with a potential trend) and just do it ... the same every time.


Your goal is to learn a method to be profitable consistent trader (I assume).

A private trader has a few edges over the big boys and the super machines. One is that you can buy breakouts (because your size is small so you don't have to scale in to get filled). Another is that you can see support and resistance with training - and that is very hard for a machine.

So, put indicators aside. Don't argue about them. Say "I've been lucky enough to be trained by people who read price action and support and resistance alone - and are profitable because of it. So I'm sticking with that and mastering it."

[MidKnight]

Hiya folks - MK is reporting for duty

Pairs near S/R:
EUR/GBP
EUR/USD
EUR/JPY
GBP/CHF
USD/JPY
AUD/USD
AUD/JPY
NZD/USD


RED is for Resistance
STEEL BLUE is for Support


EUR/GBP
Looking for longs

EUR/USD
Looking for shorts, even though it is at the marked R area, I would be more comfortable with another attempt at fridays high into the 1.4950 area.

EUR/JPY
Looking for longs. Have been in this range for some time, when we break out of this range it could be extreme. Stay open to the idea of an explosive multi-day move. Play the range on obvious entries.

GBP/CHF
Look for shorts. Mirror image to EUR/GBP. Prefer to trade this market if possible.

USD/JPY
At immediate support and also testing those lows of early OCT in what I consider to be a weak fashion. Look out for longs. Should support be found here, could really fuel the yen crosses higher - keep that in mind. I don't know why, but I find this pair tough to trade so right now, I'm just using this as extra yen cross analysis.

AUD/USD
At resistance. This market has been on a massive tear upwards since March this year. Am hesitant to sell up here as would have expected a more solid decline off the recent 3 thrusts above the OCT high, but instead we are back up at those OCT highs. Probably do nothing here unless something screams at me.

AUD/JPY
Tight range all last week. So far has been respecting the R area but not really responding to it. I don't feel very comfortable looking for shorts within this current condition.

NZD/USD
Overall, similar to AUD/USD. Huge gain since March this year. The recent multi-day drop has been the largest decline since March in both price and time but it is only down approx 5 cents. I'll look for shorts if something obvious appears.

[Dinerotrader]

Thank you all for your responses. Great points from all. I do see that the ultimate indicator is price and I plan on spending all my chart time developing an eye for reading PA.

There is this great trend in the threads I love that during the week posts are all about trades and the weekend addresses some philosophical issues. I can't tell you how much I enjoy this.

Thanks again.

[MidKnight]

Hi Dinero,

When I was a brand new trader and just started my full-time adventure into this business. I focused just on PA exclusively for the first year. As the years passed though, I did find myself exploring many things. Many things have been re-visited and re-explored as well, because you never know how a type of analysis may be different after you have more experience. I'm only bringing this up because, one needs to explore for themselves what suits them and it probably should be re-explored as new experience is added. This all takes time unfortunately. Few traders are able to shortcut this it seems If you can believe it, when I first started out and quit my job, I naively thought I'd be profitable within 6 months but it's taking a lot longer than that.

With kind regards,
MK