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james16 Chart Thread
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Jun 20, 2010 8:53pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sollavia
One of the points I've grasped is that it's necessary to have a large account with a small risk. I just want to know how large should an account be?
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It isnt necessary to have a large account - thanks to brokers with flexible position sizing (Oanda started it, others have since followed), you can effectively trade any size account. So you have no worries there.
The key is the second point you make - you have to limit your risk. So we set the risk per trade at a % of your account. This %, generally between 0.5% and 2%, minimises the chance of losing your account due to variance.
The problem comes where you try and combine the two. Risking $40 per trade isnt going to appeal to most people who assume that tradin the forexes can automagically turn their $200 account into a superyacht within 30 days.
So it is really a question of what you want to achieve.
Do you want to live off trading your $2k? It isnt going to happen.
Do you want to slowly compound it into something worthwhile? Absolutely possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollavia
I'm just a college student at the moment, and a $2,000 deposit for live account is fine, but I'm afraid not more than that. Is it ok?
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I'm impressed that you saved away $2k - I cant remember my wallet ever containing more than the cost of a case of beer at anytime during college
Just make sure you read Jim's 'sternly worded' advice about demoing until you are profitable, then going live. He isnt messing around.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 21, 2010 2:39am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by extraneo
IPB usd / chf 8H
Long @ 1030
tp 1129
what do you think?
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I dont see anything at all on that chart that says 'long' to me.
That bar, if anything, is a trading range. That closed near the bottom. In a downward trend.
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If I wanted to play a reversal, I would want a big, clear sign that the market was reversing. A bar with an almost identical open and close (at the bottom of its range) that tried a bullish move and failed is not exactly the Coca Cola billboard screaming BUYBUYBUY like a crackhead on welfare day.
If I had to take a trade, it would be a breakout/retrace of the low. Even if you were trying to play a long from the bottom of the range back to the top, it would very likely stop well before your TP.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
Last edited by joelcf, Jun 21, 2010 2:53am
Reason: I need typing lessons.
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Jun 21, 2010 3:21am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by extraneo
I had considered a bearish trend exhaustion ....
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That isnt really an exhaustion pattern though, because there is only a downmove and then a pause. Which, more than often, continues the same way. For a genuine exhaustion pattern, we would want to see another bullish leg first (and even then, we would probably wait for a breakout and retest, otherwise we are just buying into the top of a range and a PPZ). And a bigger range.
I wouldnt consider it an exhaustion bar either, since it is a small range bar and the market tried to move higher and failed. A genuine exhaustion bar would be a regular pinbar (in forex anyways, since we cant gap down and reverse, giving us a bullish bar)
I honestly think people should give the IPBs a pass until they get the basics really, really solid. Unless you are Ghous, they are pretty ambiguous and open to misinterpretation  He had an awesome post the other day about interpreting location and the market flow around them - its really good reading.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 21, 2010 10:03am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghous
I am honestly trying my best to get this concept straight and that too to only ppl who have been doing this for a while, it worries me to see a newbie who in one post asks a beginner question and in the next post posts an IPB setup, honestly I get spooked out at this, feel like throwing up 
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Hopefully it doesnt stop you posting, really like reading your analysis on them. The way you approach them has definitely made me rethink not only these, but some other setups too (like 'traditional' pin bars) and how/why/if they work. Maybe you just need a big disclaimer in your sig
Also, I propose naming these back to 'Ghous bars'. If Keltner, Bollinger, Donchian, Chaikin, Williams and Fibbonacci can do it...
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 22, 2010 3:23am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Location
Additionally, it was helpful to read all of James16, Jaroo's, Mbqb11's, and others posts all at once, because I really got a chance to study their methods without having multiple voices in my head at once.
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Cyrus does a post every couple thousand pages where he pulls together all the posts for particular usernames using some kind of black magic. Get your condensed hit of Jaroo all in one place! Well worth searching for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nasir.khan
Hey Joel I was going have a go at this book by Ashraf Laidi "Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis." Have you read it,..... any thoughts?
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It's a nice backgrounder in some basic theory (things like exchange rate models, risk flow theory, *very* basic yield curve analysis, market cycle theory, etc) and a big whack of history, but you wont find very much practical information in there. But as a jumping point for your own research, it is pretty good. Well written, if a bit on the dull side for some people.
That said, it has plenty of thought, research and analysis. And doesnt waste your time with basic crap like most books seem to - honestly, I know what a currency pair is. And a long position. FFS.
John J Murphy's 'Intermarket Analysis' (which is a rewrite and update of 'intermarket technical analysis), while old, is probably more useful as a starting point though. I'd read that first. Laidi's book is more advanced.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 22, 2010 6:25am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
I would be really interested in the consensus opinion on the time. I think I can change the closing times on my platform.
The bars can look very different depending on the time zone you use.
I am interested to know if anyone has back tested this or has seen research evidence.
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Somewhere between marketkaratekid and marketninja, you realise that timezones dont really matter and the charts say the same thing
Most like to use NY close, which makes sense - the Sydney/HK/Tokyo/etc sessions can essentially be viewed the same way as after hours trading since the volume is so low.
There is no 'professional' consensus, if thats what you are worried about. Dealers use the timezone of whatever session they are trading.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 22, 2010 6:33am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
OK but if we are using pin bars and inside outside bars these WILL look different depending on the closing times of the candles. They will look very different in some cases.
There WILL be a best set up - if there are two variables it would be unusual for the result to be identical.
I will try to find out with Mr Google.
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It isnt like trading is done in discrete 24h intervals. It's a continuous flow. And you might see a pinbar whereas I see a DBHLC. Or a BEOB. Or whatever. They are all the exact same information, just different abstractions of it.
There isnt a 'best setup' if we are both looking at the same information. Opens and closes are largely meaningless, because everyone is looking at different charts anyways.
Very different from equities or futures.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 22, 2010 7:07am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nasir.khan
I do wan't something that starts off with basics. I just learnt about Risk Appetite and Risk aversion (after i read it in your post) so you can judge how much i know about this whole thing.
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I'd go with the Murphy book first. Then move on to the Laidi if you havent killed yourself from boredom. Then maybe try and track down some of Louis Mendelsohn's books if you want to fill in the gaps... although, at that point, we will probably be reading your newsletter..
Quote:
Originally Posted by nasir.khan
Btw good to have a guy who has read almost every book out there.
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Thank insomnia and the fact that I am terrible at video games so I dont even bother trying anymore 
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 22, 2010 10:06pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jarroo
They have been pretty rare these days on the Daily but they happen all the time . . .time and time again. You'll figure out the good ones and the great ones.
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I swear, if we are going to be renaming g-bars, this setup has to be called 'the Jaroo special'. A pinbar at a great level with an aqua box exactly where price jumps to... time and time again
I think the way you and mike concentrate on clear, simple charts helps keep my dark side at bay, lol. Just when I am considering overcomplicating things into a mess of epic proportions, one of you will post a chart with a ppz, a target, a pinbar and a win.
One more for the folder
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
This might be a continuation of my point earlier about which time zone gives the optimal candle formations.
There will be a best one - I have no doubt about that.
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Not really. Different offsets will be used in different timezones. So unless you plan on examining the volume traded in each individual currency by session and deciding on the most 'accurate' offset for each pair, you are just guessing.
And even if you did that, what do you gain? You might get a more 'informative' close, but your open and the first half of each day will then be low volume, and london (with the highest turnover) wont appear until the second half of each candle. Alternately, use a London open as your open, and then after NY 'closes' 14 or so hours later you get a low volume 10 hour session making up the second half of your candle - making your close less informative.
Regardless, the information gained will be minimal. A desk in Sydney is going to concentrade on AUD crosses, whereas one in London will be more moving a hell of alot of EURUSD. EURUSD movements are going to move AUDUSD more than the volume of AUDUSD moved in Sydney, yet the price movements in Sydney likely have greater AUD information value. So should we use GMT, or GMT+10? And if US demand is failing at midday in the states and hedge funds start winding back crosses and pulling their funds into tbills, the AUDJPY will get smashed in the NY and tokyo sessions and AUDUSD will fall through the floor (as has been happening regularly for months now). Giving us an argument for GMT-5/EST and GMT-8. So which is 'best'?
And that's ignoring the fact that the interbank market doesnt work like a traditional equities market, with a pre-open auction process for opening prices, a limited timeframe to fill orders and where close prices are hugely important because they are used for settlement. It isnt like someone rings a bell at 8am in London and traders start scrambling around, then they all trade up to 5pm when someone cuts off their internet access. The 'first' and 'last' hour you are fixating on is almost the lightest trading of the session, because its handover time.
Like Mike says, grab something with a close around NY 5pm and go with it. That way, you at least arent going to be splitting the two high volume sessions across multiple bars. Same with a London open. To be honest, I probably prefer the latter because it will generally set the tone for the rest of the day. If you are that worried about 'missing' things, focus on reading price movements rather than barspotting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
As part of my crude crowd psychology there has got to be a maximal audience in one of the time zones
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He is seeing what the biggest traders see and so if a candle formation appears on his charts it will be there for the bigger hitters.
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You have a false premise issue.
You make the assumption that big money is trading the candles, not creating them.
You also assume that everyone is looking at daily candles. Or 4 hour candles. Or candles at all.
On top of that, this line of reasoning requires that even if 'they' see these candles and operate on that timeframe, they are trying to trade 'setups'.
They arent. The SNB couldnt give a damn about your A++ DBHLC. A guy on a desk for Sumi with a client trying to hedge out a billion yen isnt going to *not* fill his orders because there is a gravestone doji. Shanghai movers are buying US t-bs and Australian copper regardless.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
Last edited by joelcf, Jun 22, 2010 11:01pm
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Jun 22, 2010 10:51pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dmc
Have been looking at broadening my asset classes now and perhaps demoing or starting a small account for stocks. (Weekly only)
I have been using Freestockcharts.com for just looking at stocks and their charting package is pretty cool (interface wise).
I was considering just opening an etrade account or something like that but does anyone have any better suggestions?
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Something like etrade is more designed for your longer term buy-and-hold strategies - their standard setup isnt really designed for the kind of thing you are probably looking for. I know they have a 'pro' setup, but (here, at least - it could be different in the US, since Australia seems to specialise in getting screwed over) the cost was pretty ridiculous in return for the benefits. On your timeframe, it might not matter as much and this kind of low maintenance setup might be fine, but I'd definitely look at - Scottrade (who seem cheaper and more useable)
- Zecco (who I use as a second US broker, and are awesome and cheap as chips)
- thinkorswim (I use them for options, but their setup is pretty kickass)
- TD Ameritrade (because District Attorney Jack McCoy did advertisements for them, and he is an all american hero!)
On the other side, you have someone like Interactive Brokers (note: I am biased because I love IB  ) who are specifically designed for short timeframe trading, rather than investing. Their platform takes a bit more wrangling, and they are more designed for experienced traders (like you) rather than mom-and-pop-investors (my dad) so their support isnt really that great....but their commissions are cheap and they are so ridiculously fast it hurts. Others in this bracket would be Tradestation (only if you are as rich as Jim) and MB Trading (who are pretty awesome all round IMO). Probably dozens more, but IB have always filled my needs.
I'd say you could follow it up in the broker subforum here on FF, but there is so much rubbish and stupidity packed into such a confined space in there that I am pretty sure it is close to collapsing onto itself and forming a black hole of retardation.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 23, 2010 1:56am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by supremeChaos
hey joel do u have a substitute poster or
a sexytary like Mike?
i have seen u here 13hrs ago.
3hrs ago, u have made new posts.(& u are still online now)
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ha, I wish. Time off for final exams, but my brain hasnt adjusted to having nothing to do.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 23, 2010 7:59am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Let me preface this with a disclaimer: Reading back, sometimes my combination of brevity and charming personality comes off like a cranky old man on the porch, ranting at kids on my lawn... so I apologise if I did. I wasnt trying to be a jerk or anything  It's just a topic that comes up at least once a month in here, so I figured a longer answer was in order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
joelcf - the message I get is not to bother changing the time zone.
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It isnt really that you shouldnt bother, it is just that I dont really see any particular one being 'best'. Arguments can be made for/against any, but - in my view anyways - as long as you dont split London and NY, you cant really make a mistake.
(and even if you did, it wouldnt be a huge one anyways)
Plenty of guys here have a couple of brokers spread across the timezones and treat each as a seperate chart. It isnt a terrible idea, if only to give the learning curve a healthy boost by doubling/tripling/etc the number of charts you evaluate.
Obviously, you have an easier time than the MT4 guys with these kinds of shifts - ask SC about his broker collection, lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
You say I am assuming - I am guessing. As I have not been round all the dealing desks of big players interviewing them I have to guess.
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Nothin wrong with that at all - as long as you are thinking about it, you are ahead of 90% of people out there who just see squiggly lines on the internet and hit a button. Hell, just by studying the key info in this thread (which you clearly have been), you are trouncing all the chumps out there blindly trading EAs, 'news' (a long time after it has been assimilated) and random MA crosses that havent worked since 1999.
It is just when people take those guesses and start relying on them as facts that things can turn bad if you arent careful. I sure as hell have done some things based on assumptions that were, in retrospect, pretty clownshoeish. Then again, so did LTCM
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
I am sure it is known what the bigger player speculators use.
They are not all making candles ignoring what went before, so they must be reacting to something.
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The issue here is that 'speculators' are a hugely diverse group with different time horizons, strategies and aims - ranging from long term economic views (arguably the most influential subgroup of speculators, since they are directionally biased and carry a big stick) to momentum traders to those engaged in pairs/triangle trading, to those in covered/uncovered interest rate arbitrage (think carry trades) to straight news/newsflow traders to those trying to exploit all the technicians (amateur and pro) on breakouts/candle patterns/etc.
The last ones, who are arguably scalpers, are the guys who get the most attention on forums (anyone who has been outside this thread on FF will have read someone ranting about hedge funds targeting 'their' stops), and they do exist... but they arent really driving the daily bars.
So you can see the problem we all face; you never know if that last M5 bar is a guy banking on a divergence between USDCAD and CL, someone trading a PPZ bounce or whether it is George Soros betting a billion that the US is going to run another round of liquidity... all of which are going to end up with very different footprints on the chart.
And that's only looking at half the market, and generally not the half driving trends
We can make some educated guesses around the edges, but on the whole we just need to analyse the price charts as best we can for good bars in good places.
Or, as the big guy says, Keep It Simple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
Maybe it is computers doing it all.
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Algo trading is a whole crazy headache-inducing topic on its own.
Fortunately, on the kind of timeframes we are talking about, you can ignore almost all of it. In general, they are focused on arbitrage opportunities and short term exploitable market patterns. On the whole, these either dont affect us (since they are arbitraged away somewhere between microseconds and minutes), or they actually help us by making sure our charts stay aligned. It's why none of your brokers are actually running your stops.
Yeah, you have some long range strats, especially when you start looking at futures contracts, but even if we knew what they were, us mere mortals would likely not understand anyways - one of my best friends is a quant for a large IB, and he leaves my head spinning sometimes
Quote:
Originally Posted by six gun
Edit
In Jack Schwager's book "New Market Wizards" which I know some people here have read, does he say anything about this aspect?
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I'm in the minority, and this is just an opinion, but I think the MW books are good, but very overrated on the internet.
It's a good book for insight into how traders think, and there is definitely some eye openers in there, but you wont find any real strategies as such. Still worthwhile, as is all Jack's stuff.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
Last edited by joelcf, Jun 23, 2010 8:41am
Reason: holy essay,Batman!
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Jun 24, 2010 10:34pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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I've been itching to short Tiffany for months now.
Give me a break below 40, a retest and then I'll make back all that money you have cost me around anniversary/birthday/chistmas time for the last few years. Jerks.
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Also, just because it is Friday: A mate just bought a new toy. 14 monitor setup? Hell yes.
http://www.digitaltigers.com/stratos...elite-xe14.asp
(he is only running 6x 24" monitors, but I suspect more are coming soon)
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 24, 2010 10:51pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mbqb11
Joel you missed the nice one though
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I know - talk about a cherry. Combine those bars and laugh all the way to the bank.
(although, I gotta say, drawin divergence on the volume bars is a bit dicey, hehe )
Then again, I did get in on the BUOB back in March last year @ $20 - although got taken out at 40, well before the highs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jarroo
jinx
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I think you mean confluence 
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 24, 2010 10:56pm
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mbqb11
any more dicey then a MACD? 
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haha, cant argue with that.
Better patent it before the lurkers add a chapter to their ebook.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
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Jun 25, 2010 1:21am
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My gun control is a steady hand.
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A couple of things to think about over the weekend.
__________________
When you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk.
Last edited by joelcf, Jun 25, 2010 1:47am
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