Yeah, I forgot about the contract expirations. What makes it really complex is that there is no agreed expiration date on the contracts (such as in equity options, where it's always the 3rd Friday): some expire in the first week, some expire in the ...

Who here trades Futures?

As I said, the slippage is bigger in commodities. As for the monetaries, the overnight slippage is about what you would expect in the stock market indexes, or FOREX data with the Asian and European sessions blocked out... and most often, it far less ...

Who here trades Futures?

Also, FX margins are typically $1,000-$1,500. But yeah, generally you shouldn't get into the mini futures market unless you have at least $5k (and IMO, closer to $10k). You also might want to look at trading futures options for longer term trading. ...

Who here trades Futures?

I dabbled in futures a couple of years ago. Tried to do some scalping of S&P, but after a close to 20% drawdown, I gave up. Everybody and their mother jumps on E-mini S&Ps when they first hear of futures trading... maybe I'm biased from my ...

Who here trades Futures?

Someone in Japan likes the CAD...

USDCAD trend reversal?

Word of advice: if you're using Oanda's platform for analysis, don't forget to turn off weekend data, as this will screw up your indicators, as seen on the left side of the chart. Tools --> User Preferences. At the bottom the of "Chart" tab, there's ...

Cornflower Hourly System

As far as I know, the only purpose for Level II quotes are for those who scalp... and usually for only a few ticks/pips. They're most popular amongst e-mini futures traders, and those who trade by it often use the term "reading the tape"*. I never ...

Level II quotes

Definitions of "oversold" and "overbought" have absolutely zero meaning in a trending market. If you don't believe me, buy everytime a Stoch pokes out of an "oversold" territory, and sell everytime a Stoch pokes out of an "overbought" territory, and ...

USDCAD trend reversal?

Yep... as I said earlier, there are a thousand different ways to make money in FOREX, but a million different ways to lose money in FOREX. ...sh*t, maybe I need to put that in my sig.

Who/WHAT do you trust?

I can see a bounce off the 1.0500, as this is a big psych number, but with the weekly/monthly trend still in a freefall, I don't think it will rebound very far beyond the 1.1000... if it even gets back up there in the near future.

USDCAD trend reversal?

Yep. The good traders don't try to predict the market, they follow what the market is doing. Predicting the market is nearly impossible, and at best, you can only have a rough idea of what the next one or two price bars will do. I read a book by ...

Alan Greenspan on Currency Speculation

Interesting that while the retail/speculative positions (non-commercial) are more long on CAD and longs are increasing, the big institutions (commercial) are very heavy short CAD, and the shorts are increasing at a faster rate than the speculative ...

USDCAD trend reversal?

Both. One should be the fractal of the other.

Neowave and Glenn Neely

Neither did I... but you have to admit, The Gambler is one song every trader should have on his mp3 player.

Statistical proof of the 90% rule

The way I look at the "no stops" idea is this: most traders make the mistake of using a stop loss order (trailing or otherwise) as their only exit signal. Then they complain about stop hunters taking them out of the market at a loss, only to have ...

Taking Profit > Stop Loss. Why?

Basically any oscillator is supposed to determine "oversold/overbought". The most common are: Momentum, CCI, Williams %R, Stochastics (basically a smoothed %R), MACD, DMI and RSI. When these indicators turn around is usually when price has hit an ...

oversold / overbought ?

Wow... that is amazing. :surprised Going long on USDCAD for the past two weeks is fighting an obvious trend. However, I can think of three reasons why this is happening: -- Grid traders (which are common at Oanda because you can trade currencies ...

Statistical proof of the 90% rule

A similar discussion has been going on here recently. Focusing solely on Reward/Risk ratios and not what the market is doing is only going to increase the number of times you lose. You should let the market give you an exit signal, and not some ...

Is a high risk reward ratio overrated?

With 20/20 hindsight, I was being a little harsh there. I think the point I was trying to make is time needs to be a factor in your trading decisions, as risk increases with time (think about it: you might be able to have an indicator that can ...

Taking Profit > Stop Loss. Why?

Yep... that's the answer. If you have a plan to make X pips on profit and lose Y pips on a stop, you're nothing but a scalper... it doesn't matter if the chart's time frame you work with is 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week. Entry signals determine ...

Taking Profit > Stop Loss. Why?