Bottom Up or Top Down?

[Mike Kshemaraja]

Not sure if you ever drove a motobike at a very high speed, you need to get into that state of focus without focus so there is not tension, you, the bike, the speed, only one thing, to tense up or start to worry to fall is very dangerous.

And most importantly if you fall is absolutely essential that you let go and relax into your fall accepting it.

Has this go something to do with trading? In view very much so, in modern trading this state of no mind is essential, of course MM has also a huge impact, just like opening a pizza shop or any other kind of business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulvf2q-sKL4&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOJqzWQeCq8&feature=related

 

[Liquid validity]

Sounds like your decision making process and experience is just hardwired into your brain,
meaning its more of a subconscious process.
HowStuffWorks "How Your Brain Works"
New brain connections form in clusters during learning - UC Santa Cruz
Meditation is just wiping the frontal lobe, same as you'd wipe a computers memory.

 

[Mike Kshemaraja]

Sounds like your decision making process and experience is just hardwired into your brain,
meaning its more of a subconscious process.
HowStuffWorks "How Your Brain Works"
New brain connections form in clusters during learning - UC Santa Cruz
Meditation is just wiping the frontal lobe, same as you'd wipe a computers memory.

Yes, and traders are like athletes, if you want or strive to be a top trader, you need to be fit like one, physical and emotionally. Keep in mind that when you sit in front of the computer to trade you are not trying to pull money out of the market but out of very prepared and street smart traders from all side of the world, Italian, English, Brazilian, Japanese and so on.

Who has the better chance to pull most of the money, the one that is the fittest and prepared.

 

[Mike Kshemaraja]

You might laugh and it does sound a bit 'hippyish' - but don't you ever have days where you just sit down and you 'just know' ?

Then other days where you trade as dumb as a rock.

Have you tried sitting down 10-20 mins before you trade and just relax, tell yourself it's going to be a good session and get any other worries of the day out of your head before you start.

It can certainly help to get you focused. I do understand why people get put off by words like meditation. Perhaps read up on the way people prep for a competitive endeavour right before the comp...

It's not all about skinny vegetarian Indian guys with long beards.

LOL, that is an archaic way to view meditations, nowadays people that appreciate
that development also are into Lamborghini, Patek Philippe or very fine Italian hand made suits.

 

[robster970]

Have you tried sitting down 10-20 mins before you trade and just relax, tell yourself it's going to be a good session and get any other worries of the day out of your head before you start.

Yes - I do this every day I choose to trade wrapped up as a 30-45m prep before the session opens. It's quite ritualistic but it works for me. I see this as nothing more than mental preparation for a performance based discipline, putting me in the right frame of mind to handle situations that I cannot predict in advance.

What do you think professional sportsmen do before a big game/competition?

 

[Liquid validity]

As sports, bikes and meditation have been mentioned, made me think of this.
If you follow MOTOGP here's a well known and public example of pre-event meditation:

No arguing its certainly worked for him...

I spose that relates to a performance edge as discussed here.
In trading you can have a performance egde or a statistical edge,
or a combination of both.
Whatever works for you.

 

[Liquid validity]

imminent thread derail coming up.

Mike, you are obviously into bikes, be interesting to see if Rossi can get the Ducati working this year eh?
Haydn seems to have it sorted going off Qatar qualy.
I still think the bike has a lot of problems left over from the carbon frame.

/end of thread hijack :cheesy:

 

[Mike Kshemaraja]

imminent thread derail coming up.

Mike, you are obviously into bikes, be interesting to see if Rossi can get the Ducati working this year eh?
Haydn seems to have it sorted going off Qatar qualy.
I still think the bike has a lot of problems left over from the carbon frame.

/end of thread hijack :cheesy:

LOL, I was when I was a kid, I fell so many times, after a while I learnt not to tense, is not wise to change the flow of the strength.

Not following much lately, but for what I gather, Valentino has a reputation now to defend and maybe that
makes him slower ( too much mind).
When he did not have that reputation is was free (heart).

I also like Stoner, he does not care to appear, but to be.

 

[MoonRocket]

Even the best of the best sometimes can't save it.
Mick Doohan NO save, FAIL!!! - YouTube

And yet you save the impossible
IMPOSSIBLE crash save. - YouTube

 

[VielGeld]

Interesting that this convo turned to bikes. I got into motorcycle myself just last summer, and have yet to look back at all despite the bleating cries of "it's dangerous!" from my folks. It's just too good.

I also agree that riding a bike seems to complement the trader in me quite nicely. It's a bit of a risk, and if done right, the benefits are awesome. But it can also go horribly wrong. Still too good to pass up, though!

 

[wekim]

BTW, I still don't know why you don't just sell your software outright to ninja,
or negotiate a royalty deal.

I disagree

If your product gives you an edge, why would you want to share that with ANYONE? I really like DTs product but I can't understand why he would want anyone else to use this tool.

 

[DionysusToast]

I disagree

If your product gives you an edge, why would you want to share that with ANYONE? I really like DTs product but I can't understand why he would want anyone else to use this tool.

Thanks. My opinion is that the tool doesn't give you an edge.

It just makes reading the order flow easier.

The edge is still in how you apply your knowledge/skill to what you see on the screen.

 

[Splitlink]

To say that the entry is not important is pure bull, imo. Proper entry reduces risk.

It's once you've entered that the exit matters. Good entry = stay the course, bad entry = bail asap. But a good entry will always provide a better opportunity to minimize loss, and maximize profits.

Good entry is great---once it is done and the profit made. Unfortunately, it is a calculation that you hope will come right, but with no surety. Getting out, when it is wrong, shows that the trader will, also, in the end, get out when it is right.

I am afraid that, whatever may be said, the market is random. Anyone who believes as I do must control his exits when his random entries are made. It is the only decision that he can make with reasonable certainty.

 

[wekim]

Thanks. My opinion is that the tool doesn't give you an edge.

It just makes reading the order flow easier.

The edge is still in how you apply your knowledge/skill to what you see on the screen.

Very true indeed, applying what you see is very different. However, I think that to create such a product, you have to have a very good idea of what you are looking for and what you want to read FIRST. Otherwise you have no inspiration to create it. So you must be very good at reading the order flow already. All the time that you spent learning that, you've now shared with the world and shortened the learning curve for everyone else who (if they do learn to apply it) will fight for your liquidity. Since you trade ES maybe its not as big a deal but still i think its relevant.

You're saying that reading the flow and applying what you read are two different things and the latter is where the edge comes from. But I reckon that theres just as much edge in the first ( learning how to read it ).

I would say I'm the perfect example. I've read the NOBS book but it was hard to grasp. I've watched the video. I've watched other dom videos. I saw your link I think on traderslab or maybe here and bookmarked it. When I finally got around to watching your demos and reading your training posts, something clicked. Now I don't know if I can attribute that to having read a lot of dom stuff and sleeping on it and letting my subconscious absorb it and finally get that "ah ha", or if it was from directly finding your stuff. It's been over a month of hard work for me so I would be remiss to completely credit it ALL to you, but you still desereve A LOT of it. So believe me, I am very grateful! And I'm a brand new trader who hasn't even gone live yet so you don't have to worry about me taking over. But the point remains, I've gained.

I know these dynamics very well. I am a professional poker player who used to play online. About 3 years ago some of the top players got the idea to get into the internet marketing business and started up "poker training" websites where they would post videos and strategies and explain concepts in depth for a low $30/month subscription. This skyrocketed and many competitors joined in. Obviously there was good money to be made in this niche. But the effect on the poker games was horrendous. Within a year, the ability of the average internet player increased exponentially. While many people were just mimicing strategies without understanding them, they still had a hugely negative impact on the games and decreased the overall profitability greatly for EVERYONE. Now a days the beginner stands no chance to win playing online, unless he puts in tremendous work, simply because there are 8 other professional grinders at every online poker table, who've learned enough from the "training sites" to make it not worthwhile.

I know trading is similar, I see some people guard their edges with their life. And very few are reluctant to even teach because ultimately it only hurts them. The thing is I just don't know the game of trading well enough to judge when you're giving away too much and when you're not. I thought I'd just chime in because I benefited greatly from your material. Member since 2006 but you inspired me to make my first posts.

So thanks

 

[DionysusToast]

Mike - that's nice to hear - thank you...

You are probably about to be accused of being me posting about myself.

Anyway, I hope you are wrong and I am right! For me, my trading is always evolving, so it's not as if I have a totally static understanding of order flow that isn't moving forward. There's plenty of people that are way ahead of me and I am sure there are people that are behind me. I don't think that many people will be coming to the same conclusion at the same time as me based on the flow.

I could be wrong though.

 

[Liquid validity]

Thanks. My opinion is that the tool doesn't give you an edge.

It just makes reading the order flow easier.

The edge is still in how you apply your knowledge/skill to what you see on the screen.

Imagine your software ran as a plugin that could intercept the packet data from the feed,
process and reintroduce that data to the app feed input.
A seperate GUI from the primary app would give external control of feed manipulation.
That way you can channel the altered feed into any app, Ninja, tradestation, Xtrader etc.
In other words its not platform specific and exclusive = greater potential userbase.

Might only work with a 3rd party feed though.
I would think the situation would be more complex with the broker providing
feed and app.
Just a thought.

 

[Liquid validity]

I disagree

If your product gives you an edge, why would you want to share that with ANYONE? I really like DTs product but I can't understand why he would want anyone else to use this tool.

I can perfectly understand what you mean.
I actually agree.
DT wants to sell it, so I was thinking from that point of view.

 

[The Leopard]

I would say I'm the perfect example.

I've read the NOBS book... I've watched other dom videos...I...read a lot of dom stuff...

Good for you for being open about it. If nobs and doms are your thing, you don't have to be ashamed. Everyone has their preferences.

 

[wekim]

Imagine your software ran as a plugin that could intercept the packet data from the feed,
process and reintroduce that data to the app feed input.
A seperate GUI from the primary app would give external control of feed manipulation.
That way you can channel the altered feed into any app, Ninja, tradestation, Xtrader etc.
In other words its not platform specific and exclusive = greater potential userbase.

Might only work with a 3rd party feed though.
I would think the situation would be more complex with the broker providing
feed and app.
Just a thought.

This is an interesting idea

But then he would have to support each datafeed. I'm sure each company structures their feed differently, unless there is some standard protocol for it. The convenience of working with ninja is that ninja does all the work supporting zenfire, iqfeed, ib, esignal, etc etc so that he doesn't have to bother breaking down each feed to separate the data.

Other platforms have their own api so it would not be too difficult to port DT's custom DOM over to xtrader or sierra, probably not too hard to program to display numbers and add and subtract.

 

[DionysusToast]

Imagine your software ran as a plugin that could intercept the packet data from the feed,
process and reintroduce that data to the app feed input.
A seperate GUI from the primary app would give external control of feed manipulation.
That way you can channel the altered feed into any app, Ninja, tradestation, Xtrader etc.
In other words its not platform specific and exclusive = greater potential userbase.

Might only work with a 3rd party feed though.
I would think the situation would be more complex with the broker providing
feed and app.
Just a thought.

Yup - the logical thing would be straight to the data providers API. Still, Ninja has 11 APIs to data feeds. We'd have to write 11 APIs to provide the same connectivity. We effectively use Ninja as an API to those 11 providers.

Also - the free version of Ninja is fine for our tools. So you can use your existing DTN.IQ and the free Ninja and you are off.

The ability to plug straight into CGQ, DTN.IT, TT, PATS etc feeds is an attractive feater, especially as people are confused about the fact Ninja doesn't cost anything. Still - what I think is even more attractive is the ability to trade from our product which is our focus for now.