Bob Volman Price Action Scalping

[Fugazsy]

Hi Tonylommich

Very interesting results that you show .

I must say though - I think you have been too tight on your available session window - ie just 2 hrs a day - ideally you need really to look at another hour either side the key time you have picked - either way.

I am a very experienced Intraday short term Fx trader of many years and I have looked at Al Brooks / Lance Beggs and briefly at Bob Volman - but all three lack some component that I feel are very important for success.

I will give you my reasoning -

1. 5 min - too slow and too lagging. You need to be down to the 1 min and 3 mins and then after many hrs and weeks of getting used to currency movements you really to need the help of tick charts ( any charts under 1 min as far as I am concerned) and work on them to they feel as slow as a 15 minute charts. it will take months but the movements on quick frame short period charts are the same as on a 1 hr or 4 hr - just a lot quicker - and you have to develop the skill set to adjust too it.

2. After you have been trying a method for say over 3 months you do need to be including more pairs into your day. I normally look at 6 to 8 pairs a day and scalp 2 or 3 pairs . I suggest you need to look at 3 pairs and then scalp one or two according to their price structure and PA. Many sessions the EU will have ugly PA and the AU or UJ will be smooth for 30 / 60 mins .

3. You do need multi screens - ideally 3 plus - trying to trade intraday multi pairs off say a Laptop is not assisting your success.

4. Stop ( soft ) need to be under 7 pips max. Get down to under 5 pips on pairs with spreads under 0 5 pip. Its takes time and also another skill - ie timing - plus one click in and out. Set an hard stop at 15 pip if you need to - but never wait to be stopped out - I know within 3 -5 pips if I am in the wrong trade

5. You need to be able to multi trade every day. I dont mean 30 or 50 trades a day but minimum of 5 trades for a session. I do normally 10 to 20 intraday trades - day in day out . Some days if i have 5 good trades in a row - I could stop - but normally I dont. Similar if I had 3 or 4 consecutive losses - I dont stop - I take more trades until I am back in profit and making money. This might be 3 more trades or 8 more trades - thats why really 2 hr intraday sessions are not long enough

I am sure many traders are totally happy with Bob's methods - and if they are stay with them

But when you become more advanced and have more time to develop - you will soon progress onto your own style etc - especially if you ever plan to go full time.

It was approx 5 yrs before I took the full time route - and first year was difficult - but by year 3 it all became easier

I wish you well and with you doing that homework - to me it shows you have some of the qualities needed to progress and be successful

Compliments of the season and a successful 2015


Regards


F

F

Bob first book is based on the 30 second chart or the equivalent 70 tick chart. The book is a gem.....my favourite but I had to adapt it to make it into my style.

 

[TonyIommich]

Hi Tonylommich

Very interesting results that you show .

I must say though - I think you have been too tight on your available session window - ie just 2 hrs a day - ideally you need really to look at another hour either side the key time you have picked - either way.

Thanks for your feedback Forexmospherian! It always helps hearing from a veteran.

I agree that the window is pretty tight. My problem though is that it's difficult for me to trade outside of those hours due to other obligations at the moment. With time I hope to extend my session, but for the time being I want to focus on getting very good with the open for US stock index futures (ES, YM, NQ).

1. 5 min - too slow and too lagging. You need to be down to the 1 min and 3 mins and then after many hrs and weeks of getting used to currency movements you really to need the help of tick charts ( any charts under 1 min as far as I am concerned) and work on them to they feel as slow as a 15 minute charts. it will take months but the movements on quick frame short period charts are the same as on a 1 hr or 4 hr - just a lot quicker - and you have to develop the skill set to adjust too it.

I'm also coming to this conclusion, though interestingly enough Al Brooks is almost entirely married to the 5 minute timeframe and still does like 10+ trades a day. He reads into the individual bars a lot, whereas Bob Volman with his 70 tick approach just spreads out the bars to evaluate them as a group more.

2. After you have been trying a method for say over 3 months you do need to be including more pairs into your day. I normally look at 6 to 8 pairs a day and scalp 2 or 3 pairs . I suggest you need to look at 3 pairs and then scalp one or two according to their price structure and PA. Many sessions the EU will have ugly PA and the AU or UJ will be smooth for 30 / 60 mins .

Interesting point. Bob does mention in his second book that if you are having a problem with overtrading it is a good idea to look at multiple pairs and then trade only the best setups on them.

For now I'm focusing on stock index futures because they tend to be very active at the time I can trade. For currencies as I'm increasingly seeing, being up for the London session is critical.

3. You do need multi screens - ideally 3 plus - trying to trade intraday multi pairs off say a Laptop is not assisting your success.

My solution to this is I have a huge HDTV monitor which lets me easily split my screens up so I can monitor three instruments with no problems. My DOM is on the laptop's window.

Set an hard stop at 15 pip if you need to - but never wait to be stopped out - I know within 3 -5 pips if I am in the wrong trade

Yes, easier said than done of course I notice Bob can be quite patient with some of his trades.

5. You need to be able to multi trade every day. I dont mean 30 or 50 trades a day but minimum of 5 trades for a session. I do normally 10 to 20 intraday trades - day in day out . Some days if i have 5 good trades in a row - I could stop - but normally I dont. Similar if I had 3 or 4 consecutive losses - I dont stop - I take more trades until I am back in profit and making money. This might be 3 more trades or 8 more trades - thats why really 2 hr intraday sessions are not long enough

That's very impressive. For now I'm aiming at having two solid opportunities in the window I trade in (9:30 - 11:30 AM EST) with the goal of moving onto 4 opportunities. If I can get that down, I'll have a good business going and can then expand into the afternoon hours.

I wish you well and with you doing that homework - to me it shows you have some of the qualities needed to progress and be successful

Compliments of the season and a successful 2015

Thanks for stopping by to give your thoughts, I'm always happy to hear from someone who has a good method down. Season's greetings and let's hope the VIX is solid for 2015

 

[BLS]

Week 52 Charts from Volman:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1amxmi9af0fk6ej/VA5_ZrjQF1

 

[morpheous455]

number of tick chart

Hi Guys,

I'm starting a new thread here to post trades using the method of Bob Volman.

His method/set ups use the 70 tick chart on the EUR/USD.

Please feel free to post, it'd be nice to get a few traders together posting on this method.

-Kalpesh

PS This is the old thread which contained a mix of EUR/USD scalping methods
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex-strategies-systems/150178-eurusd-19.html

Hello,

I was reading in Forex Price Action Scalping that the average number of bars in an active session should be around 120/hr, similar to a 30 second chart.

I'm using IB for my tick data and am getting around 200-300 bar per hour, should I be using 133 tick or higher charts then?

Thanks

Morpheous

 

[TonyIommich]

Hello,

I was reading in Forex Price Action Scalping that the average number of bars in an active session should be around 120/hr, similar to a 30 second chart.

I'm using IB for my tick data and am getting around 200-300 bar per hour, should I be using 133 tick or higher charts then?

Thanks

Morpheous

Try this: go to the dropbox that BLS regularly posts Bob's charts to (see the post just before yours). Look at the last week's installment (2014 -> Week 52). Open the charts, and then open your platform's software to display the last week (Dec 21 - 26). Play with the tick setting on your platform until you get it to approximate Bob's charts.

And honestly, the main use for the 70 tick is to compare your trading to Bob's notes that he is kind enough to post here regularly, through BLS. You can really use any setting you feel works best for you.

 

[morpheous455]

Try this: go to the dropbox that BLS regularly posts Bob's charts to (see the post just before yours). Look at the last week's installment (2014 -> Week 52). Open the charts, and then open your platform's software to display the last week (Dec 21 - 26). Play with the tick setting on your platform until you get it to approximate Bob's charts.

And honestly, the main use for the 70 tick is to compare your trading to Bob's notes that he is kind enough to post here regularly, through BLS. You can really use any setting you feel works best for you.

Will try that..

thank you!

 

[BLS]

Week 1 charts from Volman:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1amxmi9af0fk6ej/VA5_ZrjQF1

 

[morpheous455]

Try this: go to the dropbox that BLS regularly posts Bob's charts to (see the post just before yours). Look at the last week's installment (2014 -> Week 52). Open the charts, and then open your platform's software to display the last week (Dec 21 - 26). Play with the tick setting on your platform until you get it to approximate Bob's charts.

And honestly, the main use for the 70 tick is to compare your trading to Bob's notes that he is kind enough to post here regularly, through BLS. You can really use any setting you feel works best for you.

One more question, are your charts based off the trade, bid or ask price?

Thanks
Jim

 

[TonyIommich]

Hi Jim,

I don't trade EUR/USD at the moment, I'm trading the ES. Either way, play with the settings until it gives you what closely approximates what Bob has. I think there's no need to get too technical, other than making sure that your entries are not based on pipettes but full pips. Ideally your charting platform would not display price in pipettes (fifth digit), which is why Bob uses ProRealTime.

 

[morpheous455]

Hi Jim,

I don't trade EUR/USD at the moment, I'm trading the ES. Either way, play with the settings until it gives you what closely approximates what Bob has. I think there's no need to get too technical, other than making sure that your entries are not based on pipettes but full pips. Ideally your charting platform would not display price in pipettes (fifth digit), which is why Bob uses ProRealTime.

ok thanks, I use Interactive Brokers data feed which gives me to the nearest 1/2 pip.

I find the topic of determining the correct # of tick bars is quite confusing. I know you are saying to best make Bob's charts but that would mean for me sometimes the tick count is 300 and other times it needs to be dropped to 100 or less. Is this normal? To have to adjust the tick chart pending volume that day?
Jim

 

[TonyIommich]

Tick charts are a bit confusing because different providers offer different data sometimes, that is they filter it. I know that Interactive Brokers have had some issues with tick charts, which is why many people who rely on tick data go with some other data provider.

Frankly though, I wouldn't get too caught up in it. Charts are charts in the end, and sometimes you'll miss a signal on one tick setting, but get another signal that you wouldn't have otherwise.

It all balances out in the end, there's no 'correct' or 'higher probability' tick setting anymore than a time based setting. It comes down to the pace you feel comfortable handling in the market. Naturally if you have a low tick setting you're going to see more bars with every setup, which you may like or not like. For some people too many bars can cause them to see bunnies in the clouds.

The main value in matching Bob's settings is so you can compare and contrast what you saw one week with what he saw. To get that, you'd have to subscribe to ProRealTime, because with each provider you may run into difficulties.

 

[keen246]

When I started to study FPAS, I setup NinajaTrader and PRT as they seem sort of the professional choice for tick charts. Much to my dismay, I noticed a huge difference between both of them. PRT works well all of the time, but Ninjatrader had a very much slower way of printing the bars and many B.V's setups are not seen properly or completely missed. I raised the question to NT support and after several emails and discussions, they acknowledged that there is a big issue on Ninjatrader 7 and TICK CHARTS ARE NOT PROPERLY DISPLAYED ON REAL TIME. They said they can't do nothing about it on the current release (I couldn't believe such stupid answer from support) and that they will try to fix it on NT8. If I were a paying customer I would request a refund.
In case you're wondering, it has nothing to do with the data feed. NT uses FXCM's data feed which is the same they use for Kineticks which is supposedly very reliable. I proved NT's support that the issue is the program itself and not the the data feed.
So, new comers, stay away from NinjaTrader is you want to start to see those textbook setups seen on B.V's book. I found that even the MT4 EA for tick charts work pretty well and you can use it instead of PRT.

 

[TonyIommich]

I found that even the MT4 EA for tick charts work pretty well and you can use it instead of PRT.

Interesting. I played with an EA that does tick charts in MT4, but it had one big minus: you had to leave the platform open so it could form the tick charts live. If you shut down the platform you lost all the data that was happening when the platform was off. But that was about 2 years ago.

Personally I wish Oanda integrated tick charts into their platform. I don't know of any retail FX platforms (that is, amidst the free ones) that feature tick charts.

 

[Traderallen]

When I started to study FPAS, I setup NinajaTrader and PRT as they seem sort of the professional choice for tick charts. Much to my dismay, I noticed a huge difference between both of them. PRT works well all of the time, but Ninjatrader had a very much slower way of printing the bars and many B.V's setups are not seen properly or completely missed. I raised the question to NT support and after several emails and discussions, they acknowledged that there is a big issue on Ninjatrader 7 and TICK CHARTS ARE NOT PROPERLY DISPLAYED ON REAL TIME. They said they can't do nothing about it on the current release (I couldn't believe such stupid answer from support) and that they will try to fix it on NT8. If I were a paying customer I would request a refund.
In case you're wondering, it has nothing to do with the data feed. NT uses FXCM's data feed which is the same they use for Kineticks which is supposedly very reliable. I proved NT's support that the issue is the program itself and not the the data feed.
So, new comers, stay away from NinjaTrader is you want to start to see those textbook setups seen on B.V's book. I found that even the MT4 EA for tick charts work pretty well and you can use it instead of PRT.

I find your comments interesting because I use the FPAS as my main method of trading. I use ninja trader for my charts, all my orders are placed with chart trader ATMs. Closing out 2014 I made over 4000 pips profit for over 343% return. Therefore I can only surmise that ninja trader is an excellent charting platform for using this method. I have done testing with ninja trader and FXCM's data feed while I do believe the charts perform equally well I have found that I get much more slippage with FXCM that I do with MB.

Note to aspiring traders, if you want to learn how to trade, model a profitable trader. While most forums provide a sense of community. They're not run by profitable trader therefore most of the information is good for conversation but not accurate when it comes to trading profitably. Good trading to all. Allen

 

[Pippi56]

What exactly is the alledged problem with ninja's tickcharts?

 

[Fugazsy]

I find your comments interesting because I use the FPAS as my main method of trading. I use ninja trader for my charts, all my orders are placed with chart trader ATMs. Closing out 2014 I made over 4000 pips profit for over 343% return. Therefore I can only surmise that ninja trader is an excellent charting platform for using this method. I have done testing with ninja trader and FXCM's data feed while I do believe the charts perform equally well I have found that I get much more slippage with FXCM that I do with MB.

Note to aspiring traders, if you want to learn how to trade, model a profitable trader. While most forums provide a sense of community. They're not run by profitable trader therefore most of the information is good for conversation but not accurate when it comes to trading profitably. Good trading to all. Allen

I agree.

 

[keen246]

Interesting indeed! It’s a fact that anybody can try for themselves running NinjaTrader 7 and any other platform that supports tick charts back to back and see the obvious difference. It’s not something I made up as it was acknowledged by NT’s support and development departments. I’m not affiliated nor supported by any software vendor. I just want to contribute to the community and especially new learners of B.V’s book on how to get ticks charts closer to the ones seen on the book. Whether that is the clue for success with this scalping approach or not is another topic.

 

[keen246]

What exactly is the alledged problem with ninja's tickcharts?

NT 7 ticks charts are not properly displayed on real time. Simple as that. You can make the test by running NT for 1-2 hours on the 70 ticks. Save the screenshot of that time, close the program, open again and you'll see how different the tick chart is displayed now from the one you captured on real time. On real time the ticks seem more like 30 ticks than 70.
I provided several screenshots to NT support until they finally saw the huge flaw, but they said they will do something about it until NT 8.
Hope this helps aspiring traders. I don't have any interest on people using one software or the other, just to inform my findings.

 

[BLS]

Week 2 charts from Volman:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1amxmi9af0fk6ej/VA5_ZrjQF1

 

[Matt Chao]

San Diego

Anyone on this thread based in San Diego?