Can I make it as a trader?

[rathcoole_exile]

where I come from, it means "Fkkk the Pope",

for anyone else (apart from File Transfer Protocol techie nerds), it's "Floor Trader Pivots" aka "traditional pivots"


you see, while 10s of 1,000s of retail traders are obsessing about which settings they need for their slow stochastics, pit traders, who move 100s of contracts at a time, don't have the fainest idea about any of that crap.

All they know is that, prior to the trading session, they have a plan which more or less says
"if price gets to such and such level, I'll be a buyer.
But if I'm wrong and price continues to move against me, when it gets to another certain point, I'll become a seller"

and that's ALL trading is or needs to be !

and the most common way of determing those levels, bearing in mind the original guys may never have even seen a chart to eyeball obvious S&R, was to take yesterday's OHLC, do a bit of maths and come up with a few levels.

Now, I tend to use Camarilla formula, rather than traditional formula, but it's all pretty much of a muchness

 

[pboyles]

I dont intend to go off topic here, but could somebody just briefly explain what an 'FTP weekly pivot' is? - specifically, what does the FTP stand for?

Many thanks

You can get them from here http://www.mypivots.com/DailyNotes/ or if its not on that list they have a calculator on that website where you can enter the prices and work it out for yourself. Remember we are talking about weekly and not daily pivots. I have only used the floor trader pivots to date although I did notice that the Bund turned around today on a Camarilla R1 level.

 

[wackypete2]

this is rubbish trading mate.
throw out your goddamned TV/radio, cancel your daily newspaper
and trade what you SEE, not what you WANT,
especially when it's based on some idiot journo piece

Not my newspaper, please! I usually read the funnies while I am in a trade. This way if my trade cr*ps out I can still have a laugh.

Peter

 

[brettus]

re-set the mind and go at it again..'tis the only way. fwiw I'm currently short EU and USD/CHF at the same time which is very, very odd, but that's 'cos I'm hard core technical and that's what they're telling me to do on long term TFs... Can't last, something has got to give..

Watch out for swiss national bank intervention...

 

[pboyles]

Be dazzled with the #1 Canadian penny stocks newsletter
CLICK HERE

Everyone subscribe and then publish all the boiler room scams and pump and dump scams that they are pushing. That'll put them off spamming us again.

 

[meanreversion]

It makes me laugh how you assume that you will remain profitable.

Where does he say that?

 

[belize]

and that's ALL trading is or needs to be !
and the most common way of determing those levels, bearing in mind the original guys may never have even seen a chart to eyeball obvious S&R, was to take yesterday's OHLC, do a bit of maths and come up with a few levels.
Now, I tend to use Camarilla formula, rather than traditional formula, but it's all pretty much of a muchness

Thank you rathcoole_exile, I've just spent some time backtesting using Cam pivots on the EUR/USD. As you suggested trading from one pivot to the next in the direction of the trend. I've been doing by hand to get a good feel for what rules might be needed but came up with a simple set and worked back over the last 20 trades retrospectively. I could get away with a 50pip stoploss.

Average win 77.25 pips,
Average loss -50 pips
Win rate 60% (12/8)
Used a 2pip spread so costs -40pips
Profit 487pips
Period tested 26-19 May

Obviously 20 trades isn't a very long back test, I will carry on testing and maybe trade it live from now on. It would allow me to follow most of the advice given by everybody so far. i.e. use a strict system, ignore the news and reduce my percentage down to 5% still not as low as recommended but on the way.

Cheers to everybody for all the help and advice so far

 

[meanreversion]

Are you backtesting manually? If not, then it should be a simple matter to go further back in time and get a better sample size of, say, 100.. ?

 

[belize]

Are you backtesting manually? If not, then it should be a simple matter to go further back in time and get a better sample size of, say, 100.. ?

manually, reading off a chart and pluging the data into a spreadsheet. Its a pain but I am finding it useful to suss out where problems may occur. For example how do you deal with the pivots changing at midnight. I found you have to go to the nearest one in the direction of the trade rather than the same label. For example if I was trading from the pivot to H1 and then pivot moves above my trade it is better to exit at the pivot.

I plug in another 20 tonight and see if the odds hold up. I forgot to add on the last post that the longest losing streak was 3 in a row.

 

[meanreversion]

Ok, please stop there. Learn to code trading systems, it doesn't take long. Please do not backtest manually, it's a very short road to nowhere!

 

[sinimini]

You should start with psychology.

 

[rathcoole_exile]

Not my newspaper, please! I usually read the funnies while I am in a trade. This way if my trade cr*ps out I can still have a laugh.

Peter

that's ok, I don't think the Beano will move the markets



Then again, Britain did just have 2 of the biggest clowns, Bliar & Brownstain as PM, so it goes to show - anything can hapen !

 

[rathcoole_exile]

Belize, maybe start out using the Weekly pivots rather than Daily ?
Less trades but still plenty of Pips to be farmed.

80% of the time I only use Weeklies these days, for currencies, commodities, indeces etc.
I only use the Daily levels for the ES (for which I also use the Weekly)

the attached shows two of this week's ES trades using the Weekly levels.
each move is around 26 ES points (26x$50) $1300 per contract
I don't want to pull the wool over your eyes and claim it's always this easy, but it's certainly one of the less stressful methods I've seen ....

 

[rathcoole_exile]

Belize,
here I've added the short earlier in the week,
plus the reversal using the Floor Trader Level S1 (white dotted line)

bear in mind, I've got mates over on hols so I have spent most of the week in the pub (ok, I admit, go-go bars).

(The only reason I get home at a reasonable hour to continue my drunken rants against the knobs on this board is 'cos of the damned curfew)

So trading Weeklies can be a stress-free set-and-forget method that helps keep your trigger finger locked away.

As I say, not always this clean and easy, but what 4 perfect examples !

good luck, hope this helps,
r_e

 

[zeal2132]

Hi Belize,
I dont know anything about FOREX but I trade equities all the time. There are a few things I've picked up along the way and unfortunately have learned them the hard way. First let your profits run and cut your losses short. What this means is have an exit plan. I prefer trailing stops. it is impossible to predict the future so stop trying. with trailing stops you wont get out at the very best time, but you will get out close to the top. also statistics show that you should never risk more than 2% of your entire portfolio on any trade. anything higher than 2% becomes exponentially harder to earn your money back if you are wrong. a sound system with sound money management is key. and last but most definitely not least, dont let your emotions take over. have a system and stick to it! Happy trading!

 

[meanreversion]

Hi Belize,
I dont know anything about FOREX but I trade equities all the time. There are a few things I've picked up along the way and unfortunately have learned them the hard way. First let your profits run and cut your losses short. What this means is have an exit plan. I prefer trailing stops. it is impossible to predict the future so stop trying. with trailing stops you wont get out at the very best time, but you will get out close to the top. also statistics show that you should never risk more than 2% of your entire portfolio on any trade. anything higher than 2% becomes exponentially harder to earn your money back if you are wrong. a sound system with sound money management is key. and last but most definitely not least, dont let your emotions take over. have a system and stick to it! Happy trading!

Awesome post

 

[belize]

Morning all,

New trade opened this morning.
Current balance £546 (-9.75%)
Buy EUR/USD at 12279 with 50pip stop risking 4.6% of account.
Target above 12377

I've been ironing out some rules for using the pivots (Cam) and this is the first live trade using them. A bit rash maybe but I've done some further backtesting and ironed out a few more glitches in my rules. For me there is nothing like having real money on the line to discover where the psychological problems in a system might be. I consider it my tution fees.

cheers

 

[belize]

Morning all,

forgot to add a chart, here it is.

 

[belize]

forgot to add a chart, here it is.

Ok, I am obviously still half asleep from doing all that backtesting. That was an old chart ignore it. Here is the one from today.

 

[meanreversion]

Sorry to bang on about this, but shouldn't you learn to program and then backtest BEFORE putting your money on the line?

There really is no hurry here, the market will still be there in three months time. My concern is that you'll use up your account on trades which you wouldn't attempt if you had properly backtested.

Also, backtesting by hand = dangerous, the chances of an error are high, and you'll never have time to test a sample size of any meaning.

Good morning, by the way..