my journal

[wprins]

I am not saying it just for me but especially for me. Why don't you come tomorrow and apply the 3-bar method of discerning trend, live, right before I have to make one of my pro-trend trades?

What could be clearer and more enticing than something I can use to make money immediately?

To make dummies understand your concepts you have to see things eye to eye with me. And if dummies understand, then you can reach a further audience. Not like these academics who feel the need to make everything more complicated than it is, in order to be taken seriously.

OK, but bear in mind I'm as much a student here still as you are. Indeed in most ways you are ahead of me. I don't want to be seen to be the teacher/expert on everything "Bill Williams". That, I'm not. (In other words, I have no desire to reach further audiences or compete with academics.)

Also, just to clarify as for the actual mechanics I tried to explain previously -- the MA's are used to determine sideways/trending state. Then together with 5 bar patterns determine possible entry points. The 5 bar patterns by themselves do not in and of themself determine the trend. I understand this is a bit vague but I'm trying to avoid having to rewrite a book here (which I have no interest in) to get concepts across. You were originally asking for suggestions for keeping you out of the market when it's going sideways and I made some. I'm hoping you'll go take a shower or a bath and come up with your own creative use of these suggestions (as you often do) and/or pick up some of the details about these ideas from the original author which we can then discuss as peers, rather than getting all of them from me, a fellow student of the markets.

Nevertheless, I'll try and help with a pictures or such to help explain my own understanding of these ideas (but perhaps tomorrow, it's late now and I have the dreaded weekly IT meeting tomorrow first thing.)

Edit: By the way, you mentioned English is not your first language, so let me congratulate you. Your English is excellent. I would say, your English is better than many Briton's command of their own language. (As an aside, English is technically also not my first language, as I'm originally from South Africa, although I'm pretty much bilingual. Aangename kennis Travis, goed om jou te ontmoet! That's a bit of Afrikaans, my native tongue.)

 

[Yamato]

Eureka! Correlated all have to agree!

I've thought of this while sleeping. New version of system:

CHARTS
SET UP THESE CHARTS ON IB'S TWS:
1 DAY OF 1-minute ES, CL, GBP "line" mode with their 225-period slow moving averages
2 DAYS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 15-minutes CANDLES WITH PIVOTS
4 HOURS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 1-MINUTE CANDLES WITH 15-periods and 210-periods moving averages
----------------------
RULES
ENTRIES can be made if:
1) you sense trend (high volume/range, no news wait, touched >= 2 pivot lines, correlated all above/below their mas)
2) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
3) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines or any 0.0100s levels if beyond S2 or R2
4) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
5) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
6) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.

 

[Yamato]

OK, but bear in mind I'm as much a student here still as you are. Indeed in most ways you are ahead of me. I don't want to be seen to be the teacher/expert on everything "Bill Williams". That, I'm not. (In other words, I have no desire to reach further audiences or compete with academics.)

Also, just to clarify as for the actual mechanics I tried to explain previously -- the MA's are used to determine sideways/trending state. Then together with 5 bar patterns determine possible entry points. The 5 bar patterns by themselves do not in and of themself determine the trend. I understand this is a bit vague but I'm trying to avoid having to rewrite a book here (which I have no interest in) to get concepts across. You were originally asking for suggestions for keeping you out of the market when it's going sideways and I made some. I'm hoping you'll go take a shower or a bath and come up with your own creative use of these suggestions (as you often do) and/or pick up some of the details about these ideas from the original author which we can then discuss as peers, rather than getting all of them from me, a fellow student of the markets.

Nevertheless, I'll try and help with a pictures or such to help explain my own understanding of these ideas (but perhaps tomorrow, it's late now and I have the dreaded weekly IT meeting tomorrow first thing.)

Edit: By the way, you mentioned English is not your first language, so let me congratulate you. Your English is excellent. I would say, your English is better than many Briton's command of their own language. (As an aside, English is technically also not my first language, as I'm originally from South Africa, although I'm pretty much bilingual. Aangename kennis Travis, goed om jou te ontmoet! That's a bit of Afrikaans, my native tongue.)

Thanks for this reply. I will answer as soon as I get to work.

 

[Yamato]

Well, 3 bar patterns as a matter of fact also are used in some circumstances. My mentor sometimes calls 5 bar patterns "swing points" and 3 bar patterns "half swingpoints".

Anyway, I suggest that the rationale is that 5 bar patterns carry more weight (are more statistically significant I suppose) than 3 bar patterns, at least as far as I understand things. Part of it probably is simply that 5 bar patterns are naturally going to be less frequent than 3 bar patterns. Having more signals (by using 3 bars) may mean you have more false signals to cope with, and 5 bars has perhaps been found to be the best general balance, not generating to much signals, but not too few.

It's like the waves on the sea. Most waves are common, shallow affairs, from which it's hard to discern the trend of the tide, but every so often you get a bigger wave that gives pushes further out. Such waves carry more importance in terms of reading the movement of the tide/sea.

As for using different numbers of bars (7 bar patterns? 9 bar patterns?) You should of course do your own experiments ("take ownership of your trading", as I was told, and indeed this is what you do) but it's probably a good idea to at least try out what works for others before starting to test alternatives.

Ok, I will answer to this one as well, as soon as I get back home, from work.

 

[Taishara]

Now i am only making 35 dollars, after being up 220 dollars on this trade.

Am reading this late (obviously) but I totally know your pain here.

 

[Taishara]

Oh ok... news in the air. I forgot. When there's news the markets stop and sit in a range for hours. So I should not trade while there's news awaiting, because that by itself totally predicts when there will be a range (ahead of the news).

Like today. News was in the air, i mean really scheduled to be released at a given time. And the markets were in a range because of that.

That bit me in the butt today as well. News... That and the fact that I was trading against the trend...

I'm sure you've seen this before... but I was that guy again tonight...

 

[Taishara]

Travis -

A couple of questions... do you not normally take pictures of your trades when you are not logging in the T2W trading journal? That kind of boggles my mind. Probably because I go back and look at them often to remind myself of what a certain pattern looked like exactly, or whatever.

How is it coming with your money management planning? Have you made any decisions about how you are going to approach that area? Or... did it get tossed completely for gambling? I hope not!

I also wanted to say your English is very good!

In reading your journal for only the past 15 - 20 pages or so, I have had a lot of thoughts about my own trading fiasco today. Where I went wrong in the first place and been questioning some of my recent decisions. I must go and think about them.

 

[Taishara]

Re: Identifying trends and stuff

So by identifying these patterns in the sea of bars, together with their position relative to the "alligator" or 3 MA's you can come up with rules that will raise the probability of entering the market when in a trend rather than when consolidating/going sideways.



I'm sorry if you find the book too much work (it's not that thick, if it helps...), I can try to give you my impressions/suggestions/summaries, I just thought it would be nice if you could at least skim the bits that seem relevant/interesting (which is what I do with many books anyway -- it's often not neccesary to read the entire thing from cover to cover) so you form your own impressions rather than getting them from me in the first instance.

Hi! I am sorry that I cannot find this, but what book did you recommend again?

I am curious about how to find these particular 5 bars wrt the EMAs. Woudl that be in the book? Or is the whole alligator working with fractal thing somewhere else?

Thanks
Tai

 

[wprins]

Re: Identifying trends and stuff

I am curious about how to find these particular 5 bars wrt the EMAs. Woudl that be in the book? Or is the whole alligator working with fractal thing somewhere else?

Hi Taishara,

The book is called "New Trading Dimensions: How to Profit from Chaos in Stocks, Bonds, and Commodities", is by Bill Williams and is available on Amazon. Edit: I notice there's a newer version here (I've not read it obviously.)

I'd be interested to discuss the ideas and concepts from the book with someone else who've read it (or relevant parts of it.) It's (for me at least) always interesting to discuss ideas (whether from books or otherwise) with others since no two people notice the same things and sometimes someone else's perspective can help your own understanding and vice-versa. I'm intending to post some comments about Bill's ideas here, unless Travis objects, in which case I'll take the discussion into another thread.

Cheers!

 

[Yamato]

Been gambling a bit, and went long and recovered from yesterday's losses. Finally. From here on, no more gambling.

In a bit I'll get down to answering the many precious messages of feedback and private messages, for which I thank you.

Tough day at work. I came home late. The situation at the Compliance Department is that we have a 75% of coffee break people and a 25% of hard workers who have to do all the work. I like to do well everything I do, so I am stuck working hard even though I don't enjoy what I am doing. I just want to get things done and not fall behind with needs to be done. The others just keep a lot of paper on their tables, to pretend they're working, and no one bothers them, because it would be a waste of time. So, when there's work to be done, everyone goes to me and the other 25% of people who work.

 

[Yamato]

Back at about 6500 just in case anyone wants to know. I've been as low as 4800, about two weeks ago.

 

[Yamato]

going long again soon, this time within the system

 

[Yamato]

Ok, done it. And respecting all rules in system. This is my last trade however, for the rest of the day.

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, whatever... I closed it early because i felt the push up was exhausted. And I was right by the way. I think I will add the rule again. I am so good today (because there's trend). And I picked the bottom... oh, man... I am so good...

 

[Yamato]

NEW SYSTEM:

PRO-TREND DISCRETIONARY SYSTEM

HOTKEYS
"B" for "buy 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
"S" for "sell 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
"C" for "close position"
----------------------
CHARTS
SET UP THESE CHARTS ON IB'S TWS:
1 DAY OF 1-minute ES, CL, GBP "line" mode with their 225-period slow moving averages
2 DAYS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 15-minutes CANDLES WITH PIVOTS
4 HOURS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 1-MINUTE CANDLES WITH 15-periods and 210-periods moving averages
----------------------
RULES
ENTRIES can be made if:
1) you sense trend (high volume/range, no news wait, touched >= 2 pivot lines, correlated all above/below their mas)
2) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
3) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines or any 0.0100s levels if beyond S2 or R2
4) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
5) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
6) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.
Early exit if you feel your move has either failed or exhausted its momentum before reaching takeprofit.

 

[Yamato]

good long signal... coming up in a few minutes

I'm going to make one more long trade

 

[Yamato]

3 minutes at the most to the signal

 

[Yamato]

it's happening....

 

[Yamato]

I entered long but I just noticed i broke my rules as it's past 20 CET

 

[Yamato]

if it hesitates, i'll close it early