Problem is there was a false triangle breakout up, followed by a false breakout down on smaller triangles before the "real" breakout up I got chopped up early (I am trading sim now, probably wouldn't have bothered trading today if I was using real money). However, once the early morning high of 2026.75 was taken out I declared the trend officially "up" and started looking for a spot to buy. Got long on the 2nd dip at 2025 ( I was a little troubled when 2023.5 printed which was technically a LL than 2023.75, but then it took off to the upside and I trailed my stop, looking at previous bar lows, and didn't get stopped out until 2035 (My sim gave me a fill of 2035.25. Didn't trade after that.
I have not found the perfect combination, so if you do please let me know. Every charting package and data source has its advantages and disadvantages. I use AmiBroker, which is a terrific value and has lots of great capabilities. The downside is the support is only via email and there is a big learning curve, which I guess you have with all of them. I've used eSignal, IQFeed and IB for data. I have found the most reliable to be IB and you can't beat the price--free. The BIG downside to that is limited backfill. There are ultra high end data subscriptions available like CQG, but I'm not ready to spend hundreds of dollars per month on data. Someday, perhaps, but not now.
just sim trading today. 1 trade stopped out at par plus 1 tick. I have a question about pivot highs and lows. I am purposely avoiding any software that uses dots and circles to indicate these points. I think this forces me to learn how to spot them better. I like to define my pivot highs as the highest candle with a minimum of 3 lower highs to each side. Sometimes, tho, it gets a bit confusing since u often get minor pivot highs and lows before establishing what I define as a major pivot high or low. I often find it difficult to decide whether to use the minor pivots to define the trend or to wait for the more reliable major pivots. Any comments to clarify this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
So you're saying the anchor chart is showing higher highs and higher lows but your base chart is showing lower lows and lower highs, so you should go short?
Jaxon, Don't let noise fool you, you must be aware of the high/low pivots and not just trust a TL penetration especially with no trend because the real key are those pivots. Think about it, a TL broke momentarily but what was the previous trend that made such break meaningful ? There was no trend! A higher high or a lower low is what really counts with triangles because inside they are structured as higher lows and lower highs. Took me a while to realize how to play them correctly. Anek
Yes, at the first stage, where you should really learn to spot MS's, imho one should focus on that task only. Obviously you can spot and mark MSs on your anchor chart as well, what you shouldn't do is to try to find a correlation between the 2 charts at this stage of learning 1 step at the time that was the message. There are several opinions about using a higher timeframe to base your entry (Elder triple screen Trading System for example), in the end it really boils down to what you are trying to achieve, I'm sure a microscalper is not interested in knowing the trend direction on a daily chart. What i find really useful instead is drawing major S&R e Trendlines on the anchor chart, we have seen several examples lately, say on the anchor chart an uptrending channel has formed, instead on the base chart a lh ll sequence (MS) has formed or a M formation or a H&S is about to breakdown the neckline. When this happens and price at the same time reaches the right trendline of the uptrending channel on the anchor chart this is a pivotal event. It often produces a powerful move, say again you have a H&S on the base chart and it breaks the neckline and at the same time it breaks the major trendline you have a confluence of signals. Even better in terms of amplitude of the produced move is when the H&S fails and instead the major trendline holds...kaboom Or if I'm in a trade and the price reaches this area I'll take my profit and wait to reenter when the mkt has decided what to do I'll repost a chart so you can see what I mean. So that's what I use the anchor chart for, I use it to spot pivotal areas of the price action