Hi bilbod, The general impression I got from this thread and from some PM's I received is that this is supposed to be a scalping method and I was doing it "wrong" by holding my trades for so long. That's the reason I was reducing my profit targets rather than letting the market stop me out.
Hi IF, 1 man's scalp is another man's swing trade. Some people consider a scalp to be no more than 1 or 2 ticks, other people consider 20 or more ticks to be a scalp. The is no universally accepted definition. Some observations about your last chart. Your 2 losses came when the trend changed direction. That is typical of a trend following method. What follows are some guidelines I use to anticipate a trend change or bigger pullback. I look for 3 price waves in 1 direction and then expect a change in trend or bigger Pull Back before the trend resumes. Sometimes there are only 2 waves and other times there are 4 or more but 3 is most frequent. The PB usually retraces the entire last wave and that is where I look to enter, anticipating the trend to continue. Pay attention to all S/R zones especially those from larger market fractals. Prices move between S/R and seem to be attracted to them like a magnet. I look to take a counter trend position when I see 3 price wave complete at strong S/R with a drop in momentum at the end. As far as price targets go, you can get the benefits of both scalping and swing trading by scaling out of your position. 4 example, if you enter a trade with 3 units, you can take 1 unit off for a scalp (say 4-8 ticks depending on volatility), then move stop 2 BE+1, you now have a "free trade." 2nd unit off at nearest S/R, trail a stop on the 3rd unit. If you check out Lance Beggs website, he has several short videos (4-9 mins each) about trading price action and support/resistance. He also wrote a short essay about S/R trading in an online financial website, I don't recall which 1; however, Google is your freind.
Sometimes LIFE is too funny! Clear the chart and FREE YOUR MIND. This is almost way too simple.... When the colors match, trade in the appropriate direction: If fast ma above slow ma and both aqua, go long. If fast ma below slow ma and both magenta, go short.
I remember the first time I made a chart that looked like that. I was super-excited and thought I would make thousands a day. Until I realized that the quickest you can enter is on the second bar of any given color (you need the first bar to close to confirm the current color/direction) and often by that time, it's too late to make any profits. This is more apparent with bar or candle charts. Also, sometimes the bar that ends the current trend takes away all your profits because you have to wait for it to confirm itself as the new color before you are sure the trend is over. However you can make an absolute killing in trendy markets this way. edit - what causes your bar to be yellow instead of aqua or purple? Slope? % change from previous direction? edit 2 - or is the yellow filtering the candle between price slope changes (kind of like what I was talking about how the fastest one can enter is on the second candle after a sloe color change... is your yellow price color the first candle after a slope change?)?
DISCIPLINE. No bars, candles, SQUIGGLYS, etc... Computer generates long/short/wait signal. Trader just has to PULL THE TRIGGER WITHOUT HESITATION. Then once in the trade, manage the trade.
The MA IN COLOR indicator uses YELLOW. I didn't write it. My jjrvat Trigger indicator compares current MA value versus the previous MA value to determine up/down.
Oh I thought the fast line there was price. n/m. I still don't get why it's yellow in between each blue/purple change tho. So you don't have price on that chart at all?
Code: //+------------------------------------------------------------------+ //| MA_In_Color.mq4 | //| Copyright © 2004, MetaQuotes Software Corp. | //| Modified from LSMA_In_Color to use any MA by Robert Hill | //+------------------------------------------------------------------+ #property copyright "Copyright © 2006, FX Sniper and Robert Hill" #property link "http://www.metaquotes.net/" //---- indicator settings #property indicator_chart_window #property indicator_buffers 3 #property indicator_color1 Yellow #property indicator_color2 Aqua #property indicator_color3 Magenta extern int MAPeriod=5; extern string note1 = "Type: SMA=0, EMA=1, SMMA=2, LWMA=3"; extern int MAType=1; extern int myLineWidth=3; //---- buffers double ExtMapBuffer1[]; double ExtMapBuffer2[]; double ExtMapBuffer3[]; /* PARM6 FOR MA = PRICE_CLOSE 0 Close price. PRICE_OPEN 1 Open price. PRICE_HIGH 2 High price. PRICE_LOW 3 Low price. PRICE_MEDIAN 4 Median price, (high+low)/2. PRICE_TYPICAL 5 Typical price, (high+low+close)/3. PRICE_WEIGHTED 6 Weighted close price, (high+low+close+close)/4. PARM3 FOR MA = MODE_SMA 0 Simple moving average, MODE_EMA 1 Exponential moving average, MODE_SMMA 2 Smoothed moving average, MODE_LWMA 3 Linear weighted moving average. */ //---- variables int MAMode; string strMAType; string tShortName ; color ColorMA ; //+------------------------------------------------------------------+ //| Custom indicator initialization function | //+------------------------------------------------------------------+ int init() { IndicatorBuffers(3); //---- drawing settings SetIndexBuffer(2,ExtMapBuffer1); SetIndexBuffer(1,ExtMapBuffer2); SetIndexBuffer(0,ExtMapBuffer3); SetIndexStyle(2,DRAW_LINE,STYLE_SOLID,myLineWidth); SetIndexStyle(1,DRAW_LINE,STYLE_SOLID,myLineWidth); SetIndexStyle(0,DRAW_LINE,STYLE_SOLID,myLineWidth); switch (MAType) { case 1: strMAType="EMA"; MAMode=MODE_EMA; break; case 2: strMAType="SMMA"; MAMode=MODE_SMMA; break; case 3: strMAType="LWMA"; MAMode=MODE_LWMA; break; case 4: strMAType="LSMA"; break; default: strMAType="SMA"; MAMode=MODE_SMA; break; } tShortName = "maic"+strMAType+ " (" +MAPeriod + ") " ; IndicatorShortName(tShortName); //---- initialization done return(0); } double LSMA(int Rperiod, int shift) { int i; double sum; int length; double lengthvar; double tmp; double wt; length = Rperiod; sum = 0; for(i = length; i >= 1 ; i--) { lengthvar = length + 1; lengthvar /= 3; tmp = 0; tmp = ( i - lengthvar)*Close[length-i+shift]; sum+=tmp; } wt = sum*6/(length*(length+1)); return(wt); } int deinit() { ObjectDelete(tShortName); return(0); } int start() { double MA_Cur, MA_Prev; int limit; int counted_bars = IndicatorCounted(); //---- check for possible errors if (counted_bars<0) return(-1); //---- last counted bar will be recounted if (counted_bars>0) counted_bars--; limit = Bars - counted_bars; for(int i=limit; i>=0; i--) { if (MAType == 4) { MA_Cur = LSMA(MAPeriod,i); MA_Prev = LSMA(MAPeriod,i+1); } else { MA_Cur = iMA(NULL,0,MAPeriod,0,MAMode,PRICE_CLOSE,i); MA_Prev = iMA(NULL,0,MAPeriod,0,MAMode,PRICE_CLOSE,i+1); } //========== COLOR CODING =========================================== ExtMapBuffer3[i] = MA_Cur; //red ExtMapBuffer2[i] = MA_Cur; //green ExtMapBuffer1[i] = MA_Cur; //yellow if (MA_Prev > MA_Cur) { ExtMapBuffer2[i] = EMPTY_VALUE; ColorMA = indicator_color3 ; } else if (MA_Prev < MA_Cur) { ExtMapBuffer1[i] = EMPTY_VALUE; //-1 red/greem tight ColorMA = indicator_color2 ; } else { ColorMA = indicator_color1 ; ExtMapBuffer1[i]=EMPTY_VALUE;//EMPTY_VALUE; ExtMapBuffer2[i]=EMPTY_VALUE;//EMPTY_VALUE; } } MessageBox(DoubleToStr(ExtMapBuffer1[0], Digits)); MessageBox(DoubleToStr(ExtMapBuffer2[0], Digits)); if (ObjectFind(tShortName) != 0) { ObjectCreate(tShortName,OBJ_ARROW,0,Time[0],MA_Cur); ObjectSet(tShortName,OBJPROP_ARROWCODE,SYMBOL_RIGHTPRICE); ObjectSet(tShortName,OBJPROP_COLOR,ColorMA); } else { ObjectMove(tShortName,0,Time[0],MA_Cur); ObjectSet(tShortName,OBJPROP_COLOR,ColorMA); } return(0); } //+------------------------------------------------------------------+ See the price in the white box on the right axis. This is an exercise in DISCIPLINE. If I don't take the trade, then I am NOT following the rules. If I take the trade, then all I do is apply money management. Either the trade hits the TP or the SL. I just set the exits, sit back, wait and watch. Purely mechanical. Could actually write a program to do it but that's not practicing DISCIPLINE.