From what I can tell, you are looking at the market in a way that will give you an excellent chance to make some money. Your comment about not taking that short because the swing was getting old was "right on". I mentioned last week that as the volume declines during late June, July, and August, you might see the market a little more clearly from the 500 tick chart perspective. It is taking 7-10 minutes just to fill one 1000 tick bar, especially between 11:00a-3:00pm. You'll just need to make some adjustments on targets and stops. Today was a total break-even day for me. I only took 3 trades. Why? I don't like getting into a position right before the 10:00am number and that's what got the momentum going. From 11:00am we seem to be just chopping around in a small range, typical summer behavior. After 3:00pm, I took a couple of stabs at the long side. On the 500 tick chart, there is a 1st Sig Cross at 15:07 that was right at the 62% retracement of the prior swing. Perfect, except it came back down for a re-test at 15:21 and stopped me out for a breakeven trade. I shut down at that point, but you can see on that 2nd test of the 911.00 area, the 3/10 had no downside momentum, so when it turned back up, it was for a nice few points. This is what I was trying to convey earlier. Watch for those divergences on the 3/10 at the 50%-62% areas. If there is no momentum on those re-tests, take an entry when the 3/10 starts to move away from the zero line. The rest of the week is going to be very low volume. It doesn't mean you can't make money. Just keep in mind that between 11am-3pm, we are likely to see very small ranges.
A few had asked for some examples of the divergence trade. The market pulled back to the 62% retracement this morning and the 500 tick chart had a nice divergence signal on the 3-10 histogram. I am watching the 500 tick chart as volume has declined (see previous posts). The 1000 tick chart had a 1st Cross entry at approximately the same area. I hope some of you were able to see this as it happened. Here's a picture of the divergence on the 500 tick chart.
HAHAHA! Brilliant! Mangobobsect endorsing a xover strat for the ES!!! I knew you were a bit of a trading nugget, but now i know you are the complete trading C*NT! HAHAHA! What a tosser! Dackster.
You may have your MACD set wrong. I think it should be set for (3,10,16). Check donkee's first post again to verify.
I was wondering that myself. I put up a chart with the 2 settings and it really isn't much of a difference. At the same time my MACD doesn't really look like the ones presented, not sure why that is.
ESSTrader: If you downloaded Ninja's LBR310 indicator from their forum (see nkhoi post of 5-13-09) then your settings are correct.
Yes...I think she uses the Price Ocillator which is figured with simple MAs with an average of the PO for a signal line. This makes for a smoother indicator than the macd. The macd is figured with Exp. MAs an isn't as smooth. LBR may use something a little diff. than donkee. Having the last two perameters of the macd transposed doesn't change the look much but does change it a little.
Remember, everyone's tick data is going to be a bit different. If you're using Zen-Fire, those 1000 tick bars can be a little different from TS data. If you make sure your settings are SMA and not EMA, the charts should be pretty close. I actually didn't adjust the MACD. I wrote my own TS code. My histogram is taking the 3 SMA - 10 SMA. The 16 line is the 16 SMA of the (3SMA-10SMA). With TS it is pretty simple. I'm not good with C+, but the link to the LBR3-10 code for NT is correct. The main point of all of this is to help with entries on pull backs or give you some guidance on when momentum is subsiding at retracement levels, PP areas, or re-tests of previous highs / lows. Have a nice Holiday weekend!
DonKee, great thread! I am new to this tick chart. Anybody uses Ninja Trader with IB data feed? I got far less bars per day (~10-15 min per bar) if using 1000 ticks or 500 ticks. I have to adjust to 100 ticks. Any suggestions ? Thanks.