1) I trade with Interactive Broker's TWS and I use their data displayed in the free version of Multicharts platform for charting the NQ. I get IB's free bundle, and I have not had to pay for anything additional. I started out trading stocks in 2012, and moved to futures when I started studying DbPhoenix's "If You Can Draw a Straight Line" thread. I never traded forex. 2) I have all but retired completely from my former trade. My last "official day" was December 17, 2013. I did do 9 hours of work in my trade in the month of January. I am taking February off completely (I never did like working in the cold). I will keep working for certain long-time customers and their referrals, but I am no longer soliciting new work. If my work truck broke down tomorrow, I would retire completely lol. In other words, I no longer need to work my trade, but I still want to do it once in a while - after nearly 30 years, can you blame me? My best guess is I will still work 10-20 hours/month - down from 60 hours/week two years ago - during the Spring and Fall. I will not work so much in the summer (I never did like working in the heat and humidity), and not at all in the Winter. 3) For the most part, I trade reversals from support and resistance levels, using retraces on a single tick chart to decide to enter a trade. This makes me usually right for a few seconds or minutes, even when the trade goes against me in the end. I am quick to cut a loss or scratch a trade, as DbPhoenix says. I can't remember having more than 2 losses in a row. But that is because if I have two losses in a row, I stop trading until price goes somewhere else. Some days price doesn't give me another opportunity during the time I give it, so I finish in the red that day. There haven't been many, but there have been several losing days for me since August. Never like the size you mention. But I am not going to make 800K in profits this year either. I do not worry about the money and I do not worry whether a day is profit or loss. I just get up and do what DbPhoenix taught me to do. 4) There are only three strategies - breakouts, retraces, and reversals - so it can't get too complicated I think - though I do see a lot of people try hard to make it complicated. My strategy is reversals. I mark the long term trend channel and its mean with the chart set to a daily bar interval, then switch the same chart window to an hourly bar interval and mark the support and resistance levels I see there, and then I change the bar interval to a 30 second bar interval and wait for 9:30 AM, and then I watch and wait. When price gets close to support or resistance, I switch to single tick chart. If price reverses and then retraces from support or resistance, I then wait to see if the reversal resumes. If it does, I trade it. If instead price "melts through support like a popsicle in July" I don't. I do trade one "breakout" type strategy which I gave examples of in the old thread. This is a trade where I buy or sell a break of what I guess you could call the "opening range." I don't know if that is accurate, since from what I know of "opening range breakout" strategies most people seem to use a fixed time interval to define the range. I do not use a fixed time for the opening range - I let price set the opening range - whether it takes 30 seconds or 30 minutes - and then I trade the breakout of that range (this assumes that I am not already in a trade - for example, I was already long when 9:30 rolled around this morning, so there was no thought of looking for an opening range breakout trade). Before someone comes along and asks why I was long, look at the price action on a single tick chart at 8:55 EST and the seconds right after, and also figure out why 3451 had a horizontal line on my chart alerting me to get alert for a reversal - a cyan colored line . The single tick chart displays has a "picture perfect" reversal with retrace - I didn't get filled that low, but I got filled a few seconds from there. Happens everyday sometime between 8:30 AM and 10:00 AM EST. Most days, anyway. I guess I shouldn't say everyday. It just seems like everyday. Everything I have been doing as far as day trading is the same as it has been since I started learning to trade the NQ emini futures with DbPhoenix's method.
I am gonna bud in just because I have been where you are. I am not trying to get in the middle of your conversation with 40 . You are have the wrong preocupations for someone who is learning. The broker is of no concern at this stage, just focus on learning, you can get access to real time quotes for free if that is what you want, and even replay for free with Ninja. Now, if you wanna learn I guess you have come to the right place, 40 is living proof of that.
Wow.. thank you so much for such a detailed and honest reply! One quick follow up question if I may. You say you switch to a tick chart when price gets close to S/R. It is my understanding that IB doesn't supply tick data per say, more like snapshots of price in fractions of time. I'm not sure what Multicharts does with this data to display it as tick data, but I wanted to ask if you have any specifics about this? When you say a single tick chart, do you mean that each tick (transaction) is displayed as one bar and in this case doesn't the chart just scroll through the screen like crazy? I realize I'm getting ahead of myself here but I want to ask now while I have the opportunity!
Oh I totally agree Niko, but I figure when it all comes together I want to be ready... who knows.. it might be soon! I enjoy learning about other parts of this trading business, and often read articles just to give the brain a rest with studying. Going through pages of db's threads requires rest breaks and hence why I look into brokers or business news. 40's story really is quite inspirational and as you say, living proof.
My stab at this... showing a 30 second bar chart since I don't have access to tick data. It appears as if price already bounced off the 6:45 bar at 3451 and now at 7:55 it came down again.... so once it bounced off you went long since buyers were there to lift it higher... correct? (I will start my own thread for NQ next week so my apologies to the original poster, I just wanted to clear up this last thing point before I stop making a mess of your thread!)
Here is what I was looking at: The main chart is the one minute bar interval. Below is what I was watching when I sent my buy order in. I know I posted a number of similar examples in the original straight line thread. If you see that little retrace on the tick chart, my trigger to buy was when price went above the little peak after the lower low and before the higher low. I don't about all the rest of what you ask about. I have had no problems trading my plan using what I have shown here in this post and the other thread.
Nothing wrong with a bit of enthusiasm! I truly appreciate the time it takes for those who have figured it out to help those who are trying to get there. Sorry about hijacking your thread.
Gold April futures look to close above the hinge, but not the most robust breakout I've ever seen from a hinge. NUGT looks like it is starting to breakout of its own hinge.