DGBro, If that is true, why are indicators such as ADX, SNR, MA's etc any different? An indicator may be above a certain threshold level on one timeframe but if you were to look at other timeframes that same indicator may give a conflicting signal ... just curious...
Actually, no, not with our indicators. Because our indicators automatically adapt to the dominant market cycle, they tend to be pretty uniform across all time frames. (The dominant market cycle is the same no matter what time frame you look at.) So, all we need to do is set them to update every tick, and decide how often our human eyes get a look at a new bar. So for us, deciding which time frame to use is largely a factor of what we find comfortable. Some traders like to see price data every 5 minutes, some don't mind waiting for 100-minute bars. Myself, I think I'd freak out if our indicators popped up an alert for a trade, and I was still looking at price data from 90 or so minutes ago that might not be showing the beginning of a trend, but that's just me. Of course, I'm not sure how our indicators would work with tick-bars. I'll have to investigate that. Might be that they work even better with them, might not be. DGBrothers
DGB, you are right about the composition of tick bars. They somewhat self adapt to the market, drawing more bars when the action is faster, and less when slower. This has the effect of smoothing out the action in fast markets. Where a 2m bar might be 10 points tall on ES, a 100 tick bar will draw 5 bars and each one may only be a max of 3 pts tall. But the reverse happens in slow markets. A slow trending market will create a very tall tick bar, while the minute base bars for the same move will be smoother. Which is better is a matter of preference and system. Another impact on TS development is that you cannot add additional data streams to a tick based chart. So if your system relies on price and $VIX, you will have to use minute bars to include both data streams. Actually, you can use an external dll to get the $VIX data into the system, but it takes more effort.
Pushpop Dll works very easily for using data from other charts, ie. combining Tick charts with other data. Traders2traders.com has this for free.
Yes, I've got PushPop, it seems to be a pretty nifty item. Too bad someone can't program a 'take away all restrictions/bugs/data errors/problems from TradeStation' .DLL, I think I'd pay some good money for that one. Ditto for a .DLL that does the same for Windows. The PushPop 7 documentation is somewhat sparse...does anyone have a more comprehensive set of documentation for it, hopefully with examples for each DLL specification and TradeStation specification? Could you use this to take the data out of TradeStation, UDP it to a web server running a Java program designed to rebuild the data and chart it on a website in real-time? I was thinking of trying to recreate the TradeStation interface look-and-feel on a website, complete with pop-up alerts, etc. This would give real-time access of what we see to our clients, who can then trade the same signals we trade. We could call it eTradeStation! DGBrothers
The easiest way to define a trend is with a simple moving average. Longer term moving average can be used for pivot points. For example 5 and 15, or 8 and 20.
[1] I am assuming you have most of the books recommended here ,which may or may not be true. [2] A strong trend [my favorite] won't pull back as much. That is compared an earlier time period,like last 5-50 + days approximate.[intraday or daily.] [3]A nother sign of strength ,a strong trend will persistantly breakthru all of our profit targets and best estimates. Like that NASDAQQQ bear killer rally last OCT- NOV. _________________ ''Rare book collecting also a passion''-BRUCE KOVNER, top trader
Moving away from basic TA, the best way is to identify oversold and overbought extremes within the trend and correlate them with key market levels. For example, if you run a MA over the daily accumulation of issues, you will find that this indicator will give you great oversold and overbought extremes. When overbought levels are seen and upper key resistance is neared, then the odds of the trend reversing become high. I try to focus on indicators that identify the actual psychology in the market and not just the basic tools that are predicated upon open, high, low and close values in the market.
Originally posted by DGBrothers Breakout, in the screenshot you posted a while back, I notice that you're using 100-tick bars. If I understand the concept correctly, a new bar will only be drawn after 100 ticks, is that right? Right...each bar has 100 Ticks Can you tell me if there is an advantage to using tick bars instead of time bars? I like tick charts better because I feel they show support and resistance levels with more clarity. If I'm thinking correctly, in a slow market (fewer trades, fewer ticks), there would be fewer bars drawn, and in a faster market there would be more bars drawn, right? Right... Does this allow one to keep up more easily with price action? I think so... How does this affect the EasyLanguage code in a non-discretionary trading system? I haven't had any problems using easylanguage with tick charts, unless the code specifically requires minute bars... I'm playing around with time frames for our new trading system, and trying to determine the best one. I didn't stop to think that the best time frame might be no time frame at all, but tick bars instead. Hmmmmm....(^: Let me know of your experience with tick bars, ok? I started using them about 6 months ago, and I'm sold. I used to use 2 minute bars, but I don't think I'll be going back. I'll post a couple of gifs to show what I mean about seeing S/R levels better. Mind you, this is just personal preference. Another trader may prefer the 5 minute chart. The 100T chart shows the resistance levels I see between 12:30 and 1:30 (CST). On the 5 minute chart, you can see there's much less data. Hope this helps. Thanks, DGBrothers