Hi Trend Fader, Yes, I am still trading. Just doing a lousy job of posting to my journal. Things have been frustrating lately. Totally breakeven. I'm about where I started the year at. Have been chasing the fool's paradise of indicator settings. Currently have backed off to using a a VS4 on the R40 chart. I have added a 30 WMA just to gauge the oscillations of price as it winds its way up and down the trend. Wish I had a better answer for you. I have also been plagued by what seems like an extremely slow pace of the market after the first hour or so. I guess I am pretty impatient in waiting for the trade to at least get to a point where I could move a stop to B/E. Here's a chart of Friday.
Unfortunately, here is the same chart from Valentine's Day when it probably would have totally eaten your lunch. The five point trade in the morning was nice, but if you didn't stop there you were in a world of pain. I wish I was more confident that a single, clean indicator could provide an edge. I am also studying market profile as a completely different approach to looking at charts. Unfortunately, I find in real-time that it is hard to just step up and buy or sell value. It's just so ambiguous. I sometimes feel like I am just completely barking up the wrong tree when looking for an edge. Unfortunately, I don't know what the right tree is. I don't know that looking at other markets is going to help anything. The Russell seems to move more than most. They all seem noisy to me and exhibit the same qualities. Smooth one day, choppy the next. The problem is in knowing which is which and after 6 years I don't seem to have any greater clue to this. I don't think it's just me. Pit traders have difficulty when they move to the screen. There just don't seem to be many clues or much reason to what the next move may be.
<i>"There just don't seem to be many clues or much reason to what the next move may be."</i> That is very true... when you are looking at one short-term chart expecting to see the whole forest there. Not gonna happen. Two things can change your results dramatically: use of a second chart to filter directional bias with, and less emphasis on indicators for price entry = more reliance on price patterns / structure. When your opening statement in this thread dismissed use of more than one chart to trade off, and your choice was smaller than 10 minute length, the outcome here was predictable. Learn to use a longer-term chart (aka 15min or similar) to filter directional swings, and get good at 1,2,3 patterns - flags - coils - trend lines - retracements. If you are willing to add those components, you can succeed. If you insist on using one small-frame chart for bias and indicators for precision entries, expect the same results to project forward indefinitely. Hope this helps
jasper - I'm curious, have you kept a record of where you would be if you took EVERY trade and stayed in EVERY trade till the chart changed? It appears that you are always in a trade, therefore, when a big move comes, you are already in. Now, the question is - can you profit enough of 4+ pt moves to stomach the choppy areas? Have you noticed when times are more choppy than others? I think Austin gave you some good advice, but I'm also wondering how the system plays out w/o 'human' interference.
Here's today's chart showing 2 sets of Volatility Stop (VS) Lines for a 4-tick range chart of ER2. Yellow lines are 5.0 VS setting and blue lines are 2.5 VS setting.
Using the charts like the one I just attached, I've logged every trade for the past 3 weeks (since Feb. 1). The results don't look good. The data and P/L curves are in attached Excel file. For each signal (2.5 and 5.0 VS lines) I took every signal and compared holding until I got a flip in opposite direction vs. taking a profit at X dollars. You can play with X in the spreadsheet if you want to see affect. It's currently set at $150 or 15 ticks. I used $10 for slippage and commission. Perhaps someone can come up with a filter to trade this system successfully. I've looked at lots of variables but can't get anywhere. (i.e. - only taking 2.5 trades in direction of 5.0 trades, etc.) In the spirit of keeping this simple I have not introduced any other indicators in my analysis.
Defer: as a single indicator in Ensign, the parabolic SAR is much better than the VS. Almost any parameter setting is profitable. This is not so with the VS.
Howdy gfmchina, Any chance you can post a chart with a brief description of how you would use parabolic SAR. Cheers
Looking at the charts, they seem to offer plenty of cool trades based on bars turning green/red. What seems to be the problem? Interference based on lack of conviction? I have never used that sort of trading approach before, mechanical? I am simply curious why not take all trades and not pull the plug early on the trades?