I'm still working on it. I've been making a little bit most days. One point today, for example. I like looking at range charts w/ VS on them just from a simplicity point of view. I'm not entirely sold on their utility, however. They can put you in every trend, but put you in the chop, too. And when it's chopping, you are going the wrong way every time. Currently, I have R30, R60 and R120 charts up with a VS4 on all of them. I am trying to see if there is a useful correlation between them. For example, only trading in the direction of the R120 trend. I tend to trade most from 9:30-11:30. When I get up, I am having a hard time wanting to risk the profit later in the day. In the recent past, things got slow and chopped over lunch. Then in the afternoon, the movements tended to be erratic. The mornings are best as far as smoother, directional moves. There might be something, as well, to scalping .5-1.0 pt on every signal on the R30. There are plenty of times this would pay and times it would not. Times when scalping with a bracket order would give a profit and holding would turn into a loss. Unfortunately, you will never get exposed to the 5.0 point moves we sometimes see and that could make your whole day on a couple of contracts. At least I'm in the black, but this is no holy grail.
might want to try incorporating some other methods into your trading to help you during the chop. Check out Mark Fisher's book, Logical Trader or Spydertrader's thread on futures which involves charting the intraday channels and trends. See what you can combine with what you do to improve exits and entries.
Thanks optioncoach, I've read Fisher's book a couple of times. When I started trading I read over 50 books the first year. I've only kept three: Logical Trader Trading in the Zone Reminiscenses of a Stock Operator Every other indicator based system I've seen has the same problems the VS does, if not more. At least with the VS when it changes color there is no question you just got a signal. With some of the systems I have seen out there like the CCI and the B-Line, there really are no clear signals. They seem to work for some, but not for me. I played with pivots, fibs, pyrapoint, etc. They don't strike me as being much better. For every time the price turns at a pivot or fib line, there are others where it just keeps going. Just not a clear enough signal for me. Range charts seem to speak to me better than volume, minute or tick. They seem cleaner. I started with 5 min, then 3 min. Moved to tick. Moved to volume. Then settled on constant range. They are certainly lots better when displaying 24 hour data. I appreciate all of the posts to this thread. Especially those posting when I have been so negligent in keeping it going. Thanks.
You are right a lot of indicators do not work. For the most part most indicators are not very help for intraday trading. Fischer's book is important though as it teaches you to draw lines in the sand for directional biases and stops. Also pivot points are important target points Bo Yoder in his book shows how the 20 EMA has a lot of significane as a pullback target or reversal. Spydertrader is a study of the market swings and changes in trend. The point is not to overlay every indicator but to learn what these tools are working to interpret and then apply. I am not overlaying numerous oscillators or mACDs and such. I am learning how to use some indicators for price targets and trend analysis to interpret the data. Look at the bigger picture of what fisher is doing and instead of adding more indicators work to remove some of the noise. The pursuit of this knowledge lately has help clear some clouds and a means to improve my trading. The final results remain to be seen but I am "seeing" things better than I did last year with respect to intraday futures. Not saying to abandon what you are using, just refine the visualization to weed out noise. You should strive to find a few good entries each day not just take any one that appears. If confirming signals of a trend reversal exist, an entry is better than when the market is chopping. Take a look at Fisher and Spydertrader's journal again and think about adding a 20 period EMA and 40 period EMA as well as pivot points. See where the market stops or reverses or confirms the trend.