in a nutshell at best it is guesswork it is too complicated too many rules cannot be backtested stop losses are too wide I should scale in I should trade with I.B. I cannot see the difference between candles and bars I should consider slippage and the only way to see if it is working is to trade it with real money
don't take it personal. this board is the wild west of communication. people love direct, tough talking. especially when they smell the fragrance of new meat on the table ... and remember, most of the guys here are idiots anyways.
Allright The best thing I can do is to test if it can survive real trading. I'll keep on papertrading a few more weeks and will jump right in. I was thinking ELITE TRADER was a bunch of CIVILIZED real traders with experience and willing to share their knowlegde and wisdow. I can see some of you fit this profil, but you are exceptions. For the real traders, best trades. For the others, good luck with the markets, you'll need it.
get used to this. once you are in the mood, it becomes fun to nil down some smarties ... and in the end it is a volatile place ... always good for trading. take care and do well peace
I thought some of the questions were meant to be helpful. I am sorry that you did not find them so. So let me try again. Consider the word "up". You have applied three simple moving averages. (BTW, there is a reason they call them "simple".) You require them to be "up". Now in children's books, "up" is clear, as when Theodore Geisel says "Pup is up". However in trading, one should define "up". I suspect that you define "up" by scaling each of the three tick interval charts so that they look "up" to you when price is making a significant move. Now that is very sloppy, and certainly not amenable to any kind of testing, back, forward, or sideways. "Up" should be defined numerically. That is why when I want to know what's "up", I run a filter estimator on it and set a testable threshold. Should you progress beyond "up" to "up fast", a quantifiable. velocity estimator would be equally handy. However, I do not recommend that you try "up faster", as second derivatives of price tend to be a little "slippery". That's a technical term, also quantifiable. And whoever it was that advised you to quit fucking around and just trade it was right. If it REALLY works, you can trade one car on anything cheap, like QM for example. Even NQ is cheaper than ES. Bonne chance!
follow-up For those interested, my setup did not survive the trading. It was ok with simulator but that is it. Or maybe it was just me not acting the same way as I was before when I was sim-trading. Anyway, system discarted. You told me so!