Thanks AAA. Do you prefer trading the futures as opposed to individual stocks? What are the advantages? I've always wondered given the leverage offered by futures and the ease of shorting why there aren't more traders gravitating towards these intruments. They seem to offer more flexibility / and most important-diversification in terms of market risk/activity. If financial futures are quiet there are the ags, metals,energy,etc. They can be shorted without having to use conversions/bullets,etc. Tax angle-long term cap gains, plus in the case of e-platforms, you don't have to deal with specialists and MM's. The only thing I did'nt like was you can't do volume analysis tape reading coz there ain't time and sales, just sales. thanks in advance for your insights.
GATrader - Re: time & sales for futures - you're right for the non-electronic match markets, they're basically still picking up a sale by listening to the pit and keying it into a computer that then puts it on the tape (price only, no volume info for the transaction). But the electronic markets like the SPX/NDX eminis and other eminis traded on Globex are done via electronic match and generate real time and sales data (i.e., not just price but also actual volume traded).
Also with futures you normally can plot instead of volume the "tick volume". This in my experience is a pretty good approximation of volume ideal for analysis e.g is this potential head & shoulders pattern displaying the right volume pattern?
Funster, would you go into more detail what and why "tick volume" is a more important indicator.....maybe an example??....trying to learn TIA
Has anyone ever used (heard of even) TCI Corp. They came down to the San Diego DaytradersUSA meeting Saturday and gave a presentation. It was very interesting. Their system gives "go LONG or go SHORT" signals in almost anything that can be traded. Just wondering if it is the money maker they claim. It sure is profitable in the backtesting, but then so am I in hindsight. I may subscribe for a month just to play around with the various settings and see how it does. Thanks,
"Funster, would you go into more detail what and why "tick volume" is a more important indicator.....maybe an example??....trying to learn TIA" It is not a MORE important indicator - it is just a good approximator of volume, where that is unavailable. For example you might suspect that you have a head and shoulders top on your hands, and therefore looking for the tell tale low volume on the right shoulder. If if is high volume instead prices are more likely to carry up up instead.
"any more updates on Powertradesignals? Hi Newbie: I enjoyed reading about your progress with powertradesignals.com. I was just curious how you have been doing the past month, and if you are able to match the impressive website results. Thanks for any info." Vikesfan- The system results haven't been great....but they have been profitable. Only up a tad over $2,000 in 2 1/2 months I think. Been short the Yen which has been an awesome trade....and the one keeping me afloat. That is net profits after the monthly charge. Hopefully it will pick back up.....
I don't know if I need to keep publishing my results though since I read on a Thread that PT entered into Don Brights trading vendor contest thingie. He should do a better job at analyzing the results than I will I assume.
Hi Newbie: Thanks a lot for the update. I appreciate your insights. If I try PowerTradeSignals.com I'll let you know how its going. I was looking at their S&P Hedge system, which has had great hypotheticals. Of course, we both know how good hypotheticals can look compared to actual trading. Thanks again. Vikesfan.
Newbie, I'd say keep posting your results if it's not too much trouble. I think you should be happy to be ahead in this market. The nature of commodity trading is that you get lots of small losers then one big winner. That's why they say cut your losses and let your winners run. It's a bit tough emotionally, and it's hard to hang on to that big winner.