Eusdaiki, the former thread proprietor was inquiring as to the source of the DOM data, e.g., your broker. Also he inquired as to whether or not you are in a formal professional trading training program, if you are at liberty to say. I think he was in the process of trying to determine if you are an autodidact, as you do not appear to be mentored. It is your choice whether you wish to be mentored here, and by whom. If you choose Socrates, you will inevitably be on the receiving end of the Socratic method (so dull), and if you already know it, why do you need him? If you choose me, be prepared for a lengthy, and possibly endless, trading psychoanalysis (which will improve more than just your trading). Should neither of us be satisfactory to you, perhaps you would like Dr. Arthur Deco. His methods are brutal, but they obtain fast results. Consider his style the "your insurance only covers sixteen sessions of therapy" approach. If you need a woman's touch, Cassandra is available, but she charges by the fifteen minutes, plus the room, and I doubt that you can afford her, but I myself do take some comfort there when the hydrostatic pressure of trading becomes unbearable. Kindest regards, Duref.
I think that it was quite timely that (Ms.?) Smilingsync rightly objected to Enqueue's crudity. For truly I do believe he was a bad influence on this community. He represents that worst of all possible trading paradigms, the fallacious (note the spelling) notion that a deranged person can trade well. I myself believe quite the opposite, and I have nearly forty years of professional experience to back my claim up. Henceforth we shall concentrate here on improving the character of the participants, knowing full well that they will be all the better for it, whether they think they need it or not. Herewith the first lesson. All of you who countertrend trade are recalcitrant recidivist self-indulgent babies. You know who you are. And I know who you are. It is so patently obvious that the profit potential against the trend is smaller, and the odds of successfully timing moves smaller, that only a congenital cretin would trade that way. Yet you persist. What is the origin of this behavior? Vengeful childhood fantasies of omnipotence arising from utter helplessness. Falsely inculcated educational experiences of omniscience flowing from deterministic mathematical and technical training. Drug usage in elementary school leading to hypotactic brain hypoplasia. The desperate need to be superior born from the miserable inferiority of being a social misfit. Think about it. Then we'll talk.
Arschloch des jungen esel. I do apologise. We Brits may be phlegmatic but even a commodious throat such as mine tires of nasal runoff eventually. Damn the insolubility of mannitol. Anyway, dues must be paid and I'll do my worst to cough up a sou too. The mention of VWAP by our esteemed piscine enthusiast made me prick up my ears, though I am ashamed to say they were somewhat distressed by the unfamiliar pronunciation of said acronym's latter syllable. After all when was the last time one "ropped" on the door. Never mind such disgusting prejudice disguised as linguistic trivia. What interests my amateur eyes until they tire of imperfection and glance over to the next holy grail is percentage divergence from VWAP, since its uncanny ability to provide S/R has already been covered (though I'd add thanks to my degree in the bleedin' obvious that this may be cause institutional types get frightfully excited by it and base all manner of algorithms around the poor wee mobile level). I'm afraid my perversion is not sufficiently ingrained to tempt me to the joys of enqueuing yet. However my studies of young Miss YM have revealed that an x% divergence from VWAP often precedes a satisfactory reversal and I suspect this might apply to the NQ. Now given the changing moods of the lady, volatility needs to be taken into account in some arbitrary historical manner, so I use a 15 min ATR to determine a suitable x. The larger the ATR (perhaps a ten period) the larger x needs to be to invite a low risk entry. But during current conditions (last few weeks) 0.6% has worked well for YM, give or take the odd 0.8% and post-Fed 1%. I imagine 0.6% may translate to around 1% for NQ given her propensity to outdo her lower beta sisters. Divide the 15 min ATR into risk bands and off you go. Anyone intimate with Excel could code this in a trice. As soon as they have I am sure it will fail to work as the market grinds yet enough ephemeral edge into oblivion. --- The post below presents an analysis of a UK stock that merits attention from anyone remotely interested in trading. The principles can I imagine be extended to any liquid instrument. Please register if you need to, especially anyone who can fill the embarassing void between Ht... and Hz... in the list of members. Yep, that's a tall order I admit. But it's worth it, I promise. Transcends the humble mechanical / statistical edge by a number of furlongs and perhaps even teaches one to fish, hypothetically speaking of course. http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showpost.php?p=264199&postcount=4 Incidentally, I do not mean to hawk a "rival" community here and quite understand if Baron wishes to purge the above. 3. Ross Hooks. Oh no, not hooks again you cry. You have a wealth of algae to digest and could do without the distraction. But they're so useful, so blissfully simple for entering during pullbacks in the direction of the trend. The Traders' Trick Entry worked a treat today on the 2 min. Simply wait for a bar that doesn't make a new low (in a down trend). This is the hook. Then wait further while it retraces until you are forced to sell 1 tick below the low of up to 4 pullback bars. So while the pullback makes HLs you keep moving your stop entry up until a bar eventually takes a out a previous low and stops you in. Context helps here, obviously. You want good velocity, steepness, bar length and volume in the trend direction and the opposite during the pullback. If this pattern starts to reverse then beware a ... reversal. Stop outs are common but small if you place the stop just above the pullback bar that pierces your stop entry point. Targets of course are a matter for test and refinement, while decision to enter and perhaps scratch on occasion a matter for discretion. I believe Porgie won't like that cause he says discretion always loses. I say discretion when used to provide context in tandem with a sound rule-based entry/exit/MM method can help avoid the stinkers. You know exactly what to do if you've chosen to do it, in other words. But what do I know? Perhaps the real-time power of the human brain is useless in the face of an assiduous slice of data mined pie. It xan certainly be unreliable and wicked, especially given the rank taint of unwelcome emotions. Sorry, that's so old hat and unintentionally little mean to Porgie too. What Nqnq desires is fresh insight and I have none to offer. Once again, I do apologise for intruding into this thread. My reason for posting this drivel was simply to voice my enthusiasm for this amusing and provocative salon of multiple sobriquets and their shared wisdom. Then I got carried away. But I think there are plentiful jewels within the kimberlite (excluding this post of course) and I hope they continue to be laid by you all. Preferably without me, I'm sure you'll agree, but I will continue to lurk and imbibe all the same. Meanwhile I've reprogrammed the old limit order box to deal in 99s, just to keep the volume filters on their toes. I call it the 99 fake with some affection. Edit - oops forgot the obligatory hindsight chart of the trades I wish I had taken. See below.
Hooks 'n' ting ... sorry so unclear ... and 5 min not 2 min ... ah well. Just for demonstration of principle really.
Ohh ok. My broker is swift, I started working for them about a year and a half ago as a trader in the CR branch. Im pretty much autodidact but I always got plenty of feedback from fellow traders at the branch, a couple of friends, forums, etc. So Im not purely self taught. I started trading NYSE stocks {GE, GLW, XOM, PFE, C, mostly} which I did for some time, mostly at a scalping level. At that time none of us in the firm knew how to get money off the markets, after about three months one of the guys started making money on rebates and we just followed him on his method. So I graduated swift´s trading course by doing rebates. The problem is, I dont like the rebate game, I need my stock to be bloody active! Even when pulling 200+ trades per day in JDSU, SUNW, CMGI {back when the subpenny game was still around}. So I tried the swing approach, {NVDA, QQQ, MSFT, AAPL, YHOO} I also made some money there but I didnt like it either. I feel anoyed by the idea of going in once or twice a day... is intolerable to me. But I sucked it up, and traded with that approach until recently. About three months ago I became branch manager at the office, so Im now in charge of the whole recluiting and training process... I discovered that I like teaching others about the markets even better than I like the markets. At this point I was able to teach em at least three different aproaches to tradin, intraday-swing, rebates, and a combination of both. Until one day one of the students started to scalp profitably, and I realize there was an approach to the markets I could really dig, at first I didn´t really understand how he made his money, but then I studied it and it look quite interesting. So I started scalping on QQQ, but the SEC fees where eating me alive. So I found this thread and caught some interest on the NQ. Ultimately my interest is not only to scalp it profitably but to learn it´s workings at such level that I can teach others how to scalp it too. I agree with you that one cannot trade efficiently without first working on the psyc side, I´ve been doing that for many years, since I was 8... {thats about 17 years... perhaps not that many to yall but is plenty from my point of view } Then again I always welcome help and a good advice from wherever it may come, specially on the psyc side of trading.
Thought you might like to see detail of the almost death spike at 6:27 ET tonight (the tick chart is in PT). Unfortunately I had succumbed to self-medication (a professional hazard) and missed it. But I run a tick chart continuously, and there it is.
Frugi, how to reply to such an erudite post? I shall not tarnish it with my gloss! But I must say that one of my multiple personality patients, Joe Doaks, once ran an exhaustive backtest of relaxation from the NQ VWAP and concluded that there is nothing there. I believe that poor deluded Enqueue was neveer informed of that, because some years back he advocated Vee Wop channels in an attempt to become the new Jack. As to your linking to a T2W post, I can only remind our gentle readers that the frightful Brain Drain of the late lamented '50's correlated strongly with a spike in arrests for homosexual activity in the destination country. T2W is where we send our execrable exiles, in a reverse transportation act. Cherio, and brilliant!
Frugi, I think that's also called a butterfly. I would say so definitely, but I just threw that book away. I noticed it also. One of my favorite fakeout patterns.