Intro I am a software engineer who has always been pretty fascinated by the markets and wanted to be involved. I trade very inconsistently both in how often I trade, and how I trade. My focus jumps around between different strategies and theories which all tend to be quite interesting, have strong supporters (and detractors), and promise success. My goal here is to document what I am looking at and doing, hopefully get some advice, and make some progress toward becoming more consistent and profitable. Ultimately I would like to find an edge, build a strategy around it, and learn to follow it with discipline. If I'm being an idiot, feel free to let me know, after all this is anonymous haha. -- poorloser
What I have done recently: Read Mind Over Markets Been watching DOM and T&S more often on ES & MES Mind Over Markets was pretty interesting. It definitely changed my perspective a bit about how I think about a market and price behavior. It does seem a bit rigid and even arbitrary (e.g., why break the day into 30 min segments... why not 1 hr or 15 min?), but overall seemed to be valuable. It seems that Thinkorswim's monkey bars are pretty good for TPO charts and the volume/time profile studies also work nicely. I haven't done much trading with what I learned from the book, but the little bit that I have done has shown that the technique seems to be worth something when it comes to identifying areas where something is likely to happen, identifying what that might be is definitely more elusive. Watching the DOM and T&S has also been interesting, but I am not sure if anything will really come of it. In /ES, things are moving so fast in regular trading hours that I am not sure if I will be able to take advantage. I have been trying to keep an eye on the bid/ask refreshes, the speed of the price movement, and keep an eye on the size and total number of contracts traded at a price level before moving on. I am doing this on Tradovate, and I think the DOM on that platform makes things a bit harder. One idea I had was to look at the big orders on the book and say 'this is an area where something will happen' ... maybe it gets pulled and price falls through, maybe it is real and price bounces off. This is a new idea, so I am still exploring. Still, the speed at which this happens in the regular session on /ES is hard to handle. So, basically, still just watching, taking in info on here, fintwit (I know...), and googling to try to figure out what I should be thinking about. I think that longer-term, I will need to switch to something that I can trade in the evening (NYC time) as I will be employed during the day. Of course automation is an option, and something that I am at least willing to attempt, given my background.
Definitely a good suggestion. Is it even possible to change your username on ET? Tempted to keep it if only for the irony if I do manage to achieve success.
I'm serious, though. You manifest what you think, say and write. Seeing "poorloser" every day isn't something that you want if you're seeking success. Maybe you just need to create a new user. Best wishes.
You can still trade the Asian session in the Forex market. It starts around 6PM New York City time. In fact, if you have a good trading system, you can place a few trades and make some money during the 5 to 7 Happy Hour, right from your smartphone, while sipping a pint of Guinness (or two) at your local pub! PS: Please change your nickname, think positive man!
Add an additional T&S stream that filters on large size (ie 100 contracts). It’ll clarify zones where larger players are participating.