I dont mind being called an "edger". It pays the bills. There is a very thin line between edge trading and what Jack teaches. Most of my entries will coincide with an ftt or a rtl bounce. It all fits together quite nicely. The volume bounce you see when the bar changes does not reflect buying and selling, I believe. Mak mentioned something about it having to readjust itself causes this momentarily.
Well my weekend aha turned into an ahell. I did some bar by bar yesterday and today on sim mode with less than stellar results. It is obvious that you cannot use IF1, IF2 and APA in isolation. They must be accompanied by the rest of the package. Like a lot of other things it works well when the market is moving with some direction, or making nice swings but will chop you up in the stalls. If you can get through the stalls with nothing but washes you will still come out all right but this is easier said than done. Anybody else doing this stuff with any success besides Mak?
It is absolutely unnecessary to cream every bar. IF1/IF2/APA has it's strengths and weaknesses depending on what your experience level is. With an APA, there is an additional regard for the right side of the DOM. It is not easy stuff to get on the first few dozen go arounds. As usual, I am doing the final tweak on abstract A/D shift that is the direct connection to an APA. Unfortunately, I can only get it to work with QuoteTracker using a socket connection to it's streaming api. TWS does not have the capability to appropriately monitor it but perhaps some of you other folks are more savvy coding wise than I am and I can go into the logic if folks are interested... It is the advanced and what I believe to be the complete extension to the "sexy idea" thread which has never been discussed. The logic is explicitly straightforward and just about tops off all the variables to an ultra fine level. My recommendations is similar to Grob's. Start with the simple stuff which is the EXTREME volume bars. There are 81 bars every day and quite a few of them have FAST/EXTREME volume. Let's say you can knock off 4 or 5 of these puppies at about .75 to 1 point. That is very nice change even without moving size. Yes, every bar has it's yield and at an expert level sct, it is about creaming all bars with minimal effort. The expert level is touch and go for me and more often then I'd like, it is a real challenge. I try to limit myself to at most 2 actions per bar for the simple reason that the bar will either close above or below the open pair. In other words, it is 50/50 I am on the right side of the bar on the first action. The second action should leave me on the correct side if I were not on the correct side the first go around. Any subsequent actions I consider to be working against the cumulative PNL. Additional, my observation is that if the action has crossed my location twice, much of the bar's time has been used. A simple exit and sideline will get me ready for the next bar. There is a whole lifetime of bars up ahead. Wait for the next train... Regards, MAK
Thats very interesting Mak. I had not thought about approaching it like that. If it comes back through the third time you exit and start over again?
Mak - this has to be insightful post of the week - you added a lot of clarity here for all concerned - many thanks for doing so. I think none of us here are at advanced level so starting with the simple stuff is key. In ref to the derivative you referred to some pages back (dP/dT) - could you kindly elaborate on that in terms of it being measurable (assuming it is relevant to the task at hand). Do I use this in a scientific way to measure where the bar is headed. Currently I eyeball this i.e. it 'appears' to be headed downward or upward. Today I had similar experience to Easyrider - morning was fantastic and the afternoon chop left me emotionally bruised. It seems I am holding a lot longer than I should based on the limited number of actions I took vs the amount described above. However by limiting myself to the FAST/EXTR bars - it makes sense that the odds are very much in one's favor. The ES PRV settings you posted some pages back definetly attest to that e.g. out of 161 bars none had a range less than 1 pt and the median appears around the 1.75 mark. Roll on Wednesday to see the market thru different eyes thanks again for post IRL
Ireland's quote of mak was exactly what i had perceived for a couple days now...and what i'm planning on doing from here on out until i gain more experience. figure, if you've got an average 4 intraday trends, you'll probably wind up with at least 4 fast/extr paces coming out of vdu/du. should easily be able to hit .75-1pt or wash on those. there is always the money making reverse on the horizon in place of the wash after skill/exp/knowledge is gained. and adding in some contracts helps.... the whole thing is quite nice. i guess it's definately above the ET longterm avg of 1pt a day. lol. about 4 times better at the lowest skill level.
From the getgo, my intentions were to fill in the single bar analysis content. It actually works both ways as far as introducing scalpers and trend followers into a more detailed trading framework. Alot of folks are knowledgeable in the rockets & icebergs and I wanted to lay off the recent info as a single bar fine tuning measurement for the ends of your rockets/icebergs/channels. If you look at those 161 EXTREME bars taken from a months worth of data, assuming that your sloppy and only pull out a quarter of the bars potential, that is still an unbelievable percentage per contract by ET terms. You work your way down risk wise from the extreme stuff. As one could imagine, as you move down the pace spectrum to VDU, more knowledge and skill is requried to make better use of the fine measurements since they are more dominant than the coarser measurements like Price. IF1/IF2 is a price tool. It is nice for FAST/EXTREME bars. So is the ABSTRACT STR.SQU tool. A couple of posts back, I mentioned the half point screw up I had on a mid afternoon bar. I exited and then could not get back in on any subsequent bar the rest of the afternoon. Is that necessarily bad? Nope. Not at all. The PRV read and worked like a charm. There weren't any subsequent EXTREME bars and as a result, the channel was flat the entire remainder of the afternoon. It is important to trust instruments. Becoming familiar with instruments and how they all fit together help to really creme the opportunities available. After some time of repeated drilling, everything just becomes smooth sailing and then you start looking to venture into the rough patches (ie. SLOW/MEDIUM). There are a number of ways to handle it but it is an individual type of effort when it arrives for the trader. You know when you're ready to handle these new boundaries. Creaming just the extreme bars for a week can be a religious experience for many reasons, especially when one could just size up and head deeper into the unbelievable realm... You may not creme every EXTREME bar but getting any chunk of those bars is a nice sum. Regards, MAK Johnny40... I am not particularly interested in build a specific tool for the specific need of an individual unless I find it to be something that would be helpful to everyone and distributable to all. Although what you inquire is relatively easy to build, it requires a bit more free time than I have for the time being.
Just an FYI for those of you experiencing IB problems with the Excel DDE ... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1051166#post1051166 - Spydertrader
I pm'd Mak about this, but am posting here as I received no reply. Looking for help in using his Excel tool: 1) An update reflecting the latest version (the one that appears in the gif) 2) Even when I load the old one, I don't get live data. I am a subscriber to DTN.iq. What am I doing wrong. Thanks for anyone who can help.