Yea, it was/is choppy. Generally, I don't trade during the lunch hour for New Yorkers. I have been trading this system throughout the entire day, as I want to find time frames that are more profitable and ones that are less so, even though I know what these are from experience, lol. Since 11:50 est, I have had 5 signals closed for a loss of 2 points. None of the 5 signals ever hit their target nor were stopped out, they were all reversals. I am currently long at 773.10 with a 774.60 target.
ZLR had 6 losers ZLC had 3 losers Adding the ZLR trade gives me a lot more trades to take and I know from Woodies set-up that they can be real good entry points for continuation trades. Okay, filled on my 774.60 exit. That puts me at +4.00 points per contract on the day with 9 trades, 4 going the full profit of 1.5 points and 5 small losers. When you're trading 5 lots of these things, you can see how it doesn't take much to have a pretty decent day, moneywise, although I know that there will be days where things will go south, too.
I have read the entire thread and like what I see. Futures are a relatively new thing for me and I am trying to follow what you are doing. I use Thinkorswim and I am not sure what you are saying about ZLR and ZLC, I assume these are different expiration month futures for R2000 and Thinkorswim doesn't list them but I could be wrong. Is this the case? The only R2000 future I can see on tos is EB6ZG.
thanks for sharing donkee are you using the regular macd for zlr and the faster LBR macd for zlc? or different?
Donkee: How did you optimize for the 1.5 profit target and 1.0 stop? Or is this just arbitrary? thanks
DonKee, When I set the MACD to 3,10,26, the MACD signal line in my chart is not similar to the one in the chart you posted. When I set the MACD to 3,10,16, it looks very similar to your chart.
Sorry for the typo, yes it is 3,10,16, thanks for catching that I tried to edit it, but I guess you can't after 30 minutes 1 point stop and 1.5 target was arbitrary, but it seems to work. I always want to have a larger profit than loss. Remember, 1.5 points on the ER is like a 3 point profit on the ES. When trading the ES, I would be tickled to scalp for 3 points. I do have both MACD's on my screen as you can see from the example, but most signals come from the LBR setting of 3, 10, 16. ZLR (Zero Line Reject) and ZLC (Zero Line Cross) are just initials for the type of signal taken. If you want to learn more about ZLR trades, search out Woodies ZLR rules and examples. This ZLR is almost identical exept I am using the MACD instead of the CCI and I'm not considering any trend filters. This is about as simple a system as I have ever devised....let's hope it continues to be profitable
Agreed, This system seems to work great. I havent even been looking for divergences, just using the system 'as-is' the way trader28 originally posted it. I'll have to search for Woodie's modifications and check them out. But as-is, up about 34 points YM in the demo account as of 1:56 CST Couple questions though - 1. Why do you use the second MACD (3,10,16)? 2. What SMAs are you using? The 9 SMA is what Ive been using as the indicator to enter & exit the trade. This also gets me in sooner than the MACD cross when it pops outside the price, as trader28 stated from the beginning.