Ok, the 90% that try to learn and build on their own experience wash out, while the truly skilled 10% just learn to take another's system without question and prosper? I guess those thousands of people who ran to the bookstore and bought their "How to Trade Like a Market Wizard" books are the ones that belong in the 10%? Makes alot of sense. Like I said earlier, this probably isn't the thread that cares. I believe the value of Quah's system for himself are the profits -- for everyone else it's what we can learn from discussing that system, and applying whatever edge we can into our own trading (what else is there to do on a message board). Too hard to grasp? What's "sad" here is that a certain someone sees the sentences starting to exceed 8 words on average and has to dismiss the whole discussion since he can't keep up. If you feel that what we're discussing is "over-intellectualizing" (dude, it's not exactly rocket science going on this thread here), then why don't you take your own advice, stick us on ignore and go take your newfound keys to the kindgdom and make them millions? Sorry if the rest of us need a bit more than piggybacking the mentor to make it into that 10% category.
I wouldn't say I don't care about attempts to improve upon this system - I choose not to think about how to improve this system because, IMO, the chances that I really have no idea what would actually improve it vs. hurt it until I actualy try it - just like I'm doing here. There have been a few posters who have traded something like this system (you can say improved up it if you wish) and I didn't criticize one bit of that, why would I? I don't see any reason as this time to look into making any changes at all to the system. It is what it is. You continue to claim that I'm claiming some extreme significance with the fib numbers I chose to base my times on - I'm not claiming anything at all - nothing other than those are the times I'm trading. Illiquid - what things do you think I should be doing here that I'm not? What changes to you think need to be made to this system in order to improve it? (edited to add: Why does it seem that we always think a system can be improved upon? And we base that thought on "well, prove it can't be improved upon". Why not start with the thinking that it can't be improved upon based on the thought "well, prove that it can be improved upon"? I'm not saying that this system couldn't be improved upon - but after any changes are made it will be a new system at that point - not this one. And this is fine also. LOL. Just turned on the TV, what is on the channel? "Learn to Spread Trade". OMG. )
Very high probability?? I disagree. I would more comfortable saying to that it's a slight possibility. And until it occurs, and until the system can be foward tested real time, for a good period of time, and until the trader can look back over a reasonable period of time and ponder the success rate, and how much $$ they've made or lost, until all of that occurs, you can't fairly assert the probability of that kind of combined contract grand failure with any degree of accuracy. And backtesting for it won't be accurate, as previously highlighted by many - not only because you accurately determine whether you would have been filled or not, but also because of this: If you are trading off the 2 minute stochastics signal, then backtesting only shows the closing value of the signal at an even 2 minute intervals. But where would the the signal have been at the time of the odd-minute trades? (which by the way, make up a NOT insignificant proportion of 8 out of 11 trades) The signal could easily have you one way at the time the odd-minute trades are initiated, and another way when you backtest off the closing 2 minute value of the signal. Illiquid asks "What's going to happen when 3 contracts get stopped out, reversed and stopped out again.....will you quickly dismiss the system ... ". Well, obviously if you were following the system with the discipline that overall success demands of you, Quah's system will leave you down for the day. But does that really justify abandoning the system? If one is going to succeed at daytrading, one must expect down days. Anyone abandoning a system like this, which is proving successful realtime, simply because of a bad day or two per month is, frankly, searching for something that they'll never find (100% accuracy) All I am looking for is overall profitibility on a consistent basis. As long as at the end of the month, I'm ahead a sufficiently respectable amount then it doesn't bother me that 1 or 2 days a month I can expect to have 3 contracts stop me out twice in a row, leaving me with a down day. Illiquid: "Quah, enough of this "let's not think about things so much and just let me post the results" attitude -- that is the one factor for which I am sure is NOT helping anyone's trading" Enough of the critical posting. I gotta say, illiquid, I find many of your comments argumentative and unreasonably critical and personal. Why do you do that? Surely we can discuss this thing reasonably.
Well if you start from the point that your system is most effective during the most volatile and liquid periods of the day, why not try an afternoon session with a reverse fibo series into the close -- ie. entering trades at 3:55, 3:53, 3:50 etc, and scuttling the relatively few entries near lunchtime, where choppiness could really put SAR's at a disadvantage? That would still leave you with a large block of time during the day to not have to sit in front of the screen, while trying to capture an additional session of movement (if you really have an edge, why not see how far you can maximize applying that edge?). Something to try perhaps, have no clue if it's something you've tried already and found morning times to be more advantageous than the close. What do you think?
Sounds reasonable to me - I'll work up the times in reverse, starting from 16:00 (eastern). I haven't looked at this, the main reason being that I have to pick up my daughter from school around 2:30 - then homework, etc - so I want to be as free as possible during those afternoon hours. But let's give that a shot this week and see how it turns out.
You don't think there's a high probability that the ES trades 1 pt in one direction, then turns around and trades 1.25 pts in the opposite direction after the first 8 minutes (and thereby triggering both stops)? I don't think any indicator is specific enough to make that a low probability of occurrence. The trade overlaps have occured quite a few times already if you go back to the logs, and hence those trades become effectively a single trade with doubled or tripled size that could easily get stopped out twice in a row. If one were to acknowledge that and wanted to get rid of that possibility, it's a simple matter of not taking additional signals until the first trade is resolved, or by limiting SAR's to one lot size only. Amilian, are these completely unreasonable suggestions that you find somehow hostile? My earlier posts were mainly in response to Quah's "let's not worry too much how it works" attitude, which I thought wasn't much help to others (myself included) in trying to figure out what we can do to improve our own trading, that's all. Beyond that, I think I've kept things quite civil, and I don't think anyone should take criticism of a system or it's relation to the market as anything personal at all.