Uh-oh. Goochmiester loves The NVEC. Back up the truck baby!! Make no mistake, Cramer calls Gooch for recommendations! - Spydertrader <img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1291020> Booh-ya!
Thank you Bearbelly - very friendly and very useful - as usual! Thanks to Joab as well. If I got it right you start the "basic line" of the channel on the "back" of the trend direction, i.e. uptrend over the highs first and v.v.? Very logical from my p. o. v. . I handle it the same way. Charly
I'll consolidate both replies into one post.. John Yes, I have done a bit more work on the scripts. I got pinged as a 'pattern trader' because I manually entered one too many trades and my old script had a couple of 'unusual' flaws that triggered too many same day exits. As a result, I had to sit out for 3 months. A very expensive oversight let me tell you!!! I can't recall which version I posted last, but this one checks for gaps, has a more sophisticated money management system and also limits the number of positions I enter in a single day (to avoid the pattern trader issue). I have also removed the need for a loop to calculate cumulative volume, which should make it run a bit faster. If you want a copy, PM me and I'll give you my e-mail address. I get enough spam as it is without adding to it by posting my e-mail address in a public forum! With regard to Amibroker, the standard version will do everything you need to do to run the scripts, but the smallest timeframe it uses is 1 minute. I personally would recommend the 'Professional Edition'. It doesn't cost THAT much more and the 'real time' functionality may be useful in the future. In addition, Tomasz does such an outstanding effort with the software for such a low price, I wouldn't begrudge him the extra license fee. I'll be paying for an upgrade as soon as my current version expires regardless of whether I need it or not, as my way of 'supporting' him. Billp, My initial stop loss is 2%. I did extend it to 4% for a while to avoid same day stop outs, but the system performance deteriorated substantially. Now I just enter fewer trades. Bear in mind that I've only switched on real trading again in the last 2 weeks after an 'enforced' trading break. As soon as my trade has moved above the entry price, I move the stop to break even. The philosophy here is I'd rather take a wash than a loss. If the stock is only a couple of cents above, I'll leave it at the 2% level, this is a bit subjective. After that, I just leave the stop at break even and wait for it to hit my profit target. If it doesn't, I'll generally exit after 4 days. This is an area I need to work on, since I've noticed that if it hasn't hit the profit target after 4 days, it usually retraces and I get out at break even, which gives up the profit at 4 days that I usually have. I've been tending to hang on for a couple of more days in the 'hope' of hitting 10%, which I need to stop doing. I don't have the stats to hand, but will try and calculate them over the next few days. Subjectively, a good number do hit the 10%. The next thing that I want to do is to start trying to automate the rocket and iceberg trades. With Amibroker, you can automatically generate trendlines and compare price to these lines, which THEORETICALLY will allow you to automatically look for FTTs. I can't see however how I could automate FTT trades on the ES or YM. Perhaps when my equities method generates enough cash, I can quit work and trade the 'night shift!'. I certainly love this stuff more than my job (even though work pays pretty well.)
I bought NVEC @38.50 Friday for the following reasons: 1) FTT week channel 2) new daily channel up (need more points to confirm) 3) 30 min channel rising 4) 14 stoch rising and holding at 87 5) FRV at 74% of 65 day avg. vol EOD Friday 6) good accumulation - BOP 99 NVEC looks like it will test Monday's high (12/5) of $40.50 where it failed to traverse the 30 min channel. Here's my 30 min chart. The purple is weekly channel, pink daily channel, blue 30 min. Let's see what happens.
Hi mischief, I am curious as to why you had to sit out 3 months. Isn't it normally 3-4 days that you are prevented from trading if you get flagged as a PDT. I got a margin account from IB and took care of the pattern day trader issue. On the second question. Do you place trades with Amibroker using the IB plugin? I looked at the amibroker website and did not see any mention of trades using the plugin. Thanks
As I understand the Pattern Day Trader rules they only apply to accounts that have less then $25,000 in them. If you have over that amount the rules do not apply. I was also under the impression that the PDT rules still apply if you have a margin account with less then $25,000 of your own cash in it. Can anyone clarify with certainty? Thanks!
The pattern trader applies if you have <USD$25k. Given the fact that I wasn't 100% sure how well the whole thing would work, I wasn't prepared to commit more capital than that to start with. I also didn't have enough of a track record with the automation (which is the only way I could trade it) to put extra cash in once I had been flagged. The pattern trader flag works on 'two strikes' and you're out. I got flagged twice, due to errors as previously described which meant I had to sit it out.... I won't be making any errors like that again, I assure you and will put enough money in not to have the problem once I have 3 months of 'real' trades under my belt that are consistent with Spyder's and my papertrading results.
First, my apoligies, this may turn out to be a long post. I am happy for any feedback. I want to share some observations, my process, and hopefully something useful. I have been finding a lot of emotional/mental resistance to doing these darn channels. I have screwed around with trading for 6 years and have so much negativity it isn't funny. But, slowly I'm crawling out of that hole (due pretty much solely to Spyder and a few others here, thanks friends!). About 2 weeks ago I did some channels on the Final Universe. Just quickly threw some lines on, made a quick note on where FTT's appeared to be forming, and then forgot about these charts. But I did save them. I just reviewed them, and honestly, I was shocked. Now I need to get over the idea it was chance or luck, which is still a major belief issue I need to get over. One thing I have noticed that fits nicely with my understanding of how S and R really work in the market is this: any HVS followed by a full RTL traverse almost always provided significant support. Price will decline and break the RTL but stop dead at the price level of the HVS. Now, a bit about my "figuring out process". Below, see an idealized diagram of price movement which shows an example of where I am most often fooled into seeing an FTT where in fact none exist. Verbally, (in terms of an uptrend), price make points 1,2 and 3. Then price makes another full traverse to the left side and returns to the right. Upon returning to the right, price just hugs the right trend line and keeps crawling up, not traversing, but not reversing either. This kept bugging me to the point of of self talk along the lines of "see, this stuff don't work.". Then I drew the diagram you see below. Now, I realize I may appear to be a fool because of what I'm about to say. So be it. I noticed that detecting this situation as not being a reversal may be as simple as looking at the higher lows. No FTT until you have at least one lower low. Now, I don't know if this is correct or not, but it's a start, and preliminarily I've seen it play out this way. I suspect IF1 and IF2 fit in here somehow and will look for more info on that. The lesson is: draw a diagram, don't try and think it through completely in your head. I realize this is an obvious and simple suggestion, but how many of us really take the time to do this. I am currently studying (just for fun) vector calculus and tensors. To learn math you have to do some problems or you'll never get it. I've seen posts from several people that make it clear they're not doing the problems (drawing channels). I admit I have fought and fought this with all kinds of rational reasons. Perhaps it's time to get a bit irrational .
I'm posting a breakdown of Fridays trading in hopes that Jack or Spydertrader will take the time to review it and point out errors in my thought process. I didn't trade Friday and this is hindsight, but the narrative is very close to what I would have done. It's long (81 bars) so it's attached. Took forever to put together. If you follow it by covering the chart bars to the right of the narrative it should be pretty clear why I was thinking what I was at the time. This was done all on the ES, what is on the chart is what was used to consider trades. While it doesn't look too bad in hindsight, very sloppy to me - I'm trying to refine the entry/reversal or exit points and get more comfortable with the decision making. Not concerned about the points made, the nice morning trend was responsible for most of the points. Tough afternoon. Trading with the same thought process last Monday got chopped up pretty good in the afternoon session (too many washed). Hope this is helpful to all.