Keep reading good books by authors that actually have something to say. I'm actually glad to see you reading so much about trading, personally. I've been doing developing my trading ability for the past 7 years on a full-time basis. It is not easy to get up to speed such that you become part of the top 5% percent who actually make it off Wall Street. I would probably put that number closer to 3.75% for off Wall Street types. Mot people fail - mostly because they give up too soon, thinking that in just a few weeks or months or even in a couple years, they will know enough to be able to quit their day jobs and retire. That's happens to a handful of select people who jumped into a market that was screaming UP with no DOWN in sight, continually went Long and continually won - thinking that life as a trader in Down and Sideways markets would be the same. They made their millions, exited the business and started writing books telling everyone how easy trading can be. Typical. But, for those of us who have been around for years, in sideways, up and down markets, through recessions, stagflation periods, war, rumors of war, acts of terrorism, Presidential election cycles, etc., we know how difficult it is to be really good at this stuff for long periods of time. Only the best of the best can do it and sustain it. You said you like to test on live data and that's a good thing, but it you are trading the currency markets, my strong suggestion to you would be to conduct your primary back-testing on historical data (by definition, of course), locate the signals or functions that are of most interest to you and then push those into some live data testing (forward testing by definition). This will save you mega time and it will flush your best concept to the surface faster as you can always do more back testing than forward testing in any given time-frame. Tips like these will help fine tune your progress. Also, keep in mind, that when it seems like there are no more good ideas in sight, that's when the next great idea is about to come along. It requires a never say die attitude to see that, but when it happens enough times to you when you are down and out with no more fresh ideas, then you will know and learn more about how the subconscious mind works, even when your conscious mind can push any farther. Allow your subconscious mind to bring to your conscious mind thoughts and ideas about newer paradigms and concepts for trading ideas - this is when you enter what I call the truly creative phase of your trading career as you will be most likely hitting upon some ideas that the vast majority of traders never see, because they never allow their subconscious mind to participate in the creative process, directly - nor do they understand how. There is a lot more I could say, but I'll leave you with this: Never underestimate the power contained in using multiple time-frame analysis. When you find a new theory, tactic, function or method that works in one time-frame, test it in time-frames that are larger AND smaller than the one where you made the initial discovery. The supreme rule of consistency is touched upon when you can make discoveries that work in as many time-frames as possible with as little modification between time-frames as possible. These are what I call Absolute Signals and they make up the bulk of my trading technology as they have staying power and endurance. And, never ignore the potential power of a high probability, larger time-frame as it relates to the position you take with respect to your currency pair or spot. Larger time-frames that are about to blow-off in a particular direction should not be ignored - they are the slower, but much more weightier 10,000lb elephants in the room that all too often people ignore in favor of the smaller time-frame signals and functions. Larger time-frames that are about to blow, have the tendency to push the signals you rely upon in smaller time-frames, into something of a time-warp, where the fundamentals that drive the smaller time-frame signals no longer seem to work. The truth is that they are still working, but their dimensions and parameters within which they work, are being smeared and skewed by the larger time-frame that is now on the move. So, pay close attention to the coupling of correlation be signals in smaller and larger time-frames or Bars of Data. Anyway, I like seeing newer traders who understand that it does take time to master YOUR game in this business. So, I like to support those kinds of traders whenever I see them and when I have to the time to do so. Good hunting!
there are a few contests. CNBC Robbins (a broker) world cup trading (in different categories). there are also a number of system audit sites, like covestor, collective2, timertrac, strategyrunner, futurestruth, etc. Attain Capital and Striker Securities (brokers) also track some systems. but you will find that the results are usually unimpressive across the board.
I do look at 2 time frames. And yes, there are "points of weakness" sometimes on a chart you can identify when certain types of signal failures may occur (where you can use your intuition). I haven't stepped up to the level of using intuition yet. My first goal was to develop and entry strategy. My second goal was to develop and exit strategy. Those two are done. Then I wanted to determine how I was going to filter the signals. That's about two-thirds done. I'm also not yet at the level of combining fundamentals and technical analysis completely. Sometimes I convinced I know what the direction is going to be like but I'm not trading like that yet. They say you can either make money in 2 ways: either make lots of small profits or several large profits. Well, I just realized lately if you develop a method to make many small profits that you could possibly use it to make several large bets or even combine it with fundamentals. However, I've seen differences in backtesting and forwardtesting like seeing a delay in entry point with moving averages and moving averages touching each other or even crossing then seeing the price go back up again and the seeing the moving averages reshape themselves as if they never thouched. This of course, ends up giving you an illusion of reality. My ideas are based on some fundamentals of price movements. I'd be excited to talk about it but I'm not financially comfortable yet.
While the topic is about a rigged competition it would benefit everyone to read this guys blog for the last few months, and my bet is that all traders will learn a few things. It is not the trades that were posted that were of interest to me, personally, but the articulate manner he has written the blog qualifying the trades and also background summary of the market place. This guy knows what he is talking about and doing. Worth a read...even TraderZones could learn something... NiN
That's good advice. The fastest way to profitability is unadulterated screen time with an open mind. Took me 5 years before I threw everything out and just observed price. 1.5 years and 50 junked strategies later, I had my eureka moment. There are no secrets, oddly enough. Best to journal all the failed strategies like Edison and his 1000 ways not to build a lightbulb. That way, forgetful people (like me), can recognize their tracks when they arrive at a familiar place, so to know to venture on another tangent. Nearly every indicator, set-up or price pattern works during periods of high volatility. That's the trap. High volatility creates a sh*tload of false positives. So when the market settles on a tighter, more-normal range, everything that appeared to work, now does not. Well, almost everything.
That's correct, but this guy is a real trader ... Besides pissing around in a non- real money account competition he writes a blog that Hershey would need to write an encyclopedia to cover the same subject....
Two line indicators (Like MACD, STOCH, or two MA's) have six cases of relationships. Four of one kind and two of the other kind. Most people do not use all of these nor do they consider how they interrelate to each other. How does anyone use this streaming information for understanding the markets? How does anyone use this information for making money? Once all of the combinations and permutations are defined logically, then it is only natural to make use of them systematically. The way they relate IS the definition of cycles. To trade, the making money part comes from "reading" the cycle and understanding WMCN (What Must Come Next). If you want to read some humor, read how a person failed to backtest cycles because he had more entries than exits. In another thread on indicators (there are many, many) the thread went on and on but no one in the thread knew how to construct or use indicators. Indicators are useless if a person is not knowledgeable. There are few ends of segment signals (segments have beginnings and endings) that occur on ends of bars so why would a person deal with arbitrary times instead of just when the extremes appear. The reason may be that they do not know. If it is possible to know, then why wouldn't a person use that information? Recently a person proposed a never seen before edge that he also acknowledged he couldn't (and so, prima facia, no one else could either) backtest. The other three times his tip doesn't work are very powerful ways of knowing an end of a segment is at hand. His tip was midway in a segment and he thought it proved that it was a money maker. All methods for entering in the middle of a segment work, very fortunately. It looks like you have netries and exits during the process of a segment and now you are working on eliminationg (by filter) the ones that don't work. Strange.
I think you can misunderstand me just like I can misunderstand you. By fitlering process, I was thinking more along the lines of what would happen if I eliminated signals if they occured for example at certain parts of the day. Like the if EUR/JPY is calm between 10AM and 7PM. However, I never saw your explanation on the 4 different ways moving averages can cross.