Parabolic SAR - that's all!

[dundee]

yes I'm working on 1h chart, but it works the same, right?

[orgcaptainnemo]

Dale,

Great post, I've funded an account and now I'm just waiting for the PSAR dots to reverse so I can jump in on various pairs.

I look forward to more of your writing,

Thomas

[dpaterso]

Good morning!

Thanks Thomas for the compliment - much appreciated.

I must just stress one thing - once again:

Do not be misled by the profits that I made this past week.

I WAS kicking myself yesterday morning for closing out those positions that I had open on Thursday but after the Fed stepped in yesterday stocks started 'stabilizing' as it were and the price of all of the pairs that I had open reversed big time. What this means is that my getting out on Thursay afternoon was more luck than anything else it would appear and this makes me feel even worse. While I am obviously happy that I cleared out with so much profit it feels that I was not really trading for these profits and I cannot afford to nor wish to have a 'windfall' like that once every six or seven months.

I am going to follow the price of those pairs that I had open this past week with Parabolic SAR until the stop and reverse point and try and calculate what my actual end profit WOULD have actually been had I not taken my $50K profit on Thursday and I will post the figure.

What I'm saying is that I don't see how you can lose in the long run with Parabolic SAR BUT the profits that I made on Thursday CANNOT be used as yardstick so don't get discouraged if it turns out that you are not making HUGE IMMEDIATE profits like I did this past week.

If you like (I'm trying to think how we can do this) maybe we can start posting messages when new Parabolic SAR Dots are appearing i.e. every time one of us opens a position maybe we should post the details of those positions and follow them through together as they go. This would be a good test of the different representations of Parabolic SAR at different brokers at very least and maybe we can compare notes as it were and what works for one person may not necessarily work for another (although with this indicator I don't see how any of us could get very different results let's face it). Also - Trading is a lonely sport you know!!!

Anyway - let me know if you are interested.

Regards,

Dale.

[orgcaptainnemo]

Dale,

That's a great idea. Keeping track of when dots appear depending on brokers and such might yield small advantages. Maybe some brokers dots appear earlier, and we do know that depending on your broker the dots can be slightly different. Perhaps by combining our knowledge we can make better trades. Congratulations on your good fortunes using the PSAR, but you're right, if you had stayed in and waiting or the actual dots to reverse before reversing your position (or leaving them completely) you would have made less money. It still would have been a good profit, but not as much!

I'm going to send your a PM and hopefully you and I can find a way to correspond. Maybe an IM client, some kind of SMS, or what have you.

Have a great day,

Thomas

P.S. It is relaxing that the market is closed on the weekend.

[alan003]

Hi Guys, Im new here and this is a great forum!

Just started trading and such a newbie at this. Question: where do I get this parabolic SAR signal? Thanks

[dpaterso]

Good Morning All,

orgcaptainnemo:

OK - well - I think from tonight I'll start posting the positions I open (if any) on this thread.

I have drawn up an Excel Worksheet with all of the pairs listed that are available to me with a column for 'Monthly', 'Weekly', and then five columns for each day of the (this) week. The idea being that I am going to see how many Parabolic SAR signals I can get this week that 'agree' with each other i.e. I'm going to check that Parabolic SAR on the Monthy and Weekly are going in the same direction and then enter only when the Daily is giving a signal in the same direction. I'm just keen to know if this works any better than just opening positions on all and every pair where there is a valid signal on the Daily chart. The drawback of this I think is that you are going to get far less entry points but maybe the movements are more 'true' as it were and the lot sizes could be increased to better the results with less of the risk doing it this way. Someone ealier on in this thread posted that on a certain pair the Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Parabolic SAR were all going in the same direction and entered on the four hour chart but I don't know what the end result was - they never posted again.

alan003:

Parabolic SAR is one of the most common (and oldest) indicators around and is contained in almost all of the chart tools / available indicators of the trading platforms that I have seen. Sometimes it's just called SAR or 'Stop and Reverse' but it's usually there.

Regards,

Dale.

[alan003]

Thanks Dale. I am currently trading with forex.com, is there a better platform?





Alan

[dpaterso]

Hi,

Sorry but I can't comment on forex.com as I have never looked at their platform nor had an account with them.

There is a section on babypips.com dealing with traders' experiences with different brokers - have a look over there as there.

Regards,

Dale.

[dpaterso]

Sunday, 19 August 2007
17h00 New York Time
23h00 South African Time (GMT+2)
00h00 Bulgarian Time (GMT+3)

Valid Parabolic SAR Entry Points (Daily Charts):

AUD/NZD - Short
CAD/CHF - Long
EUR/NOK - Long
GBP/CAD - Short
GBP/NOK - Long

Note: I am not 'comfortable' with any of these positions to be quite honest with you BUT these pairs have valid Parabolic SAR entry points so I'm getting in.

I must just mention that I have scrapped the checking of the Monthly and Weekly Charts as previously mentioned. As I suspected: out of forty four tradeable pairs there is not a single pair where Parabolic SAR on the Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Charts is moving in the same direction at the moment. Should you wish to use another timeframe as confirmation I suspect that the best that you could do is use one timeframe up (longer) i.e. if you want confirmation on the Daily Chart then check the Weekly. It appears that the number of times that the direction of Parabolic SAR on the Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Charts is the same are few and far between and as patient as I like to think that I have become this is stretching it even for me. Just going through all of these pairs tonight looking at all the different timeframes is just going to cause confusion and doubt as to when to open a position (in my mind anyway) so I'm going to stick with what has worked for me in the past i.e. looking only at the Daily Charts.

The good news is that I have a feeling that there are some MAJOR reversals coming soon particularly on AUD/JPY/NZD/CAD/EUR/GBP pairs.

Comments welcome!

Regards,

Dale.

[byculla]

Dale,
you have done a terrific job thus far. Thank you for your ongoing effort. Just a few queries.
Are you keeping a record of your trades?
What is your win / loss ratio.?
How many concecutive winners / loosers ?
Do you use money management ?
What % of your capital do you risk per trade ?
What risk / reward ratio have you achived ?
What is the expectancy of the system ?

Have you tried defining the trend of the time frame you trade and then trading only with the trend and what was the result on profitability ?
When you encounter losses have you been able to identify the reasons why ?
Try using range bars and run SARS against this. Properly defined it will even out market noise and give you much tighter stop losses and SARS.


Would much appreciate hearing yours views on this. Kudos to you. All the best.