I’m finished with the manual account for this year.
I’ve still got the automated template running for now with 4 open trades & they’ll remain intact until the programme closes out naturally.
I’m away from next Monday until after new years, so would like to take this opportunity to thank all you guys for an incredibly informative & thoroughly entertaining thread & particularly for the help & assistance (you know who you are) in getting the robot primed & running & the stock scanner on track!!
I haven’t looked forward to a new year as much as I am for a long while & that’s thanks to you lot.
Have a great xmas & new year celebration & look forward to hooking up again in 2016!
those punters here who decided to kick the year off early carried on last week where they left off last year by continuing to filter strong weak plays in Sterling & Loonie whilst maintaining support for Yen.
just shuffle the yen pack next week & pick your favorite pairings!
ruro longs v/s cad, aud & sterling attracted good business & look half decent continuation value, as does last years solid old workhorse usd/cad, which is back mixing it up.
aud/usd was busy & remained on the short radar for those who transact regular business in that pair, & aud/cad was attracting bits & pieces of short money too into the w/end.
one or two of the heavier punters were bludgeoning the european indices last week, particularly cac which attracted noticeable interest on the book, as did spx, nikkei & gold, so worth keeping close tabs on those instruments.
a veritable feast of opportunities for participants of this approach right off the bat & headed into mid january!!
fill yer boots & watch your backs!
Yeah, those 2 + Bolan [B]had[/B] to be sired from the same loins!
Keep it rolling kechel my man….happy new year to you too (& other regulars) & good luck to all!
[B]The original glamsters[/B]
Given the circumstances, let’s indulge in a bit more glam shall we!!
This one’s for you Monsieur Bowie!
Complete with another of your old buddies tickling the keys…
Oil on the back foot again today, Canadian housing stats in the toilet & Yen still has its sneakers on - so there’s your ideal & high(er) probability Yen pairing all sorted!..& the cherry on the cake is USDCAD finds another gear & purrs away as per normal.
And the feast continues.
Of the 13 candidates mentioned last Sunday & re-focused again Monday in reply to Perch Tirds post, 9 of them obliged by reinforcing the dominant themes in their respective flows.
By using the identification & filtering features you were able to line up your preferred gambles & simply wait patiently for the set ups to click into line via either hourly or sub hourly triggers, dependant on your objectives.
Broker stats unsurprisingly confirm leveraged punters were up to their usual silly tricks trying to pick a bottom in pound/yen, dow, spx & the european indices - all instruments Dan urged you to follow & bet in accordance with the background structures presented here, which meant of course you were only looking for short gambles on the aforementioned.
They were also trying vainly to pick & hustle a top on dollar/cad, euro/aussie & euro/cad.
Once again, only the small minority of successful active gamblers in the market this week came out substantially on the plus side by placing flow dominant bets courtesy of the mug punters.
It’s a very familiar occurrence but hopefully a few more of you guys should now be finding yourselves in the former camp rather than the latter if you’re setting your identification & filtering stalls out as advised!
2 weeks in & we already know 3 of you are having a ball coz a couple of the guys are servicing your accounts, just hope the rest are kicking up their heels too!
The ideas presented here, the TT threads and FSR are still one of the best I had seen around the forums. Great to know that these guys are still around advising ppl to dump away those noises presented around most of the forum.
The USDCAD pair is a MVP for me this week. The stoch hook via the hourly had worked out fine for me and adding pips to my account.
The thing that’s always made me smile even from day 1 is its sheer simplicity.
Regardless whether the bet goes awry or returns decent profit, you’re constantly sat the correct side of the momentum flows because you’re never second guessing the market, never wasting time & energy cogitating the whys & wherefores or getting tangled up trying to build positions at apparent market tops & bottoms.
Once you’re positioned correctly & the prior high or low price cycles aren’t compromised there’s really nothing to do other than continue trailing the move or re-engaging the dominant flows intra-session.
Just look what’s happening again today - everything Dan primed on Sunday & Scott (DoubleEcho) reiterated the following day, is once again off to the races, virtually all of them triggered by sub hourly hooks!
A few of their punters had NZD/USD on their watch lists when it broke down through .6670 last week, admittedly it’s not a high ADR performer, but it certainly met to the identification/filtering criteria, as did GBP/USD, which also made it back onto the list when 1.49 tanked.
Then it’s just a matter of filtering and waiting for the triggers. On that note, maybe you can clarify something for me? Many times it has been said that “indicators can’t tell you anything that you can’t see yourself”. So when you say “wait for the hook”, what are we actually waiting for?
If I’m not mistaken, what we’re doing is simply waiting for “peak/trough” violations on any given time frame? Here are some examples from the week:
The technical template guys used to advise folks keep an eye on finviz as a quick heads up as to which regional currency was exhibiting strength/weakness. As you say, it confirms which regions are in vogue & helps determine higher probability candidate selection.
You’re not actually waiting for anything trailingstop.
The hook is merely a visual prompt or crutch to get you into the (good) habit of preparing for pullbacks within the context of a momentum or trending move.
Evidence & experience tells us the higher potential breakouts [U]linked to this particular approach[/U], generally trigger following a pause or consolidation in a momentum or trending move, as i’ve annotated in your kiwi/dollar graphic.
What you’ll also sometimes discover is that once the breakout begins unfolding on a large hourly timeframe, your closer focus sub hourly/faster timeframe references will often reveal a 1-2-3 and/or mini pullback with accompanying hook.
But as with anything, if you don’t wish to use or observe it or you’re comfortable working with a blank canvas then do your own thing. As long as it affords you positive expectancy that’s all that matters.
Going back to the “hook habit”, I understand the value of playing pullbacks (getting seated before a key level breach/getting a value price/compounding into minor pullbacks that do no violate the primary trend). I have used the stochastic for a year or so…but someone on the prior pages said something like “if you realize what the hook is actually showing you/if you realize what you’re actually doing”. So i started to observe the places where the hook materialized vs. where the hook does not materialize:
Teh stochastic only tells us how high or low the current price is, relative to the lookback period. So I am effectively trying to understand the difference of a pullback where the hook is not quite in o/b or o/s territory vs. pullbacks with extreme readings.
I attempted to stack the obervation up with the common levels touted here (prior day/session/week/month levels and/or round numbers/cycle swing tops/bottoms). It has become evident (to me at least) that the higher quality/higher odds pullbacks are the ones that reach or violate prior swing levels on the timeframe of reference.
If the swing level/cycle top or bottom is not breached, I take it as a sign of strength in the underlying trend. If the cycle top/bottom is breached, i take it as a sign of a weakening trend and stay on guard. Of course this is much more valid on the hourlies than the sub-hourlies, where cycle violation is much more common and less important.
To sum up: I’m actively seeking to reduce my dependance on the “hook”, by understanding what the hook is telling me to watch out for. That way I can evaluate any pullback in it’s own right - without having to wait for the hook to give me the green light. For example, on indices I noticed that a 6/3/3 stoch is needed, to cope for the higher volatility they have relative to FX. In FX, a 6/3/3 is needed on the Daily only…otherwise the default 14/3/3 works just fine. But since I don’t like to get into “optimization” because it’s the enemy of “robustness” in my opinion, i’m trying to just understand the underlying dynamics of what makes a high probability pullback vs. what doesnt.
Any input on this would be much appreciated…a complicated post I know…but the objective is to understand how to keep things simple and subtle.
You’ve got the point.
In that type of situation, that’s the type of breakout trigger you want to be looking to execute.
Don’t get too tangled up in the detail.
At the end of the day it’s only a visual prompt.
Its objective is to draw & focus your attention on [U]potential[/U] continuation activity, of which pullbacks are a key element. But your instrument has to be engaged in a directional move before you even begin to get to work.
Agreed.
A high probability pullback in the context of [U]this approach[/U] is one which begins to take shape when your instrument of choice is in motion.
Prices rarely move up or down in a straight line or with the determined aggression witnessed recently, but you still require momentum & participation (positive flow) to engage.
There will always be opportunities to hop on & off moves via pauses, consolidations & pullbacks, which are the result of orders being shuffled, exiting & entering the move. If its continuing to attract positive participation, entering at the pullback stage will quite often offer you decent value for the risk it costs to participate.
If it dithers, splutters and/or [B][U]compromises[/U][/B] the cyclical flow, you have time to scratch & move to the sidelines to further evaluate & it generally doesn’t cost you too much to probe & check for continued movement.
As you’re discovering, there’s no sure thing or black & white order when gambling these instruments.
It’s a game of probabilities!
Hopefully some of the information presented here will enable you shift those probabilities enough in your favor as often as possible when the preferred situations begin setting up, to make gambling this particular approach worthwhile, & that’s really the best you can hope for.
thanks for that and I’ve been at the school of hard knocks for long enough to know what kind of beast we’re dealing with That’s also why I’m trying to keep things as simple as possible. You’ve told us more than once that from a retail angle - despite the size of the account - we simply cannot make any kind of logical assumption regarding positive flow or participation levels.
I think - and that’s why I quoted you - that’s where “keeping abreast of emerging fundamentals and themes” comes into play. Basically, the way I understand it, by trying to “skate where the puck is”, the odds are enhanced much more than just by looking at strong vs. weak charts on Finviz ?
So basically the “odds” part of the equation continues to be:
clear fundamental background or emerging dynamics in line with trend (identifying)
evident trending motion (filtering)
enough available space (on any givn day or week) to make the bet worthwhile (boyscout trading)
an evident pullback or breakout situation to leg into (execution)
managing the trade as best as possible, given the background pressure (from h4/d1 charts) + drivers (still pressing or conflicting)
As the latins used to say “repetita iuvant”…
So the way we closed on Friday, it seems that negative vibes are still around…so shorting Dax, Crude and Gbp/Cad/Aud vs. Jpy/Usd looks like the way to go (still). On the fundamental side, we’ve got Chinese data on tuesday which might be key for risk appetite? Then we’ve got some oil data…aside from that we’ve got BoC and ECB. So near the end of the week, the Euro may come into play as well.
It all dovetails.
The core underlying themes of inflationary-deflationary pressures, interest rate expectations & growth prospects are on a constant wash & rinse cycle as fresh data gets dumped onto market, absorbed, filtered & cogitated upon.
Unless you’ve positioning yourself on a reasonably long range outlook it can be quite difficult & often frustrating to bet on because of the shorter term (& often extremely volatile) price gyrations that are the effect of human emotion.
But the minimalist framework we’ve attempted to encourage folks to adopt, which you & one or two others have clearly incorporated, will hopefully help keep you tuned into the generic & specific influences which impact the market on a regulsr basis.
You’ll never be totally on top of it & you’ll often get blindsided attempting to align your gambles with those themes, but if you possess a robust risk profile & you keep a close track of your stats you’ll at least be in a position to identify anomalies early.
Proceeding along the breakout route, I’ve caught UsdCad on the back of a sentiment shift (Poloz not delivering as much dovishness as the market expected/wanted) + Cad data better than expected
I’m quite sure the first b/o would not be 100% approved of…since we still had not printed 2 lower highs and lower lows from the top, but the fundamental/sentiment aspect gave me the confidence to take it. Little luck maybe?
Since CB’s are the heavy hitters in FX space, I wouldn’t be surprized if this were more than a short term top in UsdCad…looking for 1.40 initially but will add aggressively if we push through there.
We’ve never dictated styles, risk preferences or objectives because they’re personal to each individual.
The structure & framework is generic & you can utilize & adopt it to best fit your specific aims & goals.
Providing you can extricate yourself reasonably safely from situations that fail to kick on as expected, you can step back & re-assess each particular opportunity accordingly.
There were similar instances/opportunities on Yen pairings too from mid-week onwards as equities ratcheted back from over extended drops.
Who doesn’t need a little of that every now & again
Whether it is or whether it isn’t, you have the structure & tools at your disposal to take it on any which way it decides to play out.
There are a few potholes in the road this week for punters playing this type of approach, highlighted clearly by the transitioning playing out across the larger hourly charts.
The guys have taken a lot of Yen short bets again this week, but there’s very little follow through so far.
Cable is certainly reluctant to punch into clear air beyond last weeks high at 4350 thus confirming a higher high, but until it does it’s in no man’s land structurally based on this set up (long term bearish/short term bullish). It kinda fits into the transitioning slot mentioned earlier.
If it fails to hold another large hourly higher low around the mid 42’s punters will undoubtedly pressure the longer range (short) bias. But to be honest there hasn’t been a whole lot of cash taken on it this week as yet in either direction.
Could be one of those tetchy, moody weeks where nothing really tempts or entices punters to get involved.
With 3 central bank meetings in one week, you can’t really blame them!
The only thing I’ve added to this week has been UsdCad, yesterday upon the break of the asian range as it failed to print any structural change of trend and then fell back down, and then today on a 1H hook formation.
Crude is driving risk on/off still, and Cad remains more than sensitive to the same dynamic. Tonight’s FOMC expectation is for somewhat of a dovish view…could play into further Usd weakness.
Apart from UsdCad, nothing else really seems appealing this week. And I fully agree with Apache’s analysis of Cable: above 4350 longs might be warranted; below 4200 shorts are back in play; in between, no man’s land.
