Bucks…i’m honestly a bit scared to ask…this can’t be your real trading screen… is it?
LOL!!! Your not the first to comment on Bucks spagetti bowl trading screen. Actually its not that bad a set up once you take a closer look. Candles with a larger ‘Big Candle’ overlay marking the longer hi/lo and positive, nuetral and negative. Hi/lo trend lines. Fibs. etc. All as clear as mud to the untrained eye! 
Oh, I have some more screens, lol. I mean, I have currently three different charts with eurusd open and can switch. One is what my first bot sees. That is the clearest one. You both eremarket and RC would be proud of it, lol. I have this just open to look if my bot trades against me or not if I open a trade, lol. Because the bot doesn’t need a chart. It runs on another computer.
Then I have my other screen for another bot, but it is mixed and shows also some other stuff. I just use that to look at the bots variables (because I sometimes trade that by hand if my bot is too lazy). Well, it looks orderly in relation to my final “witch kitchen” screen, lol.
Okay, the first thing to have in mind that I have a very big screen here with high resolution. So, what looks a little like your favorite Italian dinner in a compressed screenshot looks rather okay here. Plus then I need something to experiment with. My bots work with mostly pa and maybe one indicator value, but if I look for new edges then I need to experiment with new tools from time to time. Now, that’s also the reason I have some more chart setups. I guess them are all in all one hundred all together, but I do not use 95 of them for searching edges, lol. Most indis were sorted out for not showing a good performance.
The screen above is adapted to my very own style of looking at the market. Trend lines, automatically drawn. Regression lines, automatically drawn. Automatic Cbl. Guppy mas (just in decent blue). The fibbs in two directions, automatically drawn. Pivot points, automatically drawn. Hints about important candle patterns, but just the last 10 candles. The rectangles in the background were even annoying to me so I switched them off at h4, because it is not helpful at this timeframe. Those show the sessions. They are helpful if I have a h1 and lower timeframe, though. Then some s/r lines and on top some messages.
Anyways, I am glad you didn’t see what I have below that main chart, lol. You would maybe risk a heart attack, looking at it.
I’ll give you all a quick story that has nothing to do with trading since it’s Saturday night and the markets are closed.
Years ago, when I worked in construction, it always amazed me why the Government allowed DIY shops to even exist. For the benefit of any readers who don’t live in the UK, we have a large home improvements, DIY retail chain of stores here called B&Q.
And any time I was ever in one of their stores, I would stand shaking my head as I watched people buying power drills, electric saws and other items that would cut a limb off in the blink of an eye, if it didn’t take that eye out first that is !!
People who you just knew, just by the look of them, had never even used an electric razor before , and here they were now, walking out of B&Q with a saw that can cut through concrete 1 foot thick. And the same thought ALWAYS went through my head. “That’s just going to end in tears.”
There’s a reason you see, that people spend 4 years doing apprenticeships. It so they learn, not just how to do a job, but how to do it without cutting half their body off in the process. In short, it has always been my opinion that their is a person for every job. And the reason that person fits that job, is because that person has been TRAINED to do that job. That belief is very much ingrained in me. In a way, it’s a code I’ve lived by: Don’t arse about with something you’re not qualified to arse about with. Simple !!
So what in God’s name made me by a set of hair clippers today, and then come home and actually use them, I’ll never know until the day I die !!
I should’ve noticed the lady at the checkout shaking her head, it should’ve dawned on me something was wrong when the shop assisstant asked me, “Have you ever used these before?” I should’ve used one of the kids as a guinea pig first even !!
But alas, no.
This morning I bought the DIY, never pay to get your hair cut again, hair cutter set. It’s not like regular clippers that you’d sheer a sheep with, ( if that’s the sort of thing your into!). This is like a ball, that has a ‘length’ guard on one side, so you can take different length chunks, I mean, CUT your hair to different lengths.
You put your hand through a strap at the top, and the idea is simply that you rub this thing all over your head, and it cuts your entire head of hair to one length. Simple, what could possibly go wrong? ( I’m sure I heard a one armed man ask that same question in B&Q once )
To say that the outcome of this momentary lapse of core beliefs was anything less than a total and utter debacle would be akin to saying the Antarctic was “a bit chilly”.
I can only imagine the inventors of this machine are having as much a laugh about the fact they actually sell any of these things, as my wife and daughters have had all day as I turned myself into a six foot coconut.
£43 that piece of sh…, ahem, the hair cutter cost me. Plus the £8.50 to a more than amused girl down at our local barbers shop who had to shave my head almost bald just to fix it. Then another £5 for a hat which I’ll now have to wear for about 2 months.
I wish I’d taken a photo of the ‘finished’ haircut. I swear I would’ve put it on here so that the next time any of you guys have a losing trade you could just have a look at it and you’d think, “Oh well, could be worse…”
But as I’ve said many times before on this thread, that’s the way I’ve always been. Charge in, worry about fixing it later. Sometimes it can be a bit bumpy, but every now and again it makes you laugh.
So the moral of this story,( unfortunately it’s a moral for OTHER people as I fear it’s too late for me) and I guess it works for trading as well, is that you should never be pissing about with things that you are neither trained or experienced enough to be pissing about with in the first place. Because it will only end in tears.
Kojak…I mean HoG
Who luvs ya baby !!
HoG, I’ve been a secret follower of your thread since almost Day 1. Today I simply must come out of my hideout to tell you that you just made my day. What a story!
Beside that, I love the information I get in this thread. A big thanks to you and all contributors!
Cheers,
solohayuna
HI Solohayuna
I’m glad the story of my brief hair-dressing career made you smile. However I doubt it gave you as much of a laugh as it has given my wife and daughters. ( now 24 hours later and they’re still enthusiastically telling anybody and everybody who cares to listen ).
Other thing is, try not to be a ‘secret’ follower. I like to think the gang here at the Traders Arms are a friendly bunch, so next time you come in just pull up a chair and say hello.
Again as I’ve said before, we’ve been lucky here to have some knowledgeable contributors, so if you have any questions, or have any opinions or thoughts on a trade, or anything, just get involved. Someone in here will answer.
Anyway, nice to meet you, and if you’re looking for me at any time, I’m the tall bald guy behind the bar !!
HoG
Nice to meet you, too, HoG.
I do not trade actively, neither demo nor live. I got an interest in forex because I am earning my money in USD but on the long run will live in Euroland. So I am always looking out for a good opportunity to send money home. Beside that, I do like programming a lot but did not have a useful project to work on. I decided to give forex bot programming a try. So far it is a lot of fun, mostly learning what things do not work :-). However, I start understanding now what challenges are to be mastered. Not expecting to have a working bot soon but just enjoying the whole process. Part of this is to absorb any information available, as for example in your thread. Obviously I am especially interested in any little piece of information Buckscoder is dropping ;-).
For now I think I take a beer (any German available? otherwise I settle for the “house brand”) and wish everybody a pleasant remaining Sunday.
solohayuna
HoG, about 5 years ago i left my golf shop in the middle of a busy day to go to my neighbors hair shop for a cut, she was quite rude for me giving her 15 dollars for a 5-7 min cut. I walked out across the parking lot to walmart and bought my haircutting set for 22.00 and havent paid for a cut since. Now originally i was a 4mm all around same lenght and my wife did it now i am at 2mm and i do it with her cleaning up my neck once a month or so.
take your hat off and be proud of your DIY skillz which kinda mirrored your forex skillz except you have kept at that to get better.
LOL.
By end of this week, I dont know if the number of profitable traders will increase, but I am sure that the number of babypips readers who are going to stop patronizing their local barbers is going to quadruple! .
It’s an interesting subject the whole automated trading system thing. Dunno if you checked out the web-site Buckscoder mentioned a few posts ago but that deals with that subject.
Eventually, when I feel as though I have a good enough understanding of the Forex subject, I reckon I could quite happily have an automated system running as well as doing it “manually” so to speak. Which throws up a question similar to your situation.
If you don’t trade Forex already, and therefore pressumably are not greatly experienced in using forex tools and recognizing Buy/Sell signals, how can you programme a bot to do it? As I say, I could eventually see myself having an automated system, ( whether or not I’d have the IT skills necessary to programme one myself is another question though ) but as you are more than aware, a bot will only react the way you have programmed it to react, and only act on the signals you have programmed it to act apon.
But if you don’t know yourself what signals to act on, how can it be possible to programme a bot? Y’see what I mean?
I couldn’t ever see myself, using a totally automated system. I actually enjoy the whole cut and thrust of the trading experience. I know that when I become more experienced I probably won’t sit in front of the screen the entire day watching charts. I may pick my hours to work similar to office hours, I might just trade the London session, or I might just adapt as necessary. But I still like to be involved.
However, ultimately, learning to programme a bot, a successful bot, I reckon can only be a good thing for your overall trading, possibly be even a better way to learn than many other ways. Even if it is only from the point of view that in order to programme a successful bot, you’d first of all need to learn yourself what does work and doesn’t work. So I’d stick with that if I were you.
I’m sure if you give Buckscoder a nudge he’ll point you in the right direction !!
Anyway it’s dinner time just now and then it will be bath time for my youngest ( who has recently decided at the age of 6 she is all the woman she’ll ever be and is now demanding she be allowed to go for an un-supervised shower ). I would let her, but the ammount of shampoo she goes through in one shower could run a salon for a week !
After that it will be time to fire up the charts, forget about the trials and tribulations of last week and let battle commence once again.
As for the German beer, don’t let SimonTemplar hear you ask for that, he’s partial to a local brand called ‘Chatsworth’ and I reckon he will fiercely defend it’s position of the “house brand”.
Good luck for the week ahead to all !!
HoG
Ah…, the only difference is that when I was finished, I was 6mm at one bit, 3 mm at another, possibly 4 mm at another point, and owing to the fact I have this bizarre silver ( some would call it grey, but I’m sure no-one on this thread would be that cruel LOL ) patch at the front of my head, it actually looks completely bald when the sun catches it now that it’s all 2 mm.
I’m usually a 4 mm man myself, but things are a bit chilly round the ear department now since the frost has decided to turn up at the same time as my new streamlined look.
Nevermind kenny, I’m not pinning my hopes on a career in hair-dressing. But I need to go now, I bought a home vasectomy kit today and I want to read the instructions before bed time !!:17:
It does worry me Niki that I may now be personally, partially resposible for a decline in British GDP. LOL !!
OK, not going to trade tonight from the open, but best idea going from charts just now is a drop in AUD/NZD from the 4H and the Daily.
I wouldn’t presume to pick a flavor for you.
Have at it!
But you have assumed I like one of them. If memory serves I think it started, “NOT going to trade tonight…”
Unless of course this is the previously fabled ‘hard core’ ?
Take em all HoG, then you can decide later, lol.
I didn’t read all, just was flying over it and read about that bot topic. German here, at least the official version, lol. I guess the liquid in my venes was imported from the deep south of the US though, so that’s what I feel.
What HoG wrote about bots was all I would write about it, so there is not much what I had to add. If somebody want’s to code a successful bot he needs to trade successfully at first. Or at least to know how “the game” is working. A bot is hopefully not doing anything else than doing what you want. Just quicker, with more accuracy and without emotions. However, it needs the guts to let the trades run. If it’s in the loss or give losses or profits, no matter what. That’s no different than trading by hand. So then the same rules apply and somebody who want’s to trade with a bot needs one which is doing exactly what he wants. That’s why black box systems not work imho. Beside the fact that somebody with a successful strat would never sell them. Sure there are bots with neuro networking and genetics, but even this is not like a thinking human brain. I guess it’s like with traders: 95% or so of all bots, particular those which are sold, are losers in the long run.
I coded a bot (or more) and have faith in it. I would rather die before to sell them or give the strat away, which all together includes a life long experience about coding, economics, fincancials, trading, etc. etc. So, why would anybody sell such a bot as black box for $99 on sale? Makes only sense if they sell such a bot to make money with selling the bot and not trading. If they sell such a bot then it is like the big red warning sign that themself have no faith in their strategy over the long haul. That’s what most bot tests show also.
The key to trading is imho to learn statistics. Any one trade in isolation has almost the same 50% probability at that time to fail, no matter how nice the signals stack up. Only over the long haul you can have an expectancy with a system and that is the thing to search for: A long term edge of a bunch of trades where the bottom line is an edge. It doesn’t need just to understand it, but to inhale it like fresh air, day after day, and only then there is the chance for success. 
Was just trying to help you complete your Kojak ensemble.
Lost in translation I guess…
I apologise unreservedly Tang. Thought you thought I was looking for some-one to tell me which way to trade. my fault entirely, apologies once again.
HoG
I think all cult tv references should be welcomed on any thread. ‘Who loves you, baby?’
I have always liked the idea of having a bot trading away for me, but would not know where to begin, so I am stuck with my comfort zone, trading the old-fashioned way.
During my regular Thursday evening outing last week the Chatsworth was off, I had to have Hobgoblin as a stand-in, which I know that Buckscoder has recommended on another thread (the beer thread in the melting pot, iirc). Pretty good consolation prize.
I did used to live in Germany, though, down in the Black Forest, just off the Swiss border, and was partial - when not frequenting the odd Irish pub! - to the local Weißbier, I was a regular visitor to Austria at that time, too, and they served similar. So we could perhaps feature some of that as a guest beer, keep our continental cousins happy?
(Sorry for irrelevance to core issue of the thread - not trading this morning as it’s all a bit mixed, supposed to be changing a brake caliper on the car but my back won’t let me so I’m at a loose end!)
ST