Anyway, not driving the cab today, got some garage issues to sort out with it.
But no intention of trading either. Will use today to form my “basics”. Trading guiglines.
Hopefully by later tonight I will have come up with something half sensible I can post. Talk soon gang.
HoG
Hi Yunny! Well I’m wasted… stayed up all night glued to the monitors trying to figure out what I should do. I’m around BE now on the longer trades. But they will be the last! All this uncertainty with EU and of course the knock on effect on GU is making the daily hi/lo & open/close trades too dangerous for my taste. I believe ST alluded to something along similar lines awhile back but particular to his strat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still ahead trading off the daily but these 200 & 300 pip moves are proving difficult to accurately predict. Double and treble dip moves without retracing a close into the previous candle whilst not even necessarily into a defined trend is eating into my average 250’ish pip gain a week.
So after much thought, I am going back to a strat I’ve not used for two and a half years. Scalping the 15m GU chart. It seems I’ve not lost the feel for this given from 06:45 (GMT) unti 07:45 today I took three trades all wins and am up plus 40. Of course it means being glued to the screens and more intense but I’d rather do this than carry on as before in the current climate.
EDIT: Another 20 off 1.5765… forgot how much fun this was. :32:
Yesterday I thought to myself I could file a limit long at 13430. 
No really, it is true. I can still see the order form here. Why didn’t I file it?
For two reasons:
Oh sorry, that were three reasons, lol.
Now it went down to 13428 (2 pips below my imagined entry) and went up “a little” couple of pips, lol. Anyways, that’s how trading works: Not to catch every move, but to look for the odds in my favor.
However, nice to see that my entry points get closer to the real thing. There was a nice demand area down there at the second week of October. 
No bot order, so I guess my money gets just protected today?
The trouble with coming home to find PA doing what it is doing is that there is a temptation just to jump straight in. I guess it’s all part of the discipline to learn NOT to do that.
Hi RC,
Yes, the market has increased its volatility, I used to hold trades for 2-3 days now I became a intraday trader… That is why I want to contribute a little to this thread with a volatility tool I have been using last few months.
For some time I had the ATR (average true range) indicator in my chart but its was hard to interpret since I am more of a visual person and at that time thought volatility was not very important measure, then I started using Bollinger Bands but they are better for breakouts and I tend to play reversals.
These last months with the increase of volatility I went back to ATR and came across with the STARC bands indicator, which is base on the calculation of ATR but drawing bands around PA.
I guess some of you more experienced traders already know about STARC bands but for the rest here is a explanation from a Forbes’ article:
[I]“The Starc bands were developed in the mid-1980’s by the late Manning Stoller. Starc stands for the Stoller Average Range Channel, and by far, these are my favorite banding, or channel techniques. The same formula is used on all markets and for any time frame. It goes as follows:
Starc+ = 6-period moving average + (2 x 15-period Average True Range) (ATR)
Starc- = 6-period moving average – (2 x 15-period Average True Range) (ATR)
Some internet postings claim that Starc bands are similar to Bollinger bands, but this is not the case. The beauty of the Starc bands is that they are one of the few indictors than can give you an objective reading on whether it is a high- or low-risk time to buy or sell.
Using two times the Average True Range (ATR), Manning estimated that 90% of the price activity should stay within the bands. His research also determined that by using three times the ATR, close to 100% of the price activity should stay within the bands.
As for interpretation, if prices are near the Starc+ bands, it is a high-risk time to buy and a low-risk time to sell. Conversely, when prices are near the Starc- band, it is a low-risk time to buy and a high-risk time to sell.”[/I]
As you can see, STARC bands try to give us a visual reading of just volatility.
I have been testing several parameters for the bands and so far the best for me are:
5 period MA, 63 period ATR and Bands of 2,3,4,5 factor of ATR
As the Forbes’ article said, you can use STARC bands to try gauge if a sell/buy opportunity carries more or less risk in a certain period of time, here is an extract from an Investopedia.com’s article:
[I]“The main difference between the two interpretations is that STARC bands help to determine the higher probability trade rather than standard deviations containing the price action. Simply put, the bands will allow the trader to consider higher or lower risk opportunities rather than a return to a median.
•Price action that rises to the upper band offers a lower risk sell opportunity and a high-risk buy situation.
•Price action that declines to the lower band offers a lower risk buy opportunity and a high-risk sell situation.
This is not to say that the price action won’t go against the newly initiated position; however, STARC bands do act in the trader’s favor by displaying the best opportunities. If this indicator is coupled with disciplined money management, the FX enthusiast will be able to profit by taking on lower risk initiatives and minimizing losses.”[/I]
So if you combine your actual strategy (PA, S/R, Volume, Harmonics, Divergence, etc) with the bands, they can tell you a better understanding of the risk taken in each trade, now I have even placed my stops loss based on volatility and S/R.
Now something practical, here is my 8H chart:
In my set up I have 4 STARC bands (2,3,4,5 ATR), once PA touches or goes beyond the 2 ATR STARC band, I start looking for PA, S/R or volume reversal opportunities in lower frames like 1H or 15M.
If I can’t find anything then a take NO trade.
This is an example of a real trade (+400pips) 8H chart:
In the 8H PA went between 2 and 3 ATR STARC bands, so I began looking for shorts in the 1H chart…
Nothing is certain in trading, PA can go in one direction for a long time, but knowing volatility we can assess the risk taken. I recommend using STARC bands in nothing less than 4H chart, even though it works the same no matter the time frame.
Hope this help improve your trading as it has helped mine.
If you sticked to the rules, you can still be grateful.
@ HoG:
That’s why I wrote that with the missed trade again. I am definitely not sour because of that. There are lots of opportunities, but the part of a successful system is to boil it down to just one setup. I wrote that at another post already, but try now to give more details:
The market has plenty of opportunities, but if you use all, then you end up broke. Why? Simply because the string of losses can be so high that you can’t make it til the winners come around.
Say you have one system/bot/whatever with just one setup. That gives you for instance an edge and a roi of say 50% with a max. drawdown of 20%.
Now, if you trade that, your account can go maybe down 40% (twice the drawdown of backtesting), because the real world is always a little different than the best backtesting would suggest.
So then say you take another system, with also an edge and say 40% roi and 15% drawdown. That boils down to 80% roi if you take both setups/systems and already 70%! drawdown!
So far so good. If you take both systems, your risk is 70% and your roi is 90%. You make money over the long haul. However, it would still be better to use just system 1, because system 2 has less performance. The risk/reward ratio decreases. Albeit lets do it for the sake of portfolio theories.
Now lets say we take another system and this is the most successful: 100% roi and only 15% drawdown! Oh great, you think. I’ll add that to my portfolio of system 1 and 2.
Now you have 3 systems and all for themself are proper, have an edge, everything fine, right? WRONG! Just do the math:
You have now an roi of 50+40+100% all together. Makes 190% roi, right? Awesome!
Now lets do the math of risk: 40+30+30% makes 100%. Just wait for the margin call!
That’s why it is vital to focus on risk side of your trades and why you have to let go all the other nice setups, which look so promising!
Please take that “you” not literally, btw.
Just left an order to sell @ 1-3535. That was a level I sold at yesterday ( losing trade ). Have a feeling price might fail @ 1-3520 though. See what happens
Hah I apologize, I suppose that was a bit of a burn. I honestly wasn’t thinking the same thing that I wrote. It should have been …some experienced trader (including you)…
Anyways, thanks for the encouragement from you and ST it’s made me feel better (although not completely).
I wouldn’t say that over trading is my problem (it was at first because of my enthusiasm, but after that died down things changed) for the last month I generally won’t do more than 2 trades a day and many days won’t do any (I miss some setups because of work).
ST, I agree with you on many people being able to spot good setups. It all comes down to having a valid SL, but more importantly (for me anyways) a valid TP. I can’t say how many times the price has come within 5-10 pips from my TP only to turn around and either BE or hit my SL.
In any case, even though I lost money trading currencies it has made me learn some things about myself in the last two months that I would consider worth the $200 lost so far. Most notably that (even though my grandma says otherwise) I’m nothing special (yea I thought I was when I first started hehe).
Tom
Letz see. I’m short at 13524, target 13490, sl above last swing high.
First of all, I would say that there is no need for apologies for anything on this thread. In fact, you will find, that a healthy dose of humour will serve you well on this thread.
Secondly, and it’s not just said to make you feel better, everything you have said so far, about losing money, price reversing from your TP etc, mirrors my experience, and I would hazard a guess that EVERY SINGLE trader, regardless of their experience now, has gone through all of these things in their trading adventure.
But far from this meaning that you are not “special”, I would say that it just means you are not “unique” in trading terms, because everyone goes through the same things, the same emotions, the same experiences. And I dare say they continue to go through them throughout their career.
What WILL make you special is surviving over the long term. If figures are to be believed, the vast majority of people who try currency trading fail, so I know this may sound a little negative, but your objective just now should be to survive, even if that means just breaking even over the next few months. You will be learning as you go.
If it makes you feel any better I posted a trade order just a couple of posts ago that I had left a sell order for Euro Dollar at 1-3535. But then I decided to up the entry price to 1-3545. Price seems to have got to 1-3542 and fell back down to 1-3525 as I write.
I too miss my preferred trading times (london session) becaus eof work. Just be careful not to fall into the trap that I did for a good while of coming home looking for a trade that you really shouldn’t take, just because you want to trade.
Hope this helps
HoG
I’m glad you can get on with them Yunny, I prefer multiple DNC… way better and more precise than BB’s. Theres actually a Starc band named after Tymen (long time member of BP before he was banned) who created them. He was blown away when I directed him to the site recently.
Okay, sl to 13508 cause I got in too late and hit, but 15 pips very quick.
This is agonising. I’m sitting here watching PA hoping it hits 13490, cringing every time it bounces back up a bit and it’s not even my trade LOL !!
Thank God for that, I can have my coffee in peace without the nerves now :44: Well played that man !
If price gets above 13510 I’ll put a short order back in @ 13530-35
Yes when I was doing my research on STARC I found tymen’s thread, seems like he was using them to scalp with very narrow ATR factors, not my trading style… and his code was just 2 bands on mt4…
Anyway I just wanted to point out that STARC bands can be a good addition to your current strategy…
Okay, here are the reasons why I took this loooooow risk trade:
Low risk, because I risked less than 0.2% of my account.
Price was above beta2 on the M15 chart below (The red dashed line on top).
Resistance was at my entry point.
No heavy demand zone above 13490.
Thank you HoG! 
Well, it might go lower and was already at 13492, but I didn’t get the best entry, so that was the reason I chickened out, lol. 
Bucks, when you say beta2… is 2 standard deviation from your channel?
Absolutely!
Well, sometimes if it’s below the mean average I miss the minus, but right now it was truly the positive beta. I use regression channels, as already mentioned above anywhere. The beta 2 is like that of the bb’s, but the regression channels have the advantage over the others imho that they don’t “walk away” with vola.
What I do not like with the bb’s is that they have volatility as factor, which overcomplicates the calculation of the beta value. Plus the calculation of the beta value gets distorted by the volatility. If you have regression lines, there is no distortion.
Below I’ve clicked together a chart. Just bb’s and regression lines (dashed). You can clearly see that the regression channel gives less, but more accurate entries for tops and bottoms. Plus the thick green line which is the mean average gives a prediction of the trend.
Just took a quick short ( 2 lots ) from 13540 to 13525, stop was 13550. +15.
Price has had a couple of bounces up from the 1-3520 area in the last hour but I think I am more or less done for today, unless it wanders back up to test the weekly s1 or daily pivot I might try another quick short with a tight stop again.
