Thanks TalonD. You’re asking the same questions of R Carter I’m asking but I’m doing it in a roundabout way! :o
RED EAR & TALOND
I wouldn’t get too hung up on the counter trend trade. I use it and so does SanMiguel (see his last post). But its a riskier trade than following ma’s and takes time and pratise to spot a good set up and even harder to know when to exit.
I’d run with the 7&14 LWMA on the 15m chart and 2&4 LWMA on the hour chart. The two things to look out for are a tightening or the upper and lower bollinger for a likely breakout and a possible change of direction when price breaks the bollinger on the 1h. 
Just to throw the ‘cat amongst the pigeons’. This counter trade can be used on different time charts. I once used it for three weeks when price action was low on the 5m chart. When price stepped outside the bollinger and started to retrace i’d scalp 10 pips each side of the bollinger band (bollinger bouncing). Although the 5m chart is risky and there had to be 30 - 40 pips between the upper and lower bollinger bands.
Here’s a trade that I thought would work out but closed - was before the opening of NYSE.
At A - we get a cross of the 2 LWMA over the 4 LWMA on the 1hr chart - interestingly enough this is a crossover that alerts before the 15min - should really be the 15min first shouldn’t it? Price is still in the upper half of the bollingers and therefore bullish.
B - corresponds to the entry point on the 15min chart.
C - A bit later (30-45mins), we get the MAs crossing in the 15min chart.
As you can see, price looks like it’s being supported by the centre bollinger and the 13SMA on the 1hr chart. The 15min chart shows a bounce off the bottom bollinger with a strong bullish candle. So, I went long. Price then messed about for a couple of hours and I eventually closed at break even because it didn’t seem like it was going anywhere. Price is being a bit more volatile since opening of NY and has again been rejected off support so I’m still favouring a long. Any thoughts?
It’s worth noting that the daily and 4hr charts with bollingers show price at the upper bollinger meaning a long might not be a good idea.
If price turns bullish on the 15min bollingers and MAs (I want to see an LWMA crossover and the bollinger bands expanding), then I am thinking about taking another long following the double bounce off support on the 1hr chart:
Well that was ‘spooky’. I was just commenting a few posts back that bollinger bouncing on the 5m chart was good during low volume/ lack of direction. And today its happend! Switch to a 5m chart on GU and so far there have been around eight solid counter trades i.e. price steps outside the bollinger and wicks, a change of colour candle and enter trade towards the centre bollinger line. 
SanMiguel
Even the short ma today has proved next to useless… its behaved more like a heart monitor… not good at all! Halfway through the day, I switched to a 5m chart and resorted to bollinger bouncing. Theres just no real direction at present? :mad:
Good to see you posting on this forum regularly now Robert!!
Now pardon my ignorance but what does LWMA stand for?
Sound like something we use here in the water board!!
Tymen1
Thanks for the PM… hope he stays. His is one of the names I look for on this forum.
LWMA is one of the miriad of Moving Averages. [B]Linear Weighted Moving Average[/B]. My personal favourite on the 1h chart set at 2 LWMA and 4 LWMA. Its particularly fast compared to most of the others. The standard settings for MA are fine on say the 5m chart? But on the 1h price could have moved 50 pips by the time the MA had picked it up. A fast MA like LWMA set to a short period avoids the worst of this.
TYMEN1
SanMiguel was good enough to set up this new thread when we started to discuss some of the issues here on ‘Win Ratio’.
Its hoped that everyone who comes in can thoroughly chew the fat on all aspects of trading MA’s and the Bollinger Bands. And/ or any combination there of?
[QOTE=R arter;133632]I lie to manally move my stop inside the trade as soon as is pratile. This largely depends on how ast prie is moving and what size the retra*es are. I then move the stop p/ down the trade as it progresses in line with the above movement.[/QOTE]
R Carter
So you manage your stop manually. I find your approach very interesting.
If your trade is in profit and the size on retrace brings you back in the negative what is you’re criteria [B]when[/B] to get out ?
Thx.
btw: The overlay showed the advantage of LWMA in comparison to EMA very clearly.
CAS
Interesting question, without an interesting answer. Just kidding. There are a couple of reasons why I like to move my stop manually.
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I can see the S/R lines, a moving stop can’t.
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I’m sure you will agree, the riskiest part of a trade is the entry. Thats when if i havn’t judged my entry right I loose pips. After a good entry, hopefully I’ll be up some good pips. Then its just a matter of judging a safe time to bring the stop to just inside the trade initially. If theres a big retrace and my stop gets taken out at least I walk away either break even or a few pips up. Either way its not a loss. If I’m up say 10 or more pips and havn’t yet moved my stop inside the trade and an early and unexpected retrace occurs. I’ll close the trade before I go into minus pips. My intial stop is just there for the opening of the trade where I expect a litlle room for the trade to settle in.
Unless price is really moving, I would probably look to bring my stop inside the trade on or around the 20 pip plus area and move it up according to the way price was moving in say 5 - 10 pip increments.
Cas
There is another way to do this. Treat your intial stop as if it were a moving stop until break even.
Say your initial stop is 30. When your up 5 pips manually move your stop up 5 pips and so on and so forth to break even. The idea of not using a moving stop after brekeven is more control over your stop than an arbitory set SL figure which can often get hit on an otherwise big move.
On another thread we are both aquainted with you’ll regularly see the guys up say ‘X’ pips only to find price has retraced and taken them out at their fixed SL. :mad:
R Carter
I feel your approach doing it manually has two key advantages over set SL or moving stop as you pointed out.
[B]1. I can see the S/R lines, a moving stop can’t.[/B]
A lot of times trades get taken out when fixed SL sits in areas outside S/R lines through suddenly increased volatility. Your approach solves that problem IMHO.
I’ve been using ATR readings to get around this problem but ATR is a [B]lagging[/B] indicator and careful judgement is needed to get it about right in line with my money management rules.
[B]2. When your up 5 pips manually move your stop up 5 pips and so on and so forth to break even. [/B]
I believe in getting to break even a quick as possible simply because you can’t lose money with your position anymore.
IMHO the above looks like a very workable approach your suggesting here in order to get to break even very quickly.
I am going to test it. It might solve the problem on the other thread were the guys get taken out with their fixed SL’s.
That’s an interesting one. I too believed that getting my stop to break even as soon as possible is better. However, with backtesting (but only on the daily breakout on the other thread), I found that moving a stop to breakeven after 30pips actually earns less money in the long run because you are choking the trade and not giving it room to breathe. Kaalitko suggested the same. It sounds counter intuitive but that was what came up in the results over the last few months :). However, I haven’t tested moving the stop up in increments.
The breakout method isn’t really breaking out of any defined S/R zone, which is why I truly believe it’s a 50:50 guess strategy - it does spookily work though so traders must be looking at Asian session high and lows - this is why different sessions often move in opposite directions I suppose.
But…this MA/bollinger thread is a different method and when scalping for smaller pips maybe this might be better. I’m trying some backtesting but it’s proving difficult because we don’t just jump in on a trade as soon as an indicator says something, we look at different timescales, volatility, etc.
SanMiguel
Point taken.
But I still think manually moving your stop in increments in line with price in the direction of your trade has merit. In your example, hopefully a TP would be set at 30 pips. But say its missed by 2 pips and retraces? At least a flexible stop would now be either at break even or plus ‘X’ pips. The principle reason I’m not a fan of ‘Set and forget’ trading. Any trade has to be actively managed.
Yes, sure, I don’t believe in fixed targets like 50 or nothing even if it went to 49. We’re talking about a kind of pseudo trailing stop here that trails price rather than only trails once the trade is in profit, which is what the Metatrader trailing stop does at present. I’ve been burned enough times on overnight trades not to bother with set and forget anymore
I second R Carter. That ‘Set and forget’ approach is more often than not responsible for a rigid approach to trading that is counterproductive at the end.
Why would I not actively manage a trade that is let’s say 25 pips in the green just because my TP and SL is set at “x”…?
For that reason I use MAP. [B]M[/B]inimum [B]A[/B]cceptable [B]P[/B]erformance.
First target for me is to break even.
Second target for me is MAP.
Actively managed. And it does not matter whether it is scalping, short term, medium term or long term trades.
After that I try to bag every pip I can get through active management.
This thread ended up on page 2 already. Cas are you a pro institutional trader? I get that impression, I know RCarter is. looking forward to a lot of good info here on this thread. I’ve been following his good advice or trying to but keep missing the boat.
Also downloaded the weekend practice EA you mentioned on another thread, that may be useful I think! I definately need more practice.
I was one of those who wanted this strat in it’s own thread. Unfortunately, much like the Tymen candlestick thread, it has been great on examples of how it works and ways to tweak it, but it started right off complex and by the third post I felt I was trying to learn advanced astrophysics.
TALOND
Hi.
Opened my charts tonight (Sunday) and it looks like price is finally moving again on GU. Changed to 1h chart with a 9 LWMA and 9 SMA and 4h with a 5 LWMA and 5&7 SMA. Cross already happened Friday at 1.669 on the hour chart but was still very choppy. Entered a short at 1.667 tonight and took a quick three hour trade for 48 pips. Closed out… need my beauty sleep. Will see what it looks like tomorrow?