Dimsky's Journal: 100 x 100

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

Going to devote a majority of my time to developing the MQL script, followed by psychology

Hi @darthdimsky

Thank you for posting this heavy work. It must be the nerd in me, but I have a huge admiration for people like you who do original research. On the one hand you may be forgiven for thinking that there are loads of rocket scientists at JP Morgan who get paid $150K per year to do this sort of stuff.

On the other hand, it has been my experience in industry that half the people charged with using automation programmes to extract intelligence from raw data just don’t bother to look at context or check their work with some manual calculations and just downright reality of the universe. I had a really difficult time last year to try to find the way to show the head of BI in a very large company that his data extracts from ServiceNow (helpdesk configuration management database) were shoot - garbage in, garbage out. It would have been far easier just to say that he should have understood his own corporate data after 20 years instead of looking at pretty patterns for the CxO consumption. Together we agreed to inform the powers that be that we had “misinterpreted the data extract criteria” and used incorrect data. That saved a lot of faces.

I am looking forward to seeing some real examples of both API and RPC calls as I study blockchain for the next few weeks. I want to look under the hood of modern decentralized networks and their ability or otherwise to cope with flash demand - like response to a new offering, or just to contain spam on low gas networks. I suspect, somehow, that at a lower level we have a subject matter of common interest.

[darthdimsky]

@Mondeoman

Thank you for posting this heavy work. It must be the nerd in me, but I have a huge admiration for people like you who do original research.

I wish I could claim originality but I took a lot of inspiration from reading Kathy Lien’s book on this one. Here’s an example of her analysis for the Asian session

@Mondeoman

On the one hand you may be forgiven for thinking that there are loads of rocket scientists at JP Morgan who get paid $150K per year to do this sort of stuff.

I think there’s an element of truth though to large firm and pro traders looking at price action in a similar manner. Especially in this day and age where data science is as popular and tools accessible. The above bar chart I came across in the 2nd edition of the book, that was published in 2008. Here’s one way I want to analyze economic news releases:

Excerpt from “Day Trading & Swing Trading the Currency Market”, 3rd edition

I’ve mentioned Kathy Lien so many times in so many places in BP that I’m scared of being reported for promoting her. I found a very similar line of thinking with Linda Raschke and she was a pit trader in the 80s who transitioned to fund manager. Edit: Kathy Lien used to work for JP Morgan, followed by FXCM.

The disappointing thing for me is I haven’t come across any analysis dissecting price action like this. Maybe it’s there and I’ve not stumbled on it yet. It’s disappointing because I want to bounce ideas and improve my knowledge in this space but am unable to. I’m constantly worried that I’m looking at it the wrong way. Edit 2: Actually that’s exaggerated. It’s not worrying if you can validate those findings using another data set, like I did with the COT data findings with the broker data. More like I’m worried if I’m missing out on another way of looking at the data I already have in my possession. That’d be tragic.

@Mondeoman

I am looking forward to seeing some real examples of both API and RPC calls as I study blockchain for the next few weeks. I want to look under the hood of modern decentralized networks and their ability or otherwise to cope with flash demand - like response to a new offering, or just to contain spam on low gas networks.

I know next to nothing about cryptos because I’ve consciously avoided it. Most I feel are trading it because of the hype around it. But I’d be very interested to read any findings in your analysis, simply because it’d be data driven. I haven’t come across anything like it in BP so far.

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

I know next to nothing about cryptos

Hi, thanks for the response. You are too humble. I still think you are doing some very useful fundamental statistical analysis. It was a long time ago now, but I attended a weekend forex course in London hosted by Jimmy Young, who had been trading majors for over 20 years after he left his corporate career at various banks on their Forex desk. Jimmy made a point, just like you are doing, about his analysis of past 20 years of raw data, and came to the same conclusion as you - there was more than a 60% correlation between whatever it was he had measured, and so he always used last trading day closing price as his baseline. Within the first 10 minutes of London open, he chose to trade with trend (I can’t remember if Monday’s trend needed to be same as Fridays, or what was the indicator he used to open a trade, but he had a rule for entry, stop loss and take profit. It was based on a 60%+ probability of being able to catch at least 70% of x pips, x being the statistical average of the 60% probability he caught the trend in the right direction. If I recall rightly, by going for 75% of the pips in the right direction, his win / loss ratio was about 65%. We did not get any notes to take home and his presentation pack files emailed after the presentation did not cover the detail he lectured about.

The link below is to the same guy who hosted the London conference. Attendance was a (reasonable) $300.

Jimmy Young Online

Edited. Oh, about the cryptos, and for trading them, I don’t think there is anything magical about cryptos that doesn’t occur with the majors and crosses. It’s just that there are 10,000 of them, and most of them pair with either BTC or one of the USD stable coins.

I do follow a lot of fundamental analysis about cryptos on Youtube, always make sure I have read the whitepapers of those I choose to trade, and the reason I really like trading them is because they are so volatile, I do not use leverage and hence do not use a stop loss. If and when they collapse to zero, it is never overnight. It is always a long tail down to a satoshi or two.

[darthdimsky]

What I love about the whole Jimmy Young bit (and I hope I don’t sound patronizing) is that he gives #s that you can use to determine whether his argument holds water or not. He’s basically giving you the tools to debunk his own method.

I’d be able to download broker data and apply a similar methodology too after hearing him out. And that’d give me the opportunity to find out if it works for the current market conditions. Perhaps it works for some instruments and not others? That too can be tested. That’s why I like it.

@Mondeoman

I do follow a lot of fundamental analysis about cryptos on Youtube, always make sure I have read the whitepapers of those I choose to trade

I really meant about being ignorant about cryptos. I knew whitepapers existed but I didn’t know there was fundamental analysis around it. First time hearing about it. That’s pretty cool. Do you have a go to YT channel you found reliable?

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

but I didn’t know there was fundamental analysis around it.

Hi,

By far the most reliable source of information is linked below. It’s Guy from Coin Bureau. I thought I had understood what I needed back in June 2020 when I created my first investment / trading plan based on crypto “types”. That was just scratching the surface. I think by now, though I have not measured it, I have probably spent more than 1,000 hours doing some R&D on all things crypto.

I don’t wish to tempt fate, but last night I traded a NFT for a 15X. I did not think that possible, and didn’t really want to sell it, but as you probably agree “everything has a price”, so I put it up for auction on a NFT site at about 10 times its floor price - and it sold due to its rarity. I still can’t get my head around what kind of nutter pays a 12X (it was a 15X in USD terms) when the buy price is in plain sight in the contract, and I’ve owned it for just less than a month.

To date I have bought and sold over 10 NFTs, and all the others were within a small range. But this one last night really made me think - is this the year I give up the day job?

Coin Bureau

I have literally hundreds of links in my OneNote folder for Crypto. Below is a snippet of the folder contents of some of the cryptos I have researched since June 2020.

I just finished a re-definition of my allocation last night, and it now contains up to 30% of value to be diverted from longer term holding to shorter term Liquidity Pair (LP) and NFT trading. Three months ago, both LP and NFT trading were not even on the radar. Today, they constitute almost 50% of our portfolio. Too important to ignore. I have @ponponwei or @ria_rose to thank for that. One of them gave me push to think about playing “play to earn” games, which I dismissed outright, and then decided to look into after talking to an ex-flat mate of my son who got a job inside the GameFi industry. The rest is history.

I am very fortunate to have the time to go and do research into what others think are very off the wall ideas. I now have the basis for a new business, because I think I can scale the identification and filtering of NFT trading without staff needing to understand crypto or even open a crypto account.

The reason I am so clear about spending time pursuing this is because I learned some of these skills playing Runescape with my sons, and during the past three years, I have been practising price discovery methods in that game to reach a “gold pieces” balance of 900 million GP. I haven’t played for a while, but all that fun time has become a serious part of my trading plan for NFTs. Strange how life works out.

[darthdimsky]

@Mondeoman

By far the most reliable source of information is linked below. It’s Guy from Coin Bureau.

I think I remember Coin Bureau when I initially read up on Cryptos in 2017. I think it was the most reliable source of crypto information at the time. I didn’t know about it’s YT channel. Will give it a look.

@Mondeoman

The reason I am so clear about spending time pursuing this is because I learned some of these skills playing Runescape with my sons, and during the past three years, I have been practising price discovery methods in that game to reach a “gold pieces” balance of 900 million GP.

Yea, Runescape’s free market has a lot of interesting dynamics. The price a 3rd age bow has skyrocketed to the 2B range atm I heard recently. This was 3-400m in 2019 atleast. There are some really good flippers in game that also trade in real life markets I think. Sadly I spent time levelling up non combat skills and not enough merchanting so I don’t have any in-game skills that help in trading.

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

Sadly I spent time levelling up non combat skills

Then you would like DeFi Kingdoms. The NFTs in that game are Heroes (like Pokemon trading cards) who you send on quests.

[darthdimsky]

LOL I think I would which is why I’m going to avoid it for now. I have a very difficult time switching off something I take an interest in. That trait has been helpful for trading but with games it’s proven to be a time sink. I was skilling as an ironman (manufactured/harvested most skilling requirements) on a normal account. My OSRS stats:

I want to make trading work full-time. There’s a lot to do and gaming, in my case, will get in the way. If and when I succeed (swing trading on larger capital) I’ll go back to OSRS I think. I feel disappointed I couldn’t finish some in-game objectives.

Journal:

Penning some thoughts I’ve been processing on the downtimes.

• Need to implement a grading system in my journal. Possible solution here and another possible one for ref in “The New Trading for a Living”.
• Get back on the daily notion grind after 100 pip analysis
• Resume and keep the Anki grind. No excuses.

Current to do:

• MQL5 script
• Read Trading in the Zone & Mental Game of Poker to start drafting a mental routines/exercises
• 100 pip exercise continuation on H1/H4
• Incorporate a journal grading system
• Brainstorm a method to quantify mental state, at trade, within journal.

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

There’s a lot to do and gaming, in my case, will get in the way

Hi,

I hope the screenshot may encourage you to allocate a little time to that idea. This represents about 20% of the income I am deriving from this game. The rest is in a liquidity pair. The underlying currency (Jewel) is down 25% in last few days, but it was up 200% from when I got in, so not bothered in the short term.

This represents 50 trading days, the first 25 of which earnings related to a total of eight heroes, the last 25 representing contributions from a total of 25 heroes. The cumulative results of this exercise has helped to cement a plan for NFT trading. And that is that the NFTs I invest in MUST have an income-generating capability, preferably one that can potentially deliver 10% per month of value purchased with little or no “operating cost”. Snapshot taken at 1am local time.

P.S. OCD in RS3. If RS3 had been a blockchain game for the past 3 years I would probably have about $100K value in there right now.

[greenscorpio]

Out of curiousity had to Google name , obviously familiar with Golden Girls and Mary Tyler Moore show grand old age bless her

[darthdimsky]

My knowledge base and the late stage at which I began trading/investing is a huge cause for concern. It’s very subpar. There’s a massive opportunity cost if I step off the gas at this stage in my development.

There’s an even bigger concern and reason though. I don’t deal in anything crypto related cause my offshore bank will cancel the account if they get a whiff of me dealing in it. Forex no issues, but not crypto. It was difficult finding a bank that facilitated this. Can’t jeopardize the situation right now.

[darthdimsky]

Yea, for me it was Golden Girls & Golden Palace as a kid. Had no idea she had a potty mouth till I saw her with Ryan Reynolds

[greenscorpio]

Yes I remember been young when they first aired them shows over here awww when we only had 3 channels

[SpaceCowboy2104]

Hey @darthdimsky, been going through your blog, interesting stuff, i feel like your working yourself way to hard. looking back at when i started out trading i wasted a lot of time on things that felt were really meaningfull, but later just proved to be a waste of time and energy. im not saying that your doing the same, bc i dont really know, but trading isnt as complicated as your blog indicates.

[darthdimsky]

Hey, welcome to the forum!

Completely agree with you. There’s enough blogs/journals/strategies that even compliment your argument. Even the way I traded when I documented and worked on in my Notion updates proved to do well enough for me.

I can simply revert to what I was doing and get good results I believe. I’d rather not do that. I’d rather set up a comprehensive system and build a firm foundation for a possible chance at trading full-time and in other markets/instruments.

If you look at it from that context this isn’t a lot of work. In fact, this should probably be the bare minimum.

Edit: There’s also a part of me that that will cause me to be disappointed in myself if I “let go” of certain ideas. I want to trade like the institutional traders I admire reading and listening to and the common denominator in their approach is putting in the effort & hours.

[SpaceCowboy2104]

well i guess you have to do what feels right to you. will follow

[darthdimsky]

Done.

I was so wrong. This was nothing like riding a bike. Or maybe it is. I haven’t ridden one in years.

Glad I’d uploaded that gif in the Notion thread. The field headers and data formats ensured I didn’t have to touch or source anything from Notion. Plug & play all the way.

Very proud of this part. As a coding noob I’m feeling a bit arrogant right now. Justifiably so.

Two marked efficiencies over previous code:

1. Previous delimiters were hardcoded within a Printf() string. Not this version. CSV delimiters can be changed now within the FILEOPEN function.
2. Previously there were individual For Next loops against each group of arrays (each of the indicators, 10H/L values, OHLC values). This was because I was strictly enforcing the logic in the MQL5 manual samples and whatever code I could find online. Chucked it and figured a workaround when I realised this time round that most of my arrays were one dimensional because I was only looking at previous day values only. That helped streamline the code. I was procrastinating at the prospect of coding and error checking those loops again. It’s amazing how a want to be lazy can motivate innovative ideas sometimes.

I’m pretty sure there my code’s far from efficient in the eyes of a seasoned MQL5/C++ coder. But this is my Frankenstein and I’m proud of it.

Notion Checklist.csv (10.4 KB) Notion Checklist MQL5 code.txt (5.1 KB)

Restored Balance

The code is super important. This code enabled a process that I built a rigorous daily routine around. Challenging enough that I never once completed my daily checklist:

I’m naturally headstrong and relentless. Good traits for problem solving but naturally bad when the same traits leads to a propensity to overtrade, revenge trade & chase profits. Atleast the same equivalents when I played poker.

The routine building was to adapt to a more compartmentalized approach. It was to force efficiency and economy of mental capital (termed by Alexander Elder) over time. With the intention of adding onto it or changing it when things got too comfortable. To shock the system.

In hindsight, it might’ve been worth it to have paid for a data recovery tbh. But not having it had forced a re-evaluation of what I was doing. I expect a more robust approach to my previous routine.

Possible New Projects

Now that I’ve just finished the coding exercise and have built a library of sample codes to make future coding easier. I should be able to:

• take on building a data extract for the historic MT5 economic calendar data.
• build code for adhoc data extracts. Recently needed ATR values to run some numbers. Was forced to let go because the time required to invest in learning code for that requirement wasn’t worth it. Now it’s a very simple exercise.

Reading:

Decided to start with Disciplined trader and work my way up to later books. Dismal progress. Let the coding take most of my time and just went through 40 or so pages so far.

Surprising MQL5 discovery
Was going over some pretty good MQL guides like this one and decided to check the author bio for this one. Was surprised to see he’d coded the following:

Pretty cool that he’s created EAs on Thomas Bulkowski’s findings. What’s interesting is whether the basis for those indicators can be used to update/continue his studies, given that the book was published nearly 2 decades ago.

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

I was so wrong. This was nothing like riding a bike.

Mind blowing. I haven’t got a clue what the coding means - a bit like me trying to read Arabic.
But you are on a roll and I can see that. Well done. On a more simplistic level, I have committed to become “a blockchain consultant” by Q2, 2022. Having publicly stated it, I now have to get my skates on.

Off the wall comment. Have you thought of applying to code with a crypto business? According to Linked-In it was the most sought after skill in 2021 with an expected 100% increase in demand in 2022. That was what caused me to seek serious training material in blockchain.

[darthdimsky]

@Mondeoman

Have you thought of applying to code with a crypto business?

My coding skills and drive are limited tbh. I have no natural interest in coding but I have a strong drive for data analysis. That’s why I learnt the bare essentials for data extracts and haven’t bothered going into EAs and custom indicators on MQL5. But I have a feeling that will change over time when I want to avoid micromanaging trades and atleast semi-automate certain processes.

I have plans for python, statistics and econometrics going forward but I have to do a better job at compartmentalizing my ongoing study and everything else.

@Mondeoman

I have committed to become “a blockchain consultant” by Q2, 2022

I’m really excited to see how this works out. Will you be updating your crypto journal with regular updates with this regard? If you haven’t considered it I hope you will. It’ll be an inspiring read.

[Mondeoman]

@darthdimsky

Will you be updating your crypto journal with regular updates with this regard? If you haven’t considered it I hope you will. It’ll be an inspiring read

Hi,
I am not sure at this stage, but there are a couple of areas associated with project and programme management that I have been steered towards over the past four years, rather than by force of necessity than choice. Customers never seem to have the full mix of skills in a team, so where we are short I have always volunteered to cover. One of those areas is business analysis. If I get a good BA that is a godsend. But often the BA role comes from the business discipline who owns the project (human resources, finance, operations, cyber-security). And that then led to governance, reporting content and cadence definition.

I see a future where companies have no choice but to adopt blockchain as unbreakable set of rules, and I see governments mandating compliance in law or “authority documents” that will cause this shift to happen, as Sarbanne-Oxley compliance in the USA led all CxO leaders to pay close attention to their accounts to avoid going to jail for cooking the books, whether they knew or not.

Corporations will preferentially adopt DACs (corporations) rather than DAOs (organisations) but the interesting part comes when companies wish to federate their access to critical business information with infrastructure that will replace one way and two way trusts between legal entities. The governance and architecture of that future compliance scenario is what interests me the most.

I just bought the NFT domain mondeoman.dao from unstoppable domains. Not sure what I will do with it yet but it will be part of my study to understand the differences between Web 2 and Web3 at the application layer. For example, DNS does not currently recognize the TLDs such as .dao, .wallet, etc. Ethereum has made their own ENS service, but such standards are in the pipeline to be issued. The DAO or DAC will choose whether or not to advertise the path to their decentralized services. There is a lot still very unclear to me, but having done the MCSE certification 20 years ago sure helps. I’ll let you know if I post, or send you a link to my discord server or AWS server when I know how the architecture will store my data and metadata.