For our purposes it’s when the lines cross each other. A crossing of the zero line is a ‘strong’ signal but - yes - that will lag behind Parabolic SAR.
And if you’re going to sell that tooth then you’d better sell it now!!! Put it this way - the general consensus is (I subscribe to as much ‘Gold info’ as I can find) that if Gold does not close above $730 tomorrow night - it’s going D-O-W-N big time - and my money is waiting for D-O-W-N!!! If it closes ABOVE $730 then (apparantely) we can expect it to go to $800 (well - that’s what all the ‘analysts’ say - but - as stated many times before - trust the charts - not the ‘analysts’)!!!
Anyway - being in the good (albeit ‘hungover’) mood that I’m in I thought I’d give you all the addresses of some of the websites that I use for various ‘useful’ things:
This site will send you an email alert when a certain price level has been reached (and their list seems to contain pretty much every pair ‘known to mankind’):
This site will send you an email alert when a certain price level has been reached AND it can send you an email alert when certain indicators are doing certain things like when MACD crosses from the bottom up or crosses from the top down etc. etc. etc. Unfortuanately limited to only the ‘majors’:
This is a ‘handy’ site for those of you who need to know which markets are open and at what time they open and close (interesting to note that the Taiwanese and the Japanese don’t seem to work that long in a day). Be careful when synchronizing their clock to yours e.g. for some or the other reason THE WHOLE WORLD seems to think that South Africa has DST - WE DON’T - you know - stuff like that:
These links have been posted somewhere before on babypips.com but they are hard to find without sifting through the threads in the ‘newbie’ section so I thought I’d post them here to compliment the thread (especially those of you who are using MACD and are only trading the ‘majors’).
Well - take a look at the chart - it’s will give you an idea as to where my thoughts are going for the ‘final’ system.
Basically - I’ve broken two ‘rules’ - but there are another four or five ‘within spec’ as it were - so - I took the trade.
‘Rules’ broken:
Parabolic SAR has just been pentrated i.e. did not wait until tomorrow for confirmation. If trade is ‘bad’ I will double the position size when I do INDEED receive a Parabolic SAR signal to go short i.e. trading with no stops so I won’t be stopped out if position goes ‘bad’.
MACD MA’s have not crossed yet (see below for reason WHY this ‘rule’ was broken).
Now - the ‘weighting’ of the above two ‘rules’ needs to be established - and that’s what I going to try and prove with this trade. To be honest - I think that these are THE most important two conditions to be satisfied but read on for my reasons as to WHY I have chosen to ‘overlook’ them.
‘Rules’ NOT broken (and applied):
RSI above 50 going down
Stochastics above 50 (actually above 77 - nice) and going down
MACD showing two things (both EXTREMELY powerful MACD signals) i.e. MACD Oscillator showing ‘twin peaks’ and second ‘peak’ lower than the first AND there is divergence between the price and the MACD Oscillator
ADX and / or ADXR above 20 and ADX and ADXR have ‘bottomed’ and have started to turn up.
OK - so - now I’m hoping that this is a ‘text book’ trade of our ‘system’.
Hiya all. LOL Dale, that beer musta done a number on you. I don’t know if I’m the first woman on the thread…probably the only woman who bothers to post anything more like.
OK - so - I was right - so I had better start watching my language from now on!!!
Nice to know though - it’s something that I’ve wondered about i.e. are there many woman that trade for a living? I wonder what the ‘stats’ are? And - more importantly - I wonder how their results compare to men?
And it’s not the ‘useless’ questions that you may think they are (for all of you who think I making small talk here). In John F. Carters book ‘Mastering The Trade’ there is a small section on the different personality types and which personality types are best suited to trading and basically - from what I read and understand - it’s the personality type that ‘sees’ things or rather relies on the ‘visual’ sense and sense of ‘feel’ and ‘intuition’ that make the best traders - and - from my experience - I reckon that MOST woman fall into that category.
Isn’t that a tad impatient? Although breaking 2 out of 7 rules isn’t that bad…is it? tongue in cheek
For me, I think Stochs, MACD & our ‘almost’ Alligator works just fine. Too many indicators and my brain begins to shut down. Add to the fact that I don’t currently have much time to spend studying more than 3 indicators and voila… Besides I’m only watching about 10 pairs,EUR/USD, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, GBP/USD, GBP/CHF, GBP/JPY, AUD/USD. I personally can not handle watching more than 10 pairs. However, after your last post, I added the 11th… EUR/CHF. I want to see how that goes but I’m not entering the trade just yet…[B]I will be patient[/B]
Very funny!!! That’s it - make me feel bad why don’t you!!!
I know you’re right though. Of ALL of the indicators or ‘signals’ I would say the the appearance of the first Parabolic SAR dot indicating a reversal is THE MOST IMPORTANT and - after looking at Ingot54’s MACD post - and then changing my MACD display so that I could actually see the ‘effing’ thing (sorry) - I would say that MACD is THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT signal or confirmation of Parabolic SAR.
ON THE OTHER HAND - after adding all of these new ‘rules’ - as you say - ‘2 out of 7’ ain’t bad!!!
Seriously - I spent a long time looking at MACD on another system a long time ago (and the strange thing is that I did not bother with it BECAUSE IT WAS TOO COMPLICATED would you believe)!!! MACD does give a lot more signals than the ‘common’ ones of the ‘crossing’ and the ‘crossing of the zero line’ so I took the trade based on what I learned back then. Also - Stochastics seems to come out tops on all of my (Delta) charts as well i.e. as a leading indicator.
OK - ok - you got me!!! I JUST COULDN’T STAND NOT HAVING ONE SINGLE OPEN FOREX POSITION!!!
Of course - needless to say - it’s sitting at $102 loss right now!!!
This pair - by the way - seems to ‘loosely’ following EUR/USD (according to the charts and at least from what I can ‘deduce’). EUR/USD is at an all time high I believe because everyone is ‘hanging on’ for Bernanke’s ‘grilling’ this afternoon. Let’s just hope he does not pull a ‘Greenspan’ on us (me) - I’m short Gold, Dow, S&P500, Nasdaq 100, and, of course, EUR/CHF!!! This COULD turn out to be a very bad day!!!
I had a look at your chart and yes - you are quite right - there is a HUGE difference.
The only thing that could make a difference to the value of Parabolic SAR is the price (I think I posted the actual calculation of Parabolic SAR somewhere earlier) and I don’t see enough of a price differences between your chart and mine to warrant such a discrepancy.
Tell you what - I’m going to set up a MANUAL calculation of Parabolic SAR so that we can compare the actual values - let’s see what happens. Could THIS be the reason that we get more false signals than we should???
Thanks for taking the time to look. I noticed that on someones chart a few pages back, the MACD looked a bit different to mine despite the default settings… Very strange, unless it has to do with the time of candles opening and closing at different brokers.??!
Have a look at this one. (EUR/CHF) It is from MT4 North Finance. It is almost identical to the Oanda one I posted before. So some are the same after all.
There may be differences but so far all my trades (taken using Oanda charts) are showing very nice profits.
I got to sleep now but I will review the last few pages of this thread as the posts are appearing faster than i can read.
Sorry folks - this is going to take a while - I’m trying to construct an Excel Worksheet to do these calculations - but it’s NOT that easy I can tell you - so just give me some time.
Just from doing some ‘manual’ calculations I can tell you that all three of my platforms are calculating the value of Parabolic SAR to a greater or lesser degree of ‘accuracy’ but trying to do this with a calculator is going to ‘fry’ my (already ‘fried’) brain. NONE of them are ‘spot on’ though which is alarming to say the least.
By the way - if you’ve EVER wondered about the ‘weight’ that the ‘rule’ of ‘WAITING FOR A NEW PARABOLIC SAR DOT TO APPEAR SIGNALLING A REVERSAL OR A NEW ENTRY POINT’ carries - then have a look at MY EUR/CHF!!! (‘Just Joan’ - I really hope that you are not enjoying this quite as much as I think you may be)!!!
Your right Dale I have 3 different brokers using MT4 platform and they all have different timezones. all the indicators are a little different. I also notice that it can make a difference in parsar. ONe might put the dot today the other not until tomorrow. Thats with only a hour diffeence in there day start and close.
No - I’m talking about the ACTUAL VALUE being calculated - regardless of when the PSAR dot is displayed. This can make a HUGE difference if the actual VALUE of PSAR is wrong. For one thing it could cause the difference between the price penetrating PSAR on a given day and NOT penetrating PSAR on a given day. I mean - just look at what’s happened today with my EUR/CHF position. Parabolic SAR was penetrated on my chart BUT it seems that this has not happened on anybody elses charts (and sometimes it’s been the other way around). What I’m saying is that EVEN IF you added an extra day (or timezone or PSAR dot or or or …) to Bocajunior’s chart his Parabolic SAR would STILL not have been penetrated as yet and I can only assume that there is NOW WAY that the prices differ by a substantial enough amount to cause this (if they do then one of these brokers is sucking the prices out of their thumb)!!!
Again - to state the obvious - remember that we are looking at a graphical representation of Parabolic SAR on our charts - and we are basing out trades on this graphical representation. Parabolic SAR is calculated (it is a ‘fixed’ formula and cannot change) and a dot is plotted or placed on the chart based on the result of this calculation. Now if this calculation is ‘botched up’ then the graphical representation of Parabolic SAR is also obviously wrong.
Does this make sense? Do you see what I’m getting at?
I have been following this post and am really excited about this system.
Question for you on the PSAR calculation, as I have also noticed the fact that different platforms show dots at different places. I have read somewhere that the calculations for PSAR is different when you are going long from when you are going short. Does this sound right? I was actually working on putting something together myself and just wanted to make sure that I am correct in assuming that you would have to calculate one number if the PSAR is trending up and another number if it is trending down.
No - not according to ‘the book’ anyway i.e. there is only one calculation for Parabolic SAR. The only difference is that when you are in a long trade you are only interested in the ‘new highs’ or ‘higher highs’ for the calculation of Parabolic SAR and when you are in a short trade you are only interested in the ‘new lows’ or ‘lower lows’ for the calculation of Parabolic SAR.
One thing I am going to investigate further this week is the ‘tampering’ with Parabolic SAR’s default settings. The reason for this ‘change of heart’ is because I have noticed that RSI and Stochastics react far quicker than Parabolic SAR - SO - I’m thinking - would it not be nice to have a Parabolic SAR that reacts just ‘a tad’ quicker - and works ‘hand in glove’ with RSI and Stochastics??? I have played around with the default settings before and the problem is that you have to find a balance between getting even MORE false signals from Parabolic SAR AND getting it to accelerate faster (thus saving you PIP’s and getting an earlier entry or stop and reverse signal). I do believe that once you start changing the default settings then you have to start taking the actual ‘behaviour’ or ‘characteristics’ of each pair into account and this COULD become quite a ‘mammoth’ task BUT it’s worth looking at again I think.
This is the mark of a true scientist - willing to tweak!
One of the things that happen when optimising a system, is that something has to be sacrificed.
Sometimes the number of “available” trades drops because some get filtered out by defining rules.
And sometimes the quality of trades suffer through whipsaws - introduced when parameters are changed.
This is what may happen if altering the default settings on PSAR. There is nothing wrong with this by the way - as long as we can keep in mind the goal of having a working system that only needs a few minutes each day to manage. And who knows, tweaking the settings might achieve this as well.
I say this because sometimes default settings work well with short TF and not in longer TF. We will not know until we have a go. (Poetry is free!)
I am at work right now so unable to post charts, or do too much reading, but I will attempt to dig up some basics on PSAR settings to assist with our purposes.
‘Screw’ the rum (although the two would go very well together I must tell you)!!! I drink the dark one though - and you’d never find someone like THAT being used to advertise it either - it’d be more the likes of ‘Ziggy Marley’ or someone like that!!!
Anyway - thanks - that was really nice of you - I ‘laughed my head off’ when I saw that - and it’s made my otherwise very ‘rotten’ day a bit more bearable i.e. my one and only forex trade in almost two weeks is going ‘sour’ on me and I’m disgusted!!! So much for RSI / Stochastics / ADX / ADXR!!!
Anyway - just to clarify - at the moment I’m not even concerned with ‘tweaking’ the default parameters - I’m concerned that the parameters (default or otherwise) are not even being applied correctly in the calculation of Parabolic SAR!!!
Actually Ingot54 - we have an ad running here on satellite to ‘welcome’ people to the Sunshine Coast - I don’t know if you’ve seen it - at the end ‘she’ says ‘so where the hell are you’. Man - I hope they all look like THAT in Australia!!! OK - so I am ‘shallow’!!!
Regards,
Dale.
[B]PS - By the way - are any of you feeling ‘energetic’ tonight (today). I need you to post your open, high, low, and close for the last 23 candlesticks or bars on EUR/CHF. I want to get to the bottom of these differing Parabolic SAR calculations / displays one and for all!!![/B]
Look at the attached picture of my Excel Worksheet.
It’s the PROPER manual calculation of Parabolic SAR on EURCHF from one of my daily charts.
Have a look at the column titled ‘DIFF IN PIPS’ - that’s the important one.
That my friends is the extent of the ‘errors’ in PIP’s. The highest is 34 PIP’s for crying out loud. That could make the difference between getting stopped out for nothing or not - or performing a stop and reverse too early or too late - or taking a new position when you should not have. Get the picture?
Now - this is my Delta chart - and - I think I can ‘fix’ it because with Delta you have access to the actual forumlae. If this is a problem at other brokers where the formulae (indicators) are hard coded into the software then you’re going to have one big problem because you can’t ‘fix’ it!!!
What it does not explain is why there are more Parabolic SAR dots on some platforms and not on others. I’ve already covered the ‘Sunday’ candle issue - have any of you checked for this?
On the other hand - if you have a look at the attached chart - I’ve plotted the results of my manual PSAR calculations on the chart (the red lines) - and - other than the fact that there may be three (that’s what I count) extra Parabolic SAR dots drawn - it does not really seem to make THAT much difference (as a matter of fact you would have been stopped out MORE had you used the values of the manual calculation or so it appears anyway).
I don’t know - I’m getting carried away here again I suppose.
OK - so based on these findings - what have we proved? Basically the calculations may not be EXACTLY what they should be but - once plotted on the chart - even these ‘errors’ don’t seem to make as huge a difference as I first suspected - at least not (it would appear) to the end result. As a matter of fact - at Delta anyway - it would appear that however THEY are calculating Parabolic SAR is BETTER for us (me)!!! Go figure.
OK - so WHY then am I sitting with a $221 loss on EUR/CHF??? It looks like it boils down to one thing: YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE CLOSE OF THE CURRENT BAR OR CANDLESTICK AND A NEW PARABOLIC SAR DOT TO APPEAR BEFORE TAKING THE TRADE. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU!!!
THIS is probably the MOST IMPORTANT of ALL ‘the rules’!!!
I would now go so far as to say that MACD is THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT ‘rule’ to be followed and that RSI and Stochastics are there to just confirm that you are not entering and already ‘dead’ trade.
What do you think!!! I’ve gone a very long way around JUST to prove my OWN point to MYSELF wouldn’t you say!!!
I don’t know if I’m the first woman on the thread…probably the only woman who bothers to post anything more like.
