See school of pipsology for definitions or any good educational site. Basically we are talking about when the market is consolidating and waiting for a trend to develop. I would attach links but this horrible internet problem causes sites to take a year to load. My blog should have some useful links.
I’m trading PSAR and pivot points and learning from u guys. I’m still a relative newbie. Go to my blog at forexology to see my humble reports. I’m not making money but optimistically think that I’m beginning to bottom out my losses.
Had a good week last week with gold and cable with my puny Oanda account. So if you are an oil rich sultan you could send me a cheque for $50K to start some real trading!
Seriously Akram I shared enough of my life on this thread for you to know I’m a very new and very struggling forex trader. Take a read of my blog and we can talk some more.
Here’s something ironic. I was so impressed with your treatise on indices a few pages back that I actually posted a positive response practically nominating you to start an online trading school.
Then you suddenly declared yourself a trading flop; man I had to delete my post or it would have appeared as sarcasm on my part when I was seriously applauding your leadership skills. You’re very bright, very eloquent, and you do know how to teach. We’ll have to put a suit on ya and do something about the swearing and drinking.
I still use PSAR mostly on 3 hour. Oanda does not provide 4 hour. And I do watch those EMA’s.
Ranging markets are dangerous unless you’ve hit upon a system for rangebound trading. Research the forums (fora) and you will meet traders who do well with systems, some of them automated, even for rangebound pairs. I’m a novice so I slowly make my mistakes and try to learn from everyone.
Glendon
PS Dale the trend is your friend. Why wait for the reversal. Oh my I see the weakness of PSAR now; you’re waiting for a reversal as per classic PSAR. Man jump in and trade the trend. Just don’t overtrade.
PPS Seems like my computer is getting back up to speed.
I’m afraid to say the yes - give or take $1K or $2K - that’s pretty much what I’m ‘down the tubes’ for (although after posting this message I’m going to remove the actual amounts from that post as, on second thought, maybe that’s just ‘a tad’ too ‘open and honest’ - especially for someone who has been unable to service his debts for quite a time and who has instead ploughed that kind of money into trading and lost it and it might be ‘construed’ as ‘reckless’ - which maybe it was - and you never know who might be looking).
Anyway - sorry if I caused you any embarrasment on your blog - it was not my intention.
Let me put it this way (and feel free to disagree with me if you like): the indicators and systems that have been put forward on this thread DO work IF they’re followed - ALL of the systems (‘pure’ Parabolic SAR, EMA’s, SMA’s, combinations of some or all of them etc. etc. etc.). Not being able to ‘discipline’ yourself to follow them - well - that’s why I’ve ‘wiped out’ - so - if that’s the criteria - then I’ll agree with you that RIGHT NOW I’m a ‘trading flop’. Do I think that I’ll ALWAYS be a ‘trading flop’ - most certainly not. At some or the other point it will ‘sink in’ (even although I’ve stated many times as such on this thread but have been unable to follow my own advice) that patience is ‘the key’ and when it does ‘actually, really, sink in’ I reckon I’ll ‘come out tops’.
Hey 'buddy ‘ol pal’ - seems like my ISP has ‘forgotten about me’ - which is a good thing right now (come to think of it it’ll probably be the end of the month i.e. two days time - unless I come up with ‘a plan’)!!!
You know - I’ve been noticing something with Parabolic SAR lately - have a read and then have a look at some charts and tell me what you think.
I’ve been noticing lately that, more often than not, once you get a Parabolic SAR entry or stop and reverse signal there is (most times from what I can see) a price etractment maybe one, two, or three bars later before the trend continues in the direction as indicated by Parabolic SAR.
What I’m saying is this: if there were some or the other ‘rule’ that we could ‘come up with’ that would ‘fit’ most of the trades then it would be better if you did not enter the trade on the first Parabolic SAR signal but rather after the retractment. What this accomplished is two fold i.e. your inital stop loss is much closer to the price so if the trade does for whatever reason go against you your losses are minimal and it also means that once you actually are in the trade it turns to a profit far quicker after the reversal of the retractment.
Have a look and tell me if you see this as well. It’s not ‘perfect’ i.e. there are a few occasions where there is NO retractment (USD/CAD being a fine example) but on most of the other instruments this seems to be the case. The main reason for this ‘phenomenon’ is really only because ‘nine times out ten’ nothing goes ‘straight up’ or ‘straight down’. The question really is: how do you determine when the retractment is over and it’s now time to enter??? If it were possible to come up with an answer to that question is would sure save you a lot of time and ‘grief’!!!
Actually - come to think of it - my previous ‘idea’ (post) is pretty much the same thing as only taking the second or third Parabolic SAR entry or stop and reverse signal (which Wilder himself ‘alludes’ to apparantely) i.e. confirmation of the trend.
that is a very smart way of thinking my freind i know u will come back on track very soon.i think what u r saying is very intresting and yes i can see that on my charts as well.apart from USD/CAD coz they r going down all the time from long time ago!!
Well Joanne i did my best to pronuounce my name they way u r typing but i got a funny name instead of my real name!!! i will die to just see u life saying it!!!
Well yes i am still trading but to be honest what Dale is having makes me little bit not concentrating like before and i really can tell u guys that the (8-21) is really working perfectly. but i don’t know may be coz i am scared that what Dale had might happened to me as i am thinking to put Real money in my acount not like what i am doing? may be i have no idea.
Dale come back again beat these pairs and indicies that will mean much to all of us!!!
I rearly lost with Dale’s (our) system (8-21) and really the loss is few pips while the money make is alot BIG TIME if u stick to the rule and doesn’t allow to have a secound guess.
But to be honest with u guys Dale is inspiring the hell out of all of us and i can feel that most of us are not posting much on this thread any more coz we r kind of disappointed a bit.
all what i wanted to say that we just have to have 1 rule sticking to it belive on it doing it as a part of our daily routine and this is all what we have to do.
Any thoughts???
I will not give up and i will trade and trade coz i want to make a dam point here that the system (8-21) is working well and it is my fult that i don’t stick to it but i will prove that to my self.
You know I changed the ADSL connection from hub to laptop and I’m okay. Was there an intervening variable, maybe. Maybe something else got fixed by provider or the water dried out of the phone lines I just dont know!
The post I deleted was from this thread because it would have come right after your post on your major loss so I removed mine so as not to offend you. The topic of it was success copycat in which I said I was willing to follow you into the world of indices and maybe you should start a school. Talk about irony!!!
Anyway that’s life; we live and we learn, and we hopefully live what we learn. These are the days I’m glad for my beliefs; I mean this human existence is so full of drama and possibilities yet so limited in realisation. And by the time we begin to get the knack of it we are ushered within the portals of the tomb. Just think of colour (I paint as well). The colour spectrum offers us visual recreation all around us. Beauty! Joy! And in the midst of this there is pain and death and war. The universe should move towards a spiritual equilibrium where there is celebration of life and colour and joy and peace.
When you combine the established principles of this thread and use 3 hour parabolic, the 25 EMA, the 50 EMA, and the pivot point calculations already done on the following site:
then you may glean some extra pips, sometimes. For example the USD/CAD just went to a daily pivot of 0.9545 and is hanging around in that general area so I took profit on one of my USD/CAD short trades.
Hey Akram and Glendon, thanks so much for the posts.
Well - I don’t know if it will make you feel any better (I don’t feel too great seeing a profit of around $35 but anyway I should be grateful I suppose - especially after last weeks fiasco) but I opened two positions this morning: long EUR/USD and long EUR/JPY based on the following criteria:
On the daily charts the 8, 21, 50, and 200 EMA’s are pointing up
On the 30 minute charts the 8 and 21 EMA’s had crossed and the 50 and 200 EMA’s are also pointing up
There was a ‘valid’ Parabolic SAR entry signal on the 30 minute charts
Anyway - like I said - both positions are showing a (small) profit - mainly because (I think) I opened them and then ‘forgot’ about them i.e. found something else to do (sleep).
Obviously - if I was able to trade with my ‘humungous’ lot sizes this would have been around $350 profit right now - which would have made me feel a whole lot better. Having said that this is now when you start asking yourself 'What to do now"? Between the two positions that’s about 38 pips profit. So - do you keep using Parabolic SAR to set stops and / or lock in profits - or do you say to yourself ‘Hey - yeh - that’s 38 pips profit’!!! The reason I bring this up is because of a statement I made previously i.e. it’s much easier to turn a profit of $500 on $5000 than it is to turn a profit of $500 on $50. (Also - as far as the EUR is concerned - well - how much further can it go)??? Anyway - as I’m typing this message - I will leave the postions and let them run - not for any other real or good reason other than the fact that it is such a small amount to be made or lost that I actually (at this point) do ‘give a sh*t’!!! (Maybe THAT’S why I’m showing a profit).
Anyway - just observations. (It looks like I MAY have got a ‘reprieve’ on my Internet connection - thank’s to the ‘kindness’ of my service provider - so I many just be around for another week or so - sorry - can’t get rid of me that easily)!!!
I have positions on Eur/usd and eur/jpy as well. I bought Eur/usd a while back and it with south on me, but I held it until it turned around and I’ve sunk more into it. Have you read any technical analysis opinions on it? Consensus is a target of 1.45! I’ve locked in some profit and will ride this pair for the long haul.
So far I’m up about 12% since a debacle 10 days ago when I took a trade with no stoploss and didn’t check it for two days. That cost me 30% of a fake-money account. (it was a “hot tip” that didn’t fit with my TA, and may eventually pan out, but I sat on it far beyond my risk tolerance).
$500/day is a pretty strong return, so maybe you need to make trading a hobby until you work yourself up to that level. $500/day is about $130,000 per year or $10,833 per month. I think you could get as much 20% return per month, but I’d aim for 10% which means you need around $100,000 in your account to reach your goal.
I know there are a lot of naysayers - especially on the other forum - who think you should praise the gods of forex if you get better than a 20% return per year, but that’s just silly. If I can’t do better than that then I should keep my money in mutual funds. Set reasonable goals, stick to a plan, and we will all have a modest amount of a wealth with part time investing in a few years, agree?
Oh, and congrats on achieving the “don’t give a sh*t” attitude. I think this is the first step to forex wisdom - elimination of all emotion.
great u are still with us and yes 35 usd is nothing but u need to have some sort of confidience with your self and they system u r following which is good.
Please stick to the system u r the one who made it and u will do it buddy so there i nothing wrong with the system just go have alook on the same system u were using just chanage the TF make it 15 min have alook see how much money u would have made if u sticked to it!!
Any ways i hope that will make us somehow better!! i think u can now go to finland?!!!
Hello again, and once again - thanks for the posts and input!!!
dr_zeus, I appreciate your take on things. As far as being able to make ‘just’ $500 per day - I really don’t see that it can’t be done - for this reason (as ‘screwed up’ as it may sound): if it’s possible to LOSE $500 per day (which I’ve done on MANY ‘majestic’ occasions in the past) then it HAS to be possible to MAKE $500 per day!!! See my ‘reasoning’??? Put it this way: there have been days where (at GCI in particular because of the leverage) I’ve MADE $1000 in a very short space of time (well - OK - that’s the problem actually - there have been days where a position has been SHOWING $1000 profit in a couple of hours - but then ‘turned on me’ and been closed at a loss). That’s why I’m REALLY starting to ‘toy’ with this idea (again) of setting a ‘percentage gain target’ or a ‘pip target’ or an ‘profit amount target’ OR ANY TARGET for that matter. Let me say this: last week when the ‘proverbial sh*t hit the fan’ for the most part all of the positions that I opened initially showed a profit (sometimes as much as 50% or 60% of the margin cost and on one or two occasion a $500 lot was showing profit of over $1000 within a couple of seconds or minutes (remember I was ‘working’ the Nasdaq futures on the 1 and 5 minute charts) and had I just taken that profit i.e. had a specific target in mind then none of this would be happening and I’d be in a ‘fantastic’ frame of mind!!! See what I mean? Maybe THAT’S the (a) solution. If you’re going to try and make HUGE profits on very short timeframes then you cannot afford to rely on Parabolic SAR or any other indicator to tell you when to exit or stop and reverse the position i.e. you have to be able to say to yourself: ‘Right - my target - or what I need to ‘live on’ for the month averages out to X USD per day - so - I need do to X many trades and make X profit per trade and - once I’ve made the X USD for the day - walk away - and come back tomorrow’. But then I suppose that’s ‘scalping’. I don’t feel I have the answers right now to be honest. You know - that’s the thing about this business - when you take a huge ‘knock’ - it just takes some time to build up confidence again and not get ‘trading paralysis’.
Akram, 'buddy ‘ol pal’, I think it’s going to be a wile before I’m in Finland I can tell you (but thanks for the vote of confidence). To be honest - I started practicing today (guitar) which I have neglected for quite a while because of this business (which ‘pis*es me off’ actually i.e. it’s almost like I got ‘obsessed’ with this business at the cost of everything else) (no - I did not sleep the whole day by the way) and my fingers are ‘killing me’!!! It’s was ‘therapeutic’ though (thank’s Rob)!!!
Edit: by the way - as I clicked on the ‘Save Changes’ button - I noticed that I’m now showing the ‘majestic’ profit of $19.20 for BOTH positions combined!!! Time to go watch TV before something REALLY bad happens to my workstations!!!
for the most part all of the positions that I opened initially showed a profit (sometimes as much as 50% or 60% of the margin cost and on one or two occasion a $500 lot was showing profit of over $1000 within a couple of seconds or minutes (remember I was ‘working’ the Nasdaq futures on the 1 and 5 minute charts) and had I just taken that profit i.e. had a specific target in mind then none of this would be happening and I’d be in a ‘fantastic’ frame of mind!!! See what I mean? Maybe THAT’S the (a) solution.
I know EXACTLY what you are talking about! What I think would help is to reset the stop loss on those positive trades as the trade moves into profitable territory. This is hard to do with Oanda (my play money broker) since they don’t have trailing stops, but it has saved me more than once. For instance, if you have several positions open and only one is making money, then just move the stop loss on that enough that if it gets stopped out, it covers the losses on the other positions.
And my friend, if you are making $1000 on a $500 position, you HAVE to tell us what instrument you are trading and what is the method to your madness?!?! I’m up about 3% from this morning when I made my trades, and that’s a phenomenal day for me!
You’ll get back on top, and some day you’ll be glad you spent your “tuition” money.
Do yourself a favour (for fun) - find a broker (like GCI for example) - and open a demo account - and have a look at the Nasdaq 100 futures - or the Dow futures - or even the S&P 500 futures. OK - admittedly there has been LOADS of volatility in the markets for a while now (more so on some days than others) - but just for fun - watch the Nasdaq 100 futures on the 1 minute chart from about 07h00 - 09h00 and then again at around 15h15 to 16h15 (all New York time) - and you’ll see what I mean. Man - when the Nasdaq 100 futures decides to ‘take off’ it can move like nothing!!!
Put it this way (I just checked) - the Nasdaq 100 futures has moved between 2203.88 and 2227.50 since last night (opens Sunday night at 17h00 New York time) up until now. That’s 23.62 points or 236.2 ticks with a tick value of 0.50 US cents per $50 lot or $5 per tick on a $500 lot and that’s just from bottom to top i.e. does not include all the intraday movements that there may have been. Last week (on 22/10/2007) the range was from 2129 to 2188.75 (again not including the intraday ‘ups and downs’ i.e. from bottom to top). That’s 59.75 points or 597.5 ticks with a tick value of $5 per tick on a $500 lot i.e. $2987.5 profit on a $500 lot if you ONLY got in at the bottom and got out at the top (OK - on that particular day it opened at 2132.5 and it closed at 2188.75 so do the math - it’s slightly less because the open was a bit higher - but still - you ‘get the picture’). As a matter of fact if you look at the preceding day or two as well as the subsequent couple of days the bottom to top range was about the same on most of those days. The Nasdaq 100 futures ‘pays more’ per tick than the Dow futures and the S&P 500 futures (and is the most volatile of the three indices) BUT they (almost) always move in the same direction as each other so if you’ve got a $500 lot on each of them going in the same direction then you’re ‘home free’. The only problem is that (stating the obvious) WHY was I not in these trades??? If I had the answer to that question things would be REAL different now!!! It’s the same old story isn’t it i.e. look at any intrument ‘historically’ and there is a small fortune to be made but why does it never seem to happen when you’re in the trade for real!!!
Edit: I mean - the Dow futures’ intraday range was 13842 to 13928 and the Dow pays $10 per tick on a $500 lot (or $1 per tick on a $50 lot) so even just todays range would have been worth $860 profit on a $500 lot and that’s just today on the Dow. I’m sure that this is where the ‘players play’. I mean - they’re NOT going to sit around for a whole day to make $30 on a total margin requirement of about $140!!! The ‘trick’ is to find out how they decide to take a position and when they decide to take profit or exit the position!!!
Another edit: I mean - I’m just looking at the Nasdaq 100 futures daily chart again - and the movements today and last week ‘pale by comparison’ with the movements a week or two back. That’s why I’m saying: on most days on the Nasdaq 100 futures - turning a profit of at least $500 in a single day on a $500 lot is ‘a walk in the park’ if you know what you’re doing - and I obviously don’t - otherwise I’d be doing it!!!
Hi Everyone,
I’ve not been trading for about a week now because I’ve been way too busy at work and frankly, have not had time to look at anything remotely resembling a trading platform. Have just now caught up on the thread.
I see a lot has been going on. Dale, how are you holding up?
Hey ‘Just Joan’ - you have no idea how lucky you are!!!
Me - I’m doing fine - although this is obviously not a good time to be trying to trade i.e. with the ‘looming’ USA rate decision tomorrow. NOTHING is going ANYWHERE like it should be going (EUR/USD) and stocks I reckon are going to take a ‘hammering’ today because of some ‘majestic’ losses and write-offs (again thanks to sub-prime and mortgage defaults and bad loans granted) and the WORST part about it is I actually know all of this but I don’t have enough margin to trade stocks today!!! Ain’t that always the way!!!
I thought that seeing I can’t trade the indices ‘for real’ today I’d open (another) demo account at GCI and see how one of J. Welles Wilder’s trading systems will ‘fare’ (it’s the ‘Trend Balance Point System’ in the book). Put it this way - out of the ten or so times I’ve tried to use it - I made a profit about nine times - so I thought BEFORE I go live AGAIN with stocks - I’d test it (the system) on a demo.
Well - just to ‘illustrate’ my point of last night - I took a position on the FTSE100 a couple of seconds after market open this morning - and that trade made a profit of $3 500 ‘on the dot’ within 30 seconds of market open. OK - admittedly the demo account is opened with $50 000 capital - and that’s what I’m really starting to believe (not that I have $50 000 any more but still) i.e. it’s REAL easy to take very ‘small chunks’ out of the market with big capital (the margin cost of this lot was $5 000 i.e. I ‘stuck’ to 10% of capital). In other words - you don’t need to ‘let the trades run’ only to find out later that your profit is now gone BUT I’ll tell you this - if this was real money - and I could pull that off maybe another three or four times in the next month - my problems would be solved - and then some!!!
It’s all relative though. Right now the other position that I took on the Nasdaq 100 is sitting at a ‘majestic’ loss of around $2 100 and (if I’m right about stocks today) it’s probably going to get stopped out for a loss of about $5 500 (using Wilder’s system). I’ll tell you - looking at figures like this - ‘makes a man of you’ - no question. I suppose if it WERE real money - man - I’d be ‘sweating like a pig’ around about now!!! I mean - it’s OK to lose it in small increments - but in one go???