TPS (Time, Price, Scale-in) Revisited

Trading Systems
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Well. It’s been a while. A LONG while. But for better or for worse: here I am (here we go) again!!!

I was going to start out with a long reintroduction etc. but decided against it. I’m sure there’ll be those that have questions about me and my antics over the years and I’ll address those if asked. I see there have also been numerous private messages sent to me over the years but I’ve not logged in here for a very long time so my apologies for not responding to those private messages. This being said: I’m not going to respond to those private messages i.e. it’s all old news and questions that are no longer relevant. Furthermore: I urge anybody interested in my prior antics to ignore most, if not all, of what I may have posted in the past (and believe me when I say there are thousands of posts). I’m not saying that all that was posted in the past is irrelevant or total and utter garbage but it’s only going to serve to confuse. Furthermore and in just reading a very few of my old posts: I was pretty co*k sure of myself let’s face it. Those days are long gone i.e. the markets, age, and some unfortunate life experiences have taught me humility on no uncertain terms!!!

So why am I here today???

Well since my spectacular and rather public wipe out which cost me the farm (and then some) as well as costing some very decent people a fair amount of money (which I still deeply regret to this day) I’ve been a working stiff just trying to make ends meet until pretty recently where I’m unable to simply make ends meet anymore and need to make some money to tide me over for a few months. Now while that may sound like desperation (which it is I suppose) it’s not impossible based on experience over the past few years. Is this something I’d necessarily like to do or be involved with again??? Not really to be honest. I’ve got enough stress on my plate right now to last me another two lifetimes and this business is stressful in and of itself and by its very nature. But this right now is the only thing I can turn to in order to tide me over. That last statement should at least give some comfort to anybody interested in what I’m about to present i.e. I have traded this particular system over the past few years off and on and have on occasion made money but have also lost money and, as things stand now, I cannot say that overall I’m in profit. Familiar as that sounds there is one major difference: my losses cannot be attributed to the trading system itself but rather to my own shortcomings and demons which, unfortunately, tend to rear their ugly heads when I’ve been doing well i.e. being over confident usually after a string of consecutive profitable trades. In short: the number of profitable trades by far exceeds the number of losing trades if the trading system is strictly adhered to. But how you handle your success is what makes or breaks the trading system. It does have one flaw though and this, I guess, is my main reason for posting here. I am not trying to sell a trading system here nor trying to make a trading system popular here. My main purpose really is to get some input from other like minded individuals who may be interested in improving this trading system. As I said: I can vouch for the fact that over a number of years the number of profitable trades by far exceeds the number of losing trades. Its inherent flaw is that fact that a very very few losing trades can wipe out a entire string of winning trades and if this problem can be solved well, then, it’s a sure fire winning trading system.

At this point and before continuing: it must be stated that I am not (no longer) affiliated with, nor work with, nor for, any broker of any kind.

Right well if you’ve read this far: great. Let’s see what we can do here.

This trading system is by no means something new. As a matter of fact it was introduced to me by a dear friend on these very forums some many years ago. At the time I was too busy going hell for leather with my own stuff and never really got into it and not to mention spending far too much time of these forums which was a total distraction at the time (and something which I don’t intend repeating). Furthermore (and if memory serves me correctly) automated back testing didn’t yield spectacular results at the time. This being said and in having years of experience with this trading system now: I think I know why.

The trading system is called the TPS Trading System (Time, Price, Scale-in). It was published in an e-book called “High Probability ETF Trading” by Connors Research (which I have attached to this message). The system was specifically designed for trading ETFs. However: I’ve used it on Indexes, Futures, and Commodities and it has yielded fantastic results (the caveat being what I’ve noted above re: a few losing trades being able to negate a slew of consecutive profitable trades). I refer you to Chapter 8 entitled “An Introduction to TPS”. Have a read through (and feel free to read the entire e-book as well i.e. some of the other systems also do have merit but subject to the same caveat). It has very simple rules. But it also has one fatal flaw and that is that it does not use stop losses. Now on the one hand: this works wonders for the simple reason that there are no stops to be gunned for by the market (it avoids that well known phenomenon of being stopped out of a trade only for the trade to go in your favor in the very next bar). But here’s where two problems come in. The first problem: because there are no stops it’s difficult, if not impossible, to calculate your risk per trade. The second problem: a trade could go against you for an extended period of time before an exit signal is generated. Now solve these two problems and you’re home free. And this is the real purpose of this thread being started i.e. to somehow solve these two problems.

And why this particular trading system??? Because in spite of the many years spent on these forums and my thousands of posts: it’s the only trading system that has indeed proved to be consistent (both in profits and losses) over a few years (at least the last five years anyway).

I’ve typed a whole bunch here now. I’ll wait to see if there’s any interest before proceeding further with some ideas.

Looking forward to hearing from some.

And thanks for reading.

Regards,

Dale.

P.S.

For some or the other obscure reason I don’t seem to be able to upload an attachment. Not sure if this is something new i.e. no attachments??? Anyway and to this end: below is a link to the same e-book on Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Dn9S0gCeXtLGMAhGgdJK4RKnrgY1xhVF

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Interesting, thanks.
I really admired Street Smarts but haven’t heard of the book you mention or TPS. Hoping to learn more soon.

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Hi.

Yip. I have that book too. Pretty good actually. Seem to remember trying some of those trading systems back in the day. Never stuck to any of them long enough though.

I’ve posted a link to the book at the end of my first post i.e. for some reason or the other I could not upload the .PDF as an attachment (even although everything went through the motions of apparently uploading).

Here’s some of my observations made over these past few years:

One of the reasons this trading system is not too popular is the fact that the number of trades during any given YEAR are few. This can lead to frustration obviously. The way I’ve gotten around this is to trade many different instruments at once. There is a caveat to this though i.e. be careful of trading too many very highly or closely correlated instruments.

It was specifically designed to trade ETFs as noted. But as I have noted: it has worked equally as well on Indexes (both Cash and Futures) as well as on Commodities (in my case only Gold and Oil but there are others of course).

It was specifically designed to be traded only on the daily charts i.e. all entries and exits are made just before the close on any given day. Obviously this can be a problem due to different time zones.

When exiting at a profit sometimes the trades can go in, what would have been, in your favor, for many days, even weeks, to come. It can be frustrating to have taken profit and then watch the (closed) trade continue to go in your favor for a long time to come.

As noted: risk management is a problem given that there are no stops placed.

Possible improvements being sought (the purpose of this thread):

Could it be possible to trade this on shorter time frames. My gut tells me no i.e. over the years I’ve been pretty adamant that the daily close is a VERY important number. But maybe it’s time to take a look at this now.

Is there a prudent way to hold on to trades that you should have closed out when signaled to do so (and catch a possible trend). To this end I have, on very few occasions, actually held an open trade and added stops (that would lock in profit until stopped out). However: most times these stops get taken out at break even and this is frustrating especially if you’ve held onto a trade for a few days.

Is there a way to manage risk with this trading system. The only sure fire way I’ve found is to calculate the single largest loss that this system has incurred over a period and base risk management and therefore position size on this for future trades. Inherent problem with this method is that you need PILES of money to open new trades especially given that we are now subjected to these huge margin requirements. While this is not in and of itself a bad thing (many years ago I was one of those that actually advocated decreasing leverage as it makes it that much harder to over trade and this has proven itself over and over in the ensuing years i.e. it saves traders from themselves). I have seen some that APPARENTLY, when trading this system, simply risk a fixed percentage on a single trade. But from what I’ve seen: this inevitably gets you stopped out too early from a trade that actually would have gone in your favor (but this of course depends on the number of contracts being traded vs. your capital).

Just some random points i.e. more to follow I’m sure.

Regards,

Dale.

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Now and for what it’s worth here’s a list of things to NOT do (below). In other words “don’t try this at home”!!! Just about every single time I’ve tried to add my own ideas to this trading system I’ve regretted it and BIG time too (and in just looking for some examples of bad historical trades to post here it has become pretty evident to me that maybe therein lies the actual problem).

You MUST wait for two consecutive RSI(2) closes above or below the limits. When you look at a chart it’s very easy to see that a lot of the time: price will close above or below the limit on ONE day and then reverse the next. So you take a trade. Sometimes it works out. But most times it does not. And purely because of the mathematics involved: this makes the difference between what could have been a profitable trade (had you waited for the correct signal) and a trade that’s either broken even or ended up in a loss.

Do NOT ignore the 200-day SMA. Too many stock brokers and professional traders monitor this particular moving average and it therefore, in my opinion, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And while it does not NECESSARILY follow that because price is above the 200-day SMA it’s going to continue to go up: the idea is to at very least trade in the direction of the least possible resistance. For a time: I tried ignoring the 200-day SMA and took the stance that the stock market will inevitably only go up i.e. it’s natural propensity is to increase. I therefore only took long trades regardless of where price was relative to the 200-day SMA. There were periods where this was sound but overall it turned out to be a killer.

Never read blogs, forums, threads, opinions, watch Bloomberg, etc. etc. etc. This is something I thought I’d learned years ago but old habits die hard. Classic example is a Gold trade that wiped out MONTHS of profits and hard work. Gold was going down but all it took was for me to read one or two opinions as to where Gold WAS supposed to be going “in the near future” and I second guessed the system. So instead of shorting Gold when I should have been doing so I was actually adding position after position after position (longs obviously). Eventually the pain level got too much and a huge loss was incurred.

At one stage I also looked at trades that kept going against me for many days after I was fully committed with the position scale-in (1+2+3+4). So: it seemed logical to me to just keep adding to the position. With hindsight: this is nothing more than not wanting to realize a loss. Again: simply based on the mathematics of this system the losses just become exponentially larger until the point where even if the trade does start going in your favor it’s too late i.e. the exit signal will have you realize a loss that is WAY greater than it would have been had you just stuck to the proper position sizing. Furthermore: constantly adding to a position over and above the 1+2+3+4 scale-in is the difference between scaling into a position and adding to a losing position (in hope) (and there’s a major difference and lesson there).

On the flip side some of the best trades that this system has yielded has been when I’ve not been concentrating or have not been able to monitor the end of day. In other words: there have been times where price has gone down (for example) for three, four, five days in a row but I’ve not been in the trade. Upon noticing this I’ve just gone all in upon the close on the day when I’ve noticed this. This obviously had the effect of there being no scale-in and the profits have been pretty admirable. In other words: you’re in effect entering a trade belatedly with the proviso that it’s still a valid trade i.e. at no point has there been an exit signal generated.

Regards,

Dale.

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Hi Dale -

Nice tip concerning Connors’ book. Got hold of a copy online and skimmed over strategies. The 3dH/L strategy shares the same familiar chart set-up as a swing trading approach I tried in the past though this looks more formalised and should be more consistent. I’m going to give it a go on an index and maybe Gold or Brent.

Keep up the good work.

All the best,
Tom

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Hey Tom.

You’re (the forums are) supposed to be helping ME i.e. not the other way around!!! LOL!!! Only joking of course.

I’m monitoring the same at the moment hoping for a valid signal to enter.

I’ll tell you this for nothing though: somebody asked me a question a little earlier today which necessitated my taking a look at a daily chart of EUR/USD (I’ve not looked at a FOREX chart for over a decade) and it sure looks as though this very TPS system would have worked like charm on EUR/USD going back to around May of last year (when it fell below the 200-day SMA) i.e. looks like a person would have been shorting and taking profit just about every other week or so??? I’ve not bothered to look back further. Interesting nevertheless.

May be worth noting that at some point good 'ol Mr. Connors there actually came out with a revised version of this trading system. I have the document somewhere and will try to find it. Personally I think it wast just a way to put a spin on an old trading system to make more $$$ by way of paid memberships to some trading room or something. In the revised version he advocated using only Connors RSI and also had some fancy calculation which would only generate a signal if the net change between closing prices was a factor of something else. Looked too complicated and smacked of curve fitting to me. It also decreased the number of valid trades even more. And I didn’t see the number of profitable trades increase (as per his own stats at the time) enough to warrant implementing those new rules.

I must just also note that I actually now have no idea why I started this thread in the first place. In just having to look at charts today it’s blatantly obvious that the reason I ended up wiping out months and months of profit and work was due to nothing other than my own stupidity and over confidence and actually had nothing at all to do with risk management (although this is indeed a potential pitfall of this system and still keen to get some ideas from others here). Bottom line is that I did extremely well for a good while and then I got into a long Gold trade (oddly enough also around May of last year). instead of bailing on that trade and shorting Gold I not only held onto the initial trade but kept adding to it on the way down (which is EXACTLY what I did during the credit crunch i.e. when Lehman, and the rest, collapsed). The rest is history and I eventually closed everything out at a huge loss and have not traded since then nor even looked at a chart (the loss was THAT bad!!! LOL!!!). Ironically: I closed out on the very day that Gold bottomed and shot up (Murphy and his Law of course). Bottom line though (and in hindsight): there was every single opportunity (signal) to get out of the initial long trade and short Gold on its way down. Let’s see if I’ve learned to behave myself now!!! LOL!!!

Still keen though to get some thoughts on position sizing and the POSSIBLE incorporation of a sort of “emergency stop” (should things get really out of hand on a trade) (although as noted above and with hindsight: maybe it’s not necessary after all).

Regards,

Dale.

P.S.

Assuming I’ll be around here for a while I think I should update my Avatar pic. (looks like I was quite a fat fu*k back then) (which must have been around 2009 or so)!!! LOL!!!

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Well for what it’s worth there are FINALLY some trades setting up…

Brent (late entry)
FTSE100
Hang Seng
Nikkei225
Euro Stocks 50
CAC40
IBEX35

Take your pic…

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Good luck.

I’ve learned thanks to this thread that Larry Connors has very firmly reversed his view on stops. In Street Smarts, the emphasis was on always having a stop-loss: more recently, he looks to hedging etc. as lower cost “insurance” - always makes me nervous. What are your plans in this regard Dale?

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Hello.

I don’t have any plans to be honest. That was the purpose of my starting this thread i.e. to see if anybody had any bright ideas as to how to possibly incorporate the use of some type of “emergency stop” should a trade go against you for an extended period of time. But for now: I’m just going to trade the system as I’ve always done i.e. scale-in (1+2+3+4) with no stops. At least this I know works for me (assuming of course I behave myself and don’t start doing crazy things again) (although that only seems to happen after a good few months and after I’ve made a pile of profit and think I’m a big hero) (and we’re a long way off from that point right now so no worries).

No stops definitely works (for me anyway). It may surprise some to know that it eliminates a lot of stress (and not to mention swearing and throwing things against the wall). In my experience: stops ALWAYS get gunned (and contrary to popular belief and in most cases NOT by the broker but by the market itself i.e. it’s just the way it works). The only inherent problem with not using stops (at least with this system) is position sizing i.e. because you don’t know your ultimate and final risk on the trade before starting out it’s difficult to calculate position size at the outset. I get by using my own judgement to be honest but it’s hardly a scientific or foolproof method let’s face it. And I’m pretty sure if there was indeed a scientific method of calculating position sizes with this system it would be more profitable i.e. because risk is unknown at the outset I tend to trade a lesser number of contracts than I probably should be trading.

I agree with you about hedging. Tried that too many times and failed (not with this system though i.e. maybe it’s food for thought). Whenever I’ve tried hedging I’ve invariably ended up in an overall loss which negates any effort made to insure against losses.

Regards,

Dale.

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By the way (and this may be of interest):

Below is a link to an excerpt (that I created) from Larry Williams’ book “Long-Term Secrets To Short-Term Trading”. I actually posted this some time ago (it was my only post during a period of years) but it was totally ignored so I figured why bother.

Anyway and what’s really interesting is that this is totally overlooked by all it would seem. Fact of the matter (as he proves mathematically) is that even a trading system with an 80% success rate CAN STILL LOSE MONEY and he goes on to explain how and why. The biggest thing I took from the book was this: he suggests that in order to calculate position size/risk one should find the largest loss incurred by the system (any system) and base your position size/risk on this calculation. I’ve not done this (as yet) for the TPS system but if anything it’s probably the way to go i.e. it seems to me this would fit in perfectly with using no stops. I’ve just never gotten around to doing the calcs. is all.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QJQ2nd2-2BtjuS9nSHAlbnwmVD-k35jM

Regards,

Dale.

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Well in case anybody is interested…

Seems like we got ourselves a bit of a selloff today. That Trump sure is good for one thing!!! LOL!!!

I reckon I’m just going to detail this first set of trades as they come along, follow them to their logical conclusions, and then leave the thread at that.

As things stand now:

Looks like the Nikkei Futures are going to close WELL below their 200-day SMA so no valid trade.

Nothing on the US Indices i.e. will have to wait and see if they go down a little more tomorrow for a valid signal.

I’m finally long Brent with 1+2 units (may not make sense but feel free to ask if you cannot figure it out).

Now here’s a little trick that I implement depending on my mood and my assessment of the days moves:

The MIB40 (Italy) Futures have just closed for trading. But given this selloff today I’m prepared to err on the side of caution and use a little judgement i.e. given that I’m of the opinion that this selloff (especially in the US) is going to continue into the close (and probably continue tomorrow): instead of going long just before the close I wait for the close and then place a limit buy (in this case) order (I’m able to place orders outside of trading hours). In effect what this means is that if I’m right and there is gap down on the MIB40 when it opens tomorrow morning then I’m going to get in at a much better price. And this particular method of entry can be used at all times if you like i.e. instead of getting into a trade just before the close you wait for the close and then use limit orders set at the closest price that you can get them at after the close. The only drawback of this is that you could lose out on potential and valid trades. The bonus is that you will always get in at a better price in the case of an opening gap.

As noted: to me it’s pretty counter intuitive to go long some of these Futures when it is my opinion that this selloff will continue tomorrow so may as well either a) use limit orders to get in (FTSE, DAX, CAC, MIB, and the rest from my above post) and try and get better prices or b) wait until the close tomorrow which essentially is a late entry and allows you to open with 1+2 (instead of just 1) and at a better price.

On the other hand and given the movements thus far today: if I am indeed unable to sleep or something like that I will wait for all the Futures to close and immediately place limit buy (in this instance today) orders as detailed above. On days like this what usually happens is that even if price immediately turns it invariably drifts back to catch your limit orders at some point during the next trading day. And believe it or not: this has everything to do with pivots!!!

Hope that all makes sense.

What this also means of course is that I do not have to stay up until midnight!!! LOL!!! Have fun. Chat tomorrow.

Regards,

Dale.

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Good morning.

Well as I sit here this morning I see that prices are going up and my orders (that I placed on various instruments earlier this morning) have not been executed as a result. This is something I mentioned above i.e. by not staying up until the close and taking positions just before the close at market it is indeed possible to miss trades. This is just something to be aware of.

The above being said: I’ve been at this long enough to know what happens most times when you’ve had a sell off like yesterday. More often than not the sell off stalls when each market opens and prices retrace. But later on during the trading day the moves from yesterday continue. Again: this has everything to do with pivots (well that and the fact that sometimes I think it’s just trapping traders into thinking “well it was a big sell off yesterday so price will turn today” and so they jump in, place their stops at the lows of yesterday, and eventually those stops get taken out and THIS is one of the best “features” of this TPS system i.e. no stops so no stress and no disappointment).

Of course: there’s always the possibility that THIS time I’m wrong and prices will now just continue to shoot up in which case I’ll be stuck with one little oil trade and a small position on the FTSE and will have to wait for another week or two (probably) for some more setups.

The above being said though: I will leave my pending orders open for as long as RSI(2) has not signaled an exit (TP). If at any point that happens then the orders and trades are invalidated and time to cancel everything and wait for the next valid trades.

Regards,

Dale.

P.S.

Need another Tweet from Trump!!! LOL!!!

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It is, of course, nice to be right!!! LOL!!!

And down we go…

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Right. That’s it for the day. All orders executed. And with any luck: valid signals tonight on the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P (they’re all that really count not??? LOL!!!).

Later.

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And up we go (for now anyway)!!! LOL!!!

This must be the only trading system on the planet where you actually WANT price to go against you for a few days just so that you can scale-in to full positions!!!

Still. The day and week ain’t over yet.

Regards,

Dale.

P.S.

Oops. My bad. Didn’t look at the time when I posed the above i.e. the move up nothing more than an attempt to close the opening gaps on the cash indices possible. Too early to tell.

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Good morning (to me) (a bit lonely on this thread!!! LOL!!!).

No signals to scale-in further on any of the positions that were open yesterday (although at this early stage of the day this is looking rather likely tonight at the close).

Finally signals to start scaling into positions on the Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ.

Now:

I didn’t stay up until the close last night. Winter is well on its way here and I absolutely hate it. Gets dark and gloomy very early here now. But: had I done do (stayed up until the close last night) I would have gone long at market on the Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ. But given that I didn’t stay up: I have now placed stop orders at yesterday’s closing prices. Since the close though prices have continued to drop thus far. If these stop orders are not executed during the course of the trading day today then I will simply cancel them tonight (will definitely stay up tonight so as to not miss these ideal trades) and go long at market just before the close with 1+2 units on each. Note that when I quote the number of units as 1+2+3+4 I am simply using the notation from the book. The number of units could be 0.1+0.2+0.3+0.4 or 10+20+30+40 or 100+200+300+400 i.e. it all depends on your risk profile (whether you want to take it easy and sleep at night or sit glued to the screen all day anxiously) and your account balance and your leverage.

And that’s it for the day.

Catch you (whoever) later.

Regards,

Dale.

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Just as an aside Dale, I liked Connors’ 3d High/Low strategy but 200SMA is too coarse a filter for buys v’s sells for me. So I’m substituting “price:50EMA” plus “50EMA slope” as filter criteria - so taking buys only if price above 50EMA and 50EMA sloping upwards. I’m also using the daily Low/High as a SL, can’t be doing with hedging. Fingers crossed. Good luck.

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Hey Tom.

Nice to hear from you.

May well be worth a look (your 50 EMA idea). The 50-day SMA (as I’m sure you also know) is also a key moving average (as is the 100-day SMA). Will do it with caution and trepidation though i.e. over the past five years or so there’s not been a single so-called “improvement” that I’ve tried to make to this TPS system that’s yielded any better results than that of the original (truth be told in most everything I’ve tried to improve performance the results have worsened over time). But I hear you re: the 200-day SMA i.e. “coarse” is a very apt description. Well let’s see. I sure do have the time on my hands to be able to test so why not.

Have started doing calcs. so as to try and implement Larry Williams’ position sizing as per that excerpt that I posted earlier. The outcome should be interesting. Will obviously post when I’m done. I believe this is key when not using stops as well as calculating the correct positions sizes. At some point yesterday I was up almost 2% (obviously that’s not the case right now as I type this) but I know for a fact that I’m trading much smaller lot sizes than I should be. But until I’ve completed these calcs. I’d rather err on the side of caution I guess (at this point in my life I don’t have the luxury of being able to mess up by over trading i.e. over trading being my nemesis). Using stops isn’t for me so I’ve no idea what I was trying to do by starting this thread at the time and for that reason (although it’s gone further than that now which is nice). They mess with my psyche unfortunately i.e. stops actually encourage me to revenge trade. And I’m guessing, of course, that good 'ol Mr. Larry Connors did in fact test this system with stops and found that they didn’t work (matter of fact I seem to remember seeing a discussion about this somewhere sometime between him and somebody else).

But let’s see. A shorter moving average will most definitely yield more trades. Question is: how reliable are they going to be. We shall see.

But again: nice to hear from you. At least I know ONE person is reading my posts!!! LOL!!!

Of course there’s a selfish reason for my continuing to post here i.e. it’s a crass attempt to keep MYSELF in check!!! LOL!!!

Regards,

Dale.

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Uh uh.

From just a cursory look at the Dow (going back to 2012) the 50-day EMA (in my case anyway i.e. for this trading system) generates a VERY few additional trades. In addition: those additional trades appear to have resulted in whipsaws most all of the time. But as I say: this is obviously specific to this trading system. You’re trading the 3-day High/Low method so it could be that the 50-day EMA is more in tune with what you’re doing.

Reminder to self (LOL!!!): if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it!!! LOL!!!

Regards,

Dale.

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Trump been on his phone today or what??? LOL!!!

I’m gonna be highly pis*ed if the Dow and FTSE close below their 200-day SMAs today (and at this point neither are that far off). That renders the signals useless and effectively leaves both of these indices in no man’s land insofar as this trading system is concerned. Then again I’ve been known to break a rule here more often than not i.e. as long as the S&P and NASDAQ are still in the running then no problem on the Dow. I’ve always been of the opinion that the NASDAQ leads (and I know I’m not alone in this school of thought).