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I Want A Better Chart


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I Want A Better Chart

 
 NickA 
London
 
Experience: None
Platform: MC & Ninja mainly
Posts: 135 since Jan 2010
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tony2009 View Post
So are we all saying that the moral of the story is:

Move to bigger timeframes. Move from the realm of a trader to more of an investor.

As small traders on small time frames (holding positions for less than an hour), everything is stacked against us: Bad data feeds, Inconsistent charting, illogical spikes, stop loss hunting etc.

That's not what I am saying . I am saying decide on where you want to go (the moves you want to capture) and pick an appropriate map.

Nowadays, retail traders have available infrastructure, charts and tools that are pretty much as good as 'the pros'. (Short of the one or two co locating behemoths like goldie) The OP either has some issues with there set up or there friend does. That or there are some errors in there testing methodology or how they have things are set up. There are minor differences between different data providers but the effects are negligible if you set things up properly. FX is a bit different but that's a whole other story.

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hondo69's Avatar
 hondo69 
Austin, TX
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: Currencies
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Couldn't agree more NickA. There are all kinds of traders as some look to grab 3 ticks and exit while others plan on staying in the market for hours. So different goals require different tools.

And some day we'll be able to design our own tools. What would we invent if there were no limits?

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 NickA 
London
 
Experience: None
Platform: MC & Ninja mainly
Posts: 135 since Jan 2010
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hondo69 View Post
Couldn't agree more NickA. There are all kinds of traders as some look to grab 3 ticks and exit while others plan on staying in the market for hours. So different goals require different tools.

And some day we'll be able to design our own tools. What would we invent if there were no limits?

hehe sometimes I sit and daydream about tools and ways of visualising market data. I have lots of pet projects that are a long way back on the back burner. The main reason being that the more radical the idea the more work to realise it.

 
 
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 hondo69 
Austin, TX
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: Currencies
Posts: 162 since Jun 2009
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I was killing some time this morning so set up a 3 second chart for the British Pound. It was pretty ugly using candlesticks so I switched to "line" style. It draws a line at the close every 3 seconds. The BP is kind of a wild child with lots of price movement so it made for an interesting chart, especially in combination with my regular charts. With a little practice I think I might just be able to trade that thing.

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 hondo69 
Austin, TX
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: Currencies
Posts: 162 since Jun 2009
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To this day I do not fully understand exactly how data arrives at my screen or how many fingers are in the pie before it gets to me. The best I can tell, at least 5 separate companies get their grubby little hands on the data before I see it. Which goes a long ways towards explaining why we have some of the problems that we do.

So sticking with the pie metaphor, here's my pie in the sky wish list:

*All traders should receive the same pure, clean data.

*Selecting a trading platform shouldn't instantly limit our ability to work with that data.

*All orders placed should be treated equally.


It's kind of like being handing a saw and a hammer and then told to go build a house. Technically, it can be done. But we all know it could be done much better and much faster given the additional tools that are readily available today.

What if I wanted to create an auto trader for use with a 5 minute chart that executes trades intrabar? Can't be done with Ninja. So I dump Ninja and look to select a new platform. Now, I also want the ability to write the code without taking 3 courses in computer programming. That eliminates most of the remaining choices. Of those, I expect the platform to allow multiple time frames on a single chart, include MIT (market if touched) orders and provide excellent customer service to boot. Oops, there is none.

So I stick with Ninja, my old saw and hammer.

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 rassi 
the congo
 
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hondo69 View Post
I think you've hit the nail on the head Rassi.

When I've attempted to explain trading to my friends I'll use the analogy of a psychiatrist trying to treat a patient with multiple personalities. Step 1 is to determine which personality you're dealing with at this particular moment.

So yesterday I was dealing with Larry, the meandering patient with no self confidence. I can tweak my charts to deal with Larry very well. But today, I've got to treat Susan who is conniving and deceptive and must use a different set of charts altogether to work with her. And that's the underlying problem for us traders, no single chart will work with all personalities.

For argument's sake, let's assume you've identified 7 distinct personalities and have the ability to spot each one as it appears. Here's the options:

1] Create 7 different chart setups and pull up the correct chart as the occasion dictates. This method allows you to trade all the time.

2] Decide you will only trade 1 of the personalities and optimize 1 chart for that distinct personality. Then you sit on the sidelines and wait for that personality to appear.

3] Learn to trade without a chart.

nice! also each time frame can be displaying a different personality at the same time >

1 min is larry
1 hour is suzan
day is dave......

so the optimum time to enter for large moves is when all are in alignment / displaying the same personality as there will be less conflict between them.

interesting.

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hondo69's Avatar
 hondo69 
Austin, TX
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: Currencies
Posts: 162 since Jun 2009
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I kind of like my MA Chart for Dummies as it's just my speed.

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piersh
California
 
Posts: 87 since Jun 2009
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websouth View Post
For those that follow 5 minute price bars patterns take a look at these screens below.

this is an excellent illustration. i've always thought that any chart/method that's based on walking forward from a given time/price/volume (for example, a 5 minute chart, or bar patterns) is completely bogus. it's a fantasy that's based on some arbitrary variable that has no relation to what the market is doing now. animating your screenshots shows this quite convincingly.

think about what your're doing when you open a 5 minute chart and add an EMA to it. in most cases that will be an EMA of the Close price of each bar. but what do these close prices represent? how much information does that contain? very little. it's just a single tick - the last - of all the ticks in that bar, and which tick that happens to be is highly sensitive to when you decide to start the bar series.

so, what to do about it?
- presumably the 'price' of a bar should be some volume-weighted average of its constituent tick prices?
- instead of starting your bar series at a given time and walking forward. why not start your bar series now and walk backward from there. the most recent bar always ends right now, the previous one is the one that ended 5 minutes ago, etc... of course, the whole series is changing every tick as those ticks flow down the series of bars.

on a somewhat related not, my fix for NT7's overlapping timeframes bug is here.

 
 
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 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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piersh,

I have to disagree with you. It has to do with the herd mentality/crowds. If a herd of cows got into a habit of always walking straight for one mile, then turning 25 degrees right and walking straight again for a mile, then turn left 5 degrees...etc etc and yet you were a lone cow who kept trying to make your own way and didn't follow their patterns, you would get lost.

You can apply the same logic to other things -- not distance, but say a certain obstacle in their path each time, the first two times 85% of the time they did response A, and then the third or more consecutive times they did response B. The obstacle could be an EMA 20 chart in our case, and the market tends to always bounce off the EMA 20 on a 5m chart the first one or two times, and then with less certainty the third or more times.

The herd drives the market. The herd tends to use EMA 20 and 5m chart, in my opinion.

Naturally, you cannot simply load a 5m chart, load an EMA 20, and then blindly trade every single touch. That is where experience and wisdom come in, to evaluate other conditions, just as the herd/crowd is doing, and then try to make the same decision as the herd.

Mike

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piersh
California
 
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Big Mike View Post
The herd drives the market. The herd tends to use EMA 20 and 5m chart, in my opinion.

right, i understand what you're saying, and i'm sure you're right about the majority using that setup.

the problem is that there's no single herd, there's a bunch of different herds, each herd looking at a different subset of the available information. and the worst thing is - you're only following one of those herds.

compare an EOD equity chart - one where there's a bell, and everyone shares exactly the same price - with an intraday chart where there is NO shared price.

conversely, imagine you're long-term trading and the NYSE has a thousand bells each with a unique number on it and each bell rings at a different time of day. you pick a number out of a hat when you open your account and every day your closing price for that day is the price when the bell with your number on it rings. all your charts are based off that price.

sounds ridiculous, right? well that's exactly how your 5-minute chart works.

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Last Updated on February 2, 2010


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