Even so, without getting into the merits of the thread's contents, people still have a right to express their beliefs, no matter how far-fetched they may be, provided the forum's guidelines are followed.
If anyone feels their time is better spent elsewhere other than this thread there are tools available for that, such the ignore function, as well as the option not to visit the thread anymore.
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I would expect that eventually you will want to know what the indicator is doing or how to modify it or the strategy.
Here is a helpful link with some links to resources on Futures.io.
If you can't access some or all of them it is probably because they are for Elite Members only.
Seeing how the forum is handling this, for the time being the site is something that I can't be associated with.
I'm logging off, similar to how Gary and others have logged off or abstained from the site. This type of dialogue being supported here is "of detriment" to the credibility and the reputation of the site.
When/if positive discernment returns, so will I.
All the best in trading and in life to each of you.
Be Well.
Dan
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Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
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Part of what is so special about our community is the ability to remain cordial and helpful even when faced with things that are mind-boggling in their annoyance factor.
Your choice on what to do --- but you can ignore this thread instead of letting a rookie get under your skin.
And of course, you, or any member for that matter, are free to question the decision of whether or not I should have boosted the exposure of this thread by including it in our newsletter. "Hell is paved with good intentions."
It was my intention to raise awareness and thereby education to all the members who find themselves in similar situations as the OP, and even now I still standby that decision -- because I have faith that the majority of our members can see the thread for what it is, and I have always been a person and trader that believes you can learn what not to do from observing others -- not only from those that are successful.
Ask me again in 10 weeks and see if I change my mind lol
I have created some ribbon indicators over time that are very similar to yours. I have used lots of different settings and have tested them extensively over time. If used right, they can produce very nice results. Not a million in 10 weeks, but enough to use exclusively for a trading system. The screenshot below shows one example "No particular settings". I have no intentions to do so, but I'm sure I could get mine to match yours with extreme accuracy. I'm sure I have tested through your settings at one point. Who knows right? One thing to remember when using any type of exotic bars (Any bar that is not time based), make sure your test results are true. With range bars, just changing the lookback period can change the results of any backtest. You can fix this by using a control point for your starting bar when backtesting. In search of the Holy Grail is part of the fun, although we all know its all relevant. The holy grail only exists in your own mind. Good luck to you in your hunt! I will follow your journey.
Woody.
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BTW, he was the most beneficial member the forum ever had...a legit trading legend. He came here and shared info literally worth millions. Others on that level also seldom post. In that is a question, for which I have no answer.
The community has to choose, it is that simple.
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@wldman, really wish you wouldn't leave Dan, a lot of people here respect you, myself included... but yeah, this thread has certainly been a big train wreck, difficult to look away LOL.
I concur with your thinking to a certain degree... the click bait title, the sheer immature behaviour and arrogance displayed in some of the posts (and not necessarily by the OP) smacks of something I'd expect to see on Forex Factory or the like. It's a bit surprising to encounter something like this on FIO.
That said, I think any noobs reading these pages are going to at least have an inkling of an idea that all may not be well with the idea of an indicator leading the way in making trade decisions, so from that standpoint it has been an educational thread which I believe is what @Big Mike is trying to accomplish here by letting it run.
Merlin, I appreciate your tenacity and anti-establishment attitude. I just hope you know that most of the people that are disagreeing with you are actually trying to help; we all tend to look out for each other here. Your theory is possible on paper; I'm interested to see what shakes down when you get to the nitty gritty of actually trading it. I'm not one to pass judgement but I'm sure you won't be surprised if there are a few bumps in the road along the way. Good luck.
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lol don't take this the wrong way but the picture you paint of your self is of a sarcastic child,
I think if you would take 1 step back and see that there are a large group of people who most likely have been millionaires for a long long time trying to help you out/ bring you back to reality ... you would have a different approach.
and any testing done in renko isnt accurate, when i first got into trading a guy I worked with and I came up with a similar renko D/T & D/B strategy and thought we hit the gold mine we tested years or data and it was amazing the amount of money we SIM made but when we put a small account live it was torn to pieces because of the inaccurate bars.
now if this was any other forum i can assure you the shit storm you think you are currently getting would be 1000x times worse.
but I wish you the best of luck and if you do make it work, I've got some cash for ya and I know a bunch of other people do to lol
-P
"Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie"-Miyamoto Musashi
First of all, I apologize for all the harsh comments you are getting from your own community, as a forum admin myself I know it must be hard to hear, I didn't want this to happen to you.
Let me know if you can handle the heat or not and I will gladly leave your forum if it comes to a point where your own crew turns against you.
I have to admit that you are right about Renko but I haven't backtest with those yet, that's part of the tests we will do when the indicator will be ready.
But let me ask you, was the results THAT FAR OFF?
Because if you take a look at the screenshots I made a couple days ago, YOU CAN turn off the creating of those "fake/phantom bars" by clicking here...
Also, as you can see in my 3 ticks high Renko bars chart, there are NOT A LOT of those fake bars in a chart so it's hard to believe that they will skew the results that badly but again, I don't know for sure and will find out soon.
In this chart below, by removing those fake bars, only 2 little tiny Renko bars were removed.
Btw, if the results turn to shit, I can always turn to Kase bars who have been proven to run fine in backtests and as you can see in these 2 screenshots below, the top one is the double tops on the renko chart and the bottom one is the same double tops on a Kase chart so I would have caught them anyway on both Renko or Kase charts.
Wldman. Seriously? I cannot believe this thread impacted you so hard. Stop talking about the people from yesteryear. Who cares....I dont. You have a huge opportunity to step up and become one of the legends here. So what if a small percentage wont listen or is rude or whatever, that is no reason to get emotional! Your voice will still be heard and I would go as far as to say that it is your duty to respond to all that is wrong with this thread. I am honestly surprised that you instead choose to put such elementary obstacles in your way. You are denying yourself the opportunity to mentor and share your many years of knowledge, but even worse is that you will be denying the many other authentic and credible users of this site an opoprtunity to be mentored and to learn from your experience.
Suck it up buttercup. You are needed here. If you choose to go silent and walk away then you are turning your back on this community.
Its your choice.
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I cant comment on the kase bars I use ticks and in my mind ticks rules everything else is garbage but thats me.
The renkos arent showing the true range the russell can whip around especially on the open I pulled a similar renko chart and i was missing 7 ticks of range on my support/resistant areas.
I know there is a better range bar or something like that, that has gotten a lot of praise around here maybe look at that
"Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie"-Miyamoto Musashi
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Ok thanks for that tip. Let's see... here's a 10 ticks chart...
The double top is easier to see than on Kase but the Renko still tops them all and remember, I have removed ALL those fake bars, whatever gap there was there now that Renko bars have been removed, we should see in all the other charts.
Yeah I heard that too, these are Range bars chart that don't have fake bars so like on my Renko charts, you can remove those fake bars.
Oh I will be gone way before that date, trust me on that Mike.
YOU on the other hand will have to make the decision to delete or not this thread and kick me out.
If you do, a lot of your members who hate me will be happy but the 12s if not 100s of others hidding being PMs and silently lurking around that have boosted this thread by the 1000s will be pissed because they won't know the end result of the backtests.
If you don't then I will come back and post all the screenshots we come up with in our performance reports once we have them and I don't even know when we will have them. Maybe in 10 weeks there be any backtesting done yet. We'll see...
Merlin
P.s I NEVER said that I was gonna be a Millionaire in 10 weeks, because well.. 10 weeks is WAYYYYYY too long for my taste. ;-D
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
You should change it to this...
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But ALL about....Which color the Merlin_2 Clouds indicator has! ! !
If you would lighten up and take the chip from your shoulder, your presence here would be alot more enjoyable for you and everyone here.
Most of us don't have a problem with new ideas or strange strategies.
The reactions you are getting is not so much about your system or indicators but your attitude.
I for one, hope you succeed with your goal. (I honestly don't believe it will succeed but I'm willing to give support and advice if it is needed AND WANTED...)
"It always seems impossible, until it is done" Nelson Mandela
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
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Alright, for those interested, I removed all those "Fake/Phantom Renko Bars" from today's chart and this is all the spots where a bar was missing.
You might say that's a lot but 10 screenshots with 1-3 missing bars out of 1000s of Renko bars made that day is not enough for me to create total chaos in my backtests but then again, I haven't backtested those Renko charts yet so I will know later on when everything will be programmed.
I believe what would be best is to wait until the final version of this indicator is completed for ninja 8 and then forward test it in real time using a variety of different bar types.
Mr Merlin...is your ultimate goal to fully automate your system(kinda like the High Frequency program traders)? If so, please use caution by understanding who your competition is in this area, however, I do wish you good luck
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I wanted to provide a quick post regarding some great service. So to prequalify my position, I have no financial interest in the following business nor do I benefit from this posting in any way, only wanted to share with others …
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
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@sam028 runs Speedy Servers.
The reviews should give you an idea of how good it is. All reports I have seen is it is a great service.
One of my partners had an account with them, he was not from the US so he needed the speed.
I don't need that type of speed atm but if I did, that would be my choice.
Sam028 will answer any question you have either in PM or in that thread.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
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I live in hope, along with @mattz and @wldman, sometimes PC correctness is way overrated. I do not like the way this forum is being dragged through some rotten places. I appreciate others have more tolerance, my bad. I don't have their trading savvy but I am a bloody good programmer and system engineer and I also know tosh when I see it.
He won't, its already number 1 in the top ten list of threads to learn how not do go about things and will be kept as lesson material.
They won't because they already know damn well that backtests on good systems are at best unreliable indications of future success and on special bars and indicators like this they are pointless and downright misleading. Years ago we watched a similar exercise by an extremely talented and well respected member of this forum; he finally accepted that a similarly visually appealing approach actually contained ZERO programmatically useful information. i.e. no real time edge.
They won't mean anything...
What are you saying then?
Travel Well
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I haven't spent much time on this forum in the past but checked in due to Mike's email about this thread. After reading through this thread, I might spend some more time here as I might be missing out on some great bunfights and some sage discussions regarding trading. This thread has been quite amusing to say the least.
I am quite bemused at how experienced traders are getting so bent out of shape owing to what Merlin is attempting to do and how he is responding to some of the advice/posts.
As traders, we have all been through the ringer at some time in our career, and some of us, fortunately, have come out the other side successfully. Some haven't yet found their own success, but are seeking it in whichever way they believe they need to. Fellow traders can assist, give advice and attempt to help, but if someone is not willing to accept all that, so be it. It is unnecessary to kick and shout and insult in order to "ensure" our advice is heard and taken to heart. If the recipient of our advice chooses to continue along the pathway they believe is correct, they should be allowed to.
By threatening, sulking and throwing tantrums by trying to get Merlin banned is really quite silly - that's what 2 year old kids do - we as adults and actually more so as traders, should have or develop far thicker skins. We should not be offended so quickly - there is far too much other strife in the world than adding to it in a traders forum.
I personally believe, and for me it was an actual defining moment in my trading career, that you have to hit rock bottom, with multitudes of errors in various aspects of one's trading (be it strategy related, money management related or most importantly psychologically related) before you can actually see the forest for the trees and become a successful trader. It is the ultimate journey that one needs to traverse to become successful. Same as drug addicts and alcoholics - they have to hit rock bottom before they eventually turn the corner. It might be how our genetic makeup is woven into us!
This thread, like any others, should be allowed to run its course and let Merlin meet all the demons that are waiting at the end of the journey. If he manages to see through those and fight through them, he might become a successful trader. If not, he can simply just join the huge heap of wannabees who unfortunately couldn't make it in the hardest career on the planet.
Everyone should just relax, get the popcorn and read whichever threads they find interesting. I have to say I have sat reading this thread with a smile on my face! Thanks to all those that have posted.
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I couldn't agree more. If I was the admin of this forum, pretty much page 2 and up would have been deleted right now because as we speak, it's already over for whatever we can talk about.
NOBODY is going to read 25 pages of bitching so we lost 90% of the people who are coming on page 1.
The Millionaire in 10 weeks was based in my 2014 research that was on Forex where I would need to make 26.5 pip on a daily basis so that I could get enough profit $ to buy a 2nd Forex Lot costing $1,300 at that time.
Today, I don't trade Forex, I trade Futures and even that evolved a lot since 2014. Not only the Mini Russell Contract (RTY) has doubled it's daily range but today, you can even buy a Micro Russell Contract (M2K) for just $25!!!
As I was explaining on page 1, each ticks pays $0.50 so 50 ticks in the right direction and you have made a $25 profit and can now be able to buy a 2nd M2K contract.
So technically speaking, if we would make that 5 pts profit (100% ROI) on a daily basis and don't lose too one of those 5 pts (100% DrawDown) then it wouldn't take us 3 weeks (16 doublings) to reach the Million.
Now before you all jump on me and call me a moron or dreamer, I need to say that EVEN if we make our 5 pts on most trading days, we will still won't be able to get to the Million $ by doubling our contracts. Sooner or later we will hit a wall where when we get in with 100+ contracts things are turning against us and the slippage becomes too big, the volatility of the RTY, believe it or not won't be able to handle it.
Here's a screen of my 2 ticks Renko bars near the close at 4 Pm. You can see that even when everybody is getting out, we don't get passed the 500 trades on the same tick meaning that if you buy 256, 512, 1024 or 2048 contracts (see diagram below) like we need to buy to go from $500K to $1M, we won't be filled instantly and look at the drop in price in just those 5-6 bars, 1 full point was lost.
Conclusion, Tim was right and we will need to lock in our contracts to get there and as to HOW LONG we will get there, only a good trading system will let us do it and only the backtesting will confirm this. Right now, I have no clue how long it will take becuse I don't have Tim's system.
Btw, what are you saying? That any strategy and backtesting won't work, and everything is doomed to fail?
Yes I know, I have already a thread talking about this but not everyone has the time nor the interest to hear 25 pages of pickering and bitching to reach the part where I start sharing the code I have and the code I get form other programmers.
If Big Mike or any other admin would be willing to delete the last 24 pages of us arguing then I would post it there but nobody will see it. So before any admin move this page or merge it with the Millionaire in 10 weeks thread, PLEASE wait a couple of days so that the most people will be able to see before it gets lost on page 25 or 26 of an already messy thread.
Before I post the code, you need to understand the logic of this indicator and why I think it's by far the best indicator I've seen and trust me, after 14 years spent on the TradeStation forum which is "Indicator, strategy and backtesting" HEAVEN for any programmer out trade.
First, my 2 clouds indicator does NOT LAG like 99.999% of the other (Price Channel) indicators out there.
Why is that?
It's because indicators are usually based on previous X number of bars back. So if you have a 50 MA on your chart, that Moving Average has is calculated on the previous 50 bars AND THAT... makes it lag.
It's the same with most price channel indicators out there (Keltner, Bollinger Bands, Donchian Channel, etc..). They are all based on previous bars, not mine.
Mine is based on a FIXED PRICE VALUE.
As you can see, the upper and lower bands of the channel stay parallel during all this climb...
Here's another price channel (keltner), noticed how it it smoothly curved. This is caused by making an "average" of previous bars and because of that it lags.
Here's a closer shot of what happens on my price channel.
At the beginning, the channel was blue because we were coming out of a downtrend but look what happened when the price moved back up inside the channel and moved 1 BAR above the upperband...down to the very last tick of that bar... BOOM the 5 pt fixed price of the channel has been crossed and therefore, the whole channel changes color from blue to white and the center line also changed from red to green.
In other words, when the trend changes direction and hits a SPECIFIC FIXED PRICE for that channel, the channel changes color and indicates a trend direction change.
One common line that I heard 100 times throughout my 15 years in this trading business is...
"First..FIND THE TREND and then BUY THE DIPs"
Well when you load this indicator on your charts, the first thing you will notice is how good it is to spot the big trend (when there is one of course). If the market makes a big move that indicator will catch it and fairly early.
So what I did is remove the upper and lower bands of that channel and only kept the red/green center line that I call my Merlin Squared MA.
Then I used 4 of those Squared MA and for now the settings are 6 and 8 pts for the faster TF cloud (light blue and white) and 10 and 12 pts for the slower TF cloud (gray and dark blue).
You end up with this on your 0.2 pt high Renko bar chart.
Now yesterday, Sevak (1 of the programmer working with me at converting this EasyLanguage indicator code) was able to convert it in C# and it seems to be working fine on NinjaTrader (NT8) as you can see... his chart is right smack on the nose because our chart looks the same.
However, when I loaded it into my MultiChart (.NET version) editor, I got all these errors...
Now before you tell me to go with the version of MultiCharts that accept EasyLanguage, you need to understand that both version of MC cost $1,500 each but with my new broker (Amp Futures), you can get the .NET version for free with no monthly fee!
Because I like"FREE STUFF" and knowing that people who are interested in trading but don't have millions to throw away, they will be happy to go with this free MC version however, I will still need some help to convert it and debug it for MC too.
So first, here's the EasyLanguage code for those who have TradeStation or MultiCharts w/EasyLanguage...
And here's the code for NinjaTrader.
At the time I write this post, this is a screenshot of what you should see on today's chart if you set your bars to 0.3 pt Renko bars on a M2K (Micro Russell 2000) chart.
Once again, don't get too excited, NO INDICATOR alone will make you rich. To make it big you need an ENTIRE ROBUST TRADING SYSTEM.
So if a programmer out there who have Multicharts .NET version and know C#, maybe you can take the C# of the NinjaTrader that seems to work and debug it so that it fits on MC too.
Then we will start to mastermind on he best entries we can find using this indicator.
If you managed to read all 25 pages, you are a saint (or just love drama) but sadly, based on experience as forum admin, I know that very few people get passed the 2-3 first pages ESPECIALLY if those first 3 pages are constant bitching so I create a new thread and posted the code for my 2 Clouds Indicator (for both TradeStation and NinjaTrader).
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
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Please stop creating duplicate threads. Anything to do with this topic shall remain here in one single thread, everyone can read it or not read it, it's up to them. But we won't split the topic.
Manged to get the indicator compiled in NT8 and works fine.
Been trying to export the file so it can be shared,but NT takes forever to export it and eats up all memory . Not sure I have the patience to wait for it to get it done ( if that ever happens )
To succeed in trading you need to think like the minority ,so you won't end up like the majority
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Sorry guys, wanted to make it even simpler but NT is taking forever to export it for some reason and I don't have the patience for it.
@MerlinWorld , nice indicator. I'll play around with it a bit. I'm actually working with something similar for my trend indication. If I get something going I'll try and code it in Bloodhound and do some tests
To succeed in trading you need to think like the minority ,so you won't end up like the majority
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Yes, NQ and RTY are displaying quite well, and with the default Range1 = 6, Range2 = 8, Range3 = 10, and Range4 = 12 settings. Crude Oil is displaying weirdly. Please, could you do/post a setup for Crude Oil (CL 09-19).
Lolu
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That's what we will mastermind here if anyone here see some potential of course but 99.9% of member of this forum already think it's gone sink like the Titanic so I won't expect a lot of help here. It will be more done backstage by PMs and emails.
Several here have tried to highlight the massive difference between theoretical backtests, which can show promising (even spectacular) returns, and actual forward testing/live experience, even on sound systems. In addition we have also highlighted the many similar attempts to use just this sort of indicator setup with special bars, where the results will usually be more misleading than average.
You should also take note to consider the fact that (as far as you have indicated) Tim only offered backtest results for his system - without significant forward testing at minimum and live running evidence in multiple market conditions he may not have had as profitable a system as you might assume either.
I am also quite sure that regardless of the fixed price/channel size advantages your approach claims as a benefit, it will in fact make it more prone to failure in changing market conditions and no less dependant on price (doesn't have to be lagging to be a price derivative that adds no extra information).
Whatever results you find it will eventually come down to a psychology test as well, no matter how automated anything is, getting large numbers of contacts filled is not a problem to be considered for a long time.
I am not a doomster, and you are of course free to completely prove me wrong, in which case I will take my hat off to you (I don't eat hats, and I don't expect to take it off, but just in case my humble pie is always ready.)
Just lower your expectations, and stay with the calmer attitude, dream as much as you need to but don't base any life plans or needs on this just yet awhile.
Have a good weekend.
Travel Well
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Well CLEARLY you CL guys will have to adjust the settings on the clouds because you shouldn't have this type of "cloud formation" on your chart. Clouds should be barely hovering above the price bars (see screenshot below).
Try chopping down the settings half and post again.
Well so far, it seems to fit on all eMinis (RTY, ES and NQ). Again I don't have the CL feed.
Also, my settings are just that, settings that I came up with by just looking at my chart like you will do for your CL. I never said those were the best settings because I don't know yet.
After verification, I have to take back what I said because as you can see on the NQ, the (6,8,10,12) settings doesn't fit as well as the (9,11,13,15) one.
On my TradeStation I have custom session that starts 5 minutes before the Open (9:25 am Est.) to "diggest" and show what the price did during the night session but I don't want more night hours than that.
Btw, this is what it looks on a 1 pt Renko chart. not bad at all..
I wonder what the traders who use the Ichimoku cloud indicator would think of my indicator. I personally it hugs the price a lot better and pinpoint clearly every single big trend (green rectangles).
During consolidations (red rectangles), I like that it doesn't change color 50 times in a row.
If I want to match my session and my EasyLanguage code, I can always download the MultiCharts version that works with EasyLanguage but it cost me a nice $1,500.
I want to make it as low cost and low risk as possible not just for me but everyone else who wants to trade but don't have a lot of $$ to burn.
With AMP:
- A Trading Account can be opened with only $100 ($400 w/ NT and $5,000 with TradeStation)
- One M2K Micro Russell 2000 contract cost only $25 in Intraday Margin ($50 on NT and $100 on TradeStation)
- You need only 5 Pts of profit to buy a 2nd M2K contract (you need to make 10 pts on NT and 20 pts on TradeStation)
- The CME live data feed cost for Futures is only $5/month with AMP
- When finally converted into C# running on MC, my 2 Clouds Code and Trading System will be free to download
The lower the trading costs, the more the trading keeps in his pocket.
I am disappointed and surprised at the venom and dismissal attitude expressed in so many posts. I thought the members were largely analytical people with respect for analyses of factual information. I was wrong. Most complaints just wanted to disparage the entire concept out of pocket. Seldom or never did I see a scientific analysis of the weakness arears of Merlins system/concept. Is the assessment of risk analysis in error? is the choice of a trading system inadequate? If so why and does it change the results and by how much. Do you have suggestions for improving the trading system? If it even matters. Is the selection of Russell a bad choice? What is a better choice? To me, Merlins system will work. It always has. But the reliability and time scale, profitability and other factors and unforeseen risks are not proven or quantified. So why so much "hate" over the need for optimization and learning ???
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Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
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Don't equate passionately conveying experience for disparaging remarks.
As a member from 2012, don't you recall the thousands of posts just like this one, all of which were proven failures with science and forward testing instead of hypothetical over-optimized backtested results?
The OP has continually dismissed every piece of wisdom experienced traders have tried to convey, because he is convinced he knows better -- without even reviewing the evidence.
THAT really pissed me off right from the get go here.
The INSTANT rejection of the idea even though I have NEVER seen such a promising indicator like that in my 14 years on the TradeStation forum which doesn't even seem to count btw over here.
Normally I'm a calm, polite guy who just love to share ideas (smart ones) and keep an "intelligent" constructive conversation going on but...NOPE... not here.
You see, at TradeStation the "negative comments storm" kinda stopped when Tim posted his performance report but EVEN by posting it here, the idea STILL got treated like dirt WITHOUT even a minute of consideration.
Then again, it's a bit of my fault too for getting the hot head because if there is one person who totally understands what Big Mike and the others are trying to make me learn (as If I don't know what the hell they are trying to "teach me" hehe).
I too saw many newbies come on the TS forum saying "Woohoo! Let's get rich, you buy the Lambo, I'll buy the private jet, together we'll make BILLIONS, etc" only to see them crash and burn and lose it all in the weeks that follow.
Could I have been one of these "young moron" too when I started back on 2004? Huuh!...NO COMMENT!
OF COURSE I WAS!
I remember seeing an indicator like MACD and Stochastic for the first time and thinking "Oh my God! This is SOOOO COOOOLLLLLL, I'm gonna get rich soon" not knowing what the term "Indicator LAG" meant at the time.
I bought tons of books on Trader's Library (does that thing still exist today???), order lots of humm.. VHS tapes (that kinda shows my age right there), CDs, DVDs, online courses, etc I could get my hands on and I learned from many experts "WATCH OUT, YOU WILL GET BURNED, YOU WILL lose your shirt, You need to respect the market, 99% of traders lose their money, etc" .
So what I did in 2004 is play cautious, got eSignal live feed and a charting platform called Ensign loaded a chart of the Russell 2000, some new thing called "eMini Futures" that almost nobody was talking about at the time, the volume was SUPER LOW but yet I have seen the light, that was THE FUTURE so I forward traded all summer making easily $500/day paper trading the TF and on Labor Day 2005, I jumped in with real cash but... so did the Market Markers and big experienced traders too and I got cleaned BIG TIME.
Suddenly the smooth charts that I saw during the summer, they all went *POOF* and were never seen again. The trading instrument, the system, the timeframe, the indicators were all the same but somehow, the charts moved differently. In the summer, they let you make your 5 pts, but in the Fall when the big boys come back from their vacation...THEY DON'T!
With their experience of how the market moves, THEY KNOW where the "dumb money" is going and how to take it from them and well... they did and I lost a lot.
From that period onward, I went online, looking and asking around traders as to where are all the best traders in the world hanging so that I can "LEARN FROM THE PRO" and THEY ALL POINTED at...TRADESTATION and their forum and trading platform. Big Mike's forum was not even born yet, still 5 years in the making.
It was back then and even is today the best forum to learn from but... from a distance because if you think that the experts here are tough, hehe, you ain't been to TradeStation. OUCH! Over there, they skin alive newbies.
Just like here, the sheer mention of the word "Millions" and *BOOM* the newbie alarm rings, the experts all suit up in their swat team suit and come out guns blazing and that newbie is GONE...PULVERIZED...NEVER...EVER to be returning again. hehehe
Now as you know now, I got the temper to face those guys but didn't want to waste my time so I stayed there and watch and learn, soaking up the knowledge, seeing all those 100s and 100s of threads and code about the craziest of indicators and chart setup that look like Christmas trees.
So why not take all that knowledge, come back to the market and become rich then?
First... when you got burn, you don't have the instinct to go back and be burned again, more like the other way around, you take your time, coming back sloooooooowwwwwllllyyyy on the tip of your toes.
Second, at the time, Tradestation asked for a MINIMUM deposit of $10,000 and the instrument that I was trading (TF, now the RTY - Russell 2000 Mini) was $1,600 a pop.
So until I could find another $25,000 to waste, there's NO WAY I was coming back to trading!
Sure I saw all these "new platform" and brokers come and go over the years but when you are not a programmer and even after reading books on EasyLanguage and barely know how to write a basic indicator, I stuck with TS because I knew that automation was the ONLY WAY TO GO.
Third, Micro Futures didn't exists. Back in 2005 they were, well... 14 years in the making.
Wait...WHAATTTT??
I can now in 2019...
- Open a new trading account with just $100 (What!!!!)
- Trade a smaller version of the Russell Mini contract (Micro) for just $25 per contract (NAAAAAAAH!!!)
- Get a free trading platform (MultiCharts . NET) that looks A LOT like TradeStation (You gotta be kidding me!)
- Get live CME data feed for just... $5/month (WHAAATT!!!)
So yeah...I'M BACK BABY!
Long story short (well maybe not that short after all), I learned form the best, the REAL ELITE TRADING TEAM because any trader will tell you that TradeStation forum is like The Harvard of trading school, where the best programmers, traders, statisticians, theorist and math genius hangs on.
If you say that's not true, that's because you just never been there. Big Mike is the next one in line though. In 2009-2013 I came here a few time when the site was just a baby learning to crawl. I even signed up in 2013 because I saw that it was making it's teeth and was getting "interesting" but didn't post anything here because at that time, it wasn't even close to TS (still is today if you ask me).
But over here:
- Saying I came from TradeStation forum where the Elite is... "pffff" TOTALLY discarded here.
- Posting Performance Report which is pure stats... "pffff" TOTALLY discarded here
- Saying that I spent 14 years of my life looking at the best setup to come back to the market... "pffff" TOTALLY discarded here
- Coming up with a Restrictive Indicator that does NOT LAG ... "pffff" TOTALLY discarded here
AND THAT is what pissed me off and why I came out guns blazing. It's like having been to Europe fighting WWII, come back and be laughed at as if NOTHING happened there on Omaha Beach. Like becoming a Navy Seal and still be seen as a pussy. Like coming with a PHD from Harvard, MIT and Stanford and still be looked at as a "kid coming out of High School who don't know shit".
Not even looking at the performance reports, rejecting my indicator without even having it on their charts saying that "Here Kiddo...We've seen it all just get in live for your..SAT test".
Again, coming up with a title like "Millionaire in 10 weeks" was maybe not the smartest of move, especially from a "newbie" who never posted here.
I get it, I get it. my bad!
Anyway, hopefully the tone will change because of this long post because regarding trading, I think I've learned a few things out there that you will like to hear, but if you still think you know it all and I don't know anything, then my visit will be super brief.
I'm asking because well... I don't even know myself if it will work. I can see because of my experience at TS that this indicator is by far one of the best there is on the market but we all know that an indicator is just that, an indicator and NOBODY got rich just because of an indicator.
I have said it on page 1, if you don't have a Trading System, YOU...ARE...GOING...NOWHERE and to me an indicator, as good as it may look on my chart...DOES NOT...make me a killer Trading System. I still have a LOT of work ahead of me before I can scream victory.
Now I appreciate your post (hope you didn't try to come to my "rescue" because I can handle these "kids" with 1 hand behind my back) but yeah... please elaborate.
I'm curious abt 1 thing though, you mentioned above during summer, the markets moved slow, then after, boom, it became different and the big boys came in and took all the money since they know where dumb money is. If this is the case and you understood this. Why not think like them and go for the dumb money?
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Merlin it is great you have come this far and you should be commended for having the tenacity and determination of trying to tame the beast known as “the market”. You have your market data organizer in the form of your indicator (possibly 20% of the puzzle), get your strategy together in the form of absolute rules that you NEVER deviate from (that’s maybe another 20% of the puzzle, but is only 20% when you are executing it flawlessly with no deviation from your rules that have been written down on paper) and the largest and most difficult part of the puzzle is controlling yourself and your mind which is 60% of the puzzle. The last piece is the most important, complex and challenging and is the piece that most unsuccessful traders can never master and I’ll try and explain what I think is a big reason of why they cannot master it.
If and when you automate your system in order to get to the 20% flawless execution, and you do all these amazing back tests on the strategy that show stellar results, there are a few hidden traps. Some of those, as many experienced traders/programmers in this thread have already stated relate to backtest results not translating well to live trading for a host of reasons. BUT in my opinion, even though backtesting is vital and important, it lulls traders into very secure thought processes that are unlike the processes that are operational when the right side of the chart is moving in real time. We review backtest results with awe and excitement and our minds gloss over the grainy detail of the backtest report. We concentrate and focus our minds on all the winning trades, when we should really be doing the exact opposite - analyzing, in exquisite detail, the losing trades. We change, optimize, rework the settings to squeeze that bit more out of the profit column, while ignoring the losers. And it is those losers lurking in the dark that are the cause of traders not being able to cross the threshold from losing trader to winning trader.
When you hit the “live” trading switch, your survival mechanisms kick in immediately and you are now in a totally different environment. Real cash is on the line. This is your moment, you are on your way to your first million. However, when your first “uncomfortable” drawdown starts to appear (or you start experiencing one of the known consecutive losing streaks that the performance report documented) whether it’s the first trade or 10th trade (seems to usually be the first trade haha), your Adrenalin kicks in and you start rethinking, your heart rate increases, you start second guessing (even though you have done extensive backtesting and you KNOW your system/strategy makes money) and it is at this exact point in time where potentially successful traders are born. You need to remember this, have this emblazoned in your psyche as this will be your life changing moment. I don’t want to make it so melodramatic, but it should be as damn dramatic as possible. One might think this should be an easy threshold to cross based on all the hard work one has put in to get to this point, but all the work prior means nothing as that work has not managed to include training the mind, the largest piece of our puzzle. By known statistics, only a small percentage of traders can actually master this threshold, and yes, mastering it is what is exactly required. This threshold is visited on every trade you take, and the more you are able to master it, the less effect it has on your survival mechanism, and the more of the 60% puzzle starts falling into place. When mastered, trading becomes stress free and actually fun. You have to reach a point where no trade, ever, results in any negative emotion, no matter what the outcome of the trade.
If you can accomplish this Sir Merlin, your dream of making your million will absolutely come to fruition, and you will join the very small percentage of traders who have been able to really control themselves.
So you have your first baby step successfully navigated (your indicator), now go and knock the rest out of the park.
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I think you missed my previous long post I did here.
There is a reason why after losing my shirt back in 2005 that I have joined the TradeStation forum. It's because I KNEW that automation was THE SOLUTION to REMOVE the emotions and nervousness (basically stops you form being a frozen deer in the lights of coming car) part of the trading game.
Well, you will still be nervious but it will be your automated system that trades while you look at it. If you have programmed it well, it should enter EXACTLY at the entry point and exit you EXACTLY at the point you wanted.
No need to remind me of the power and reprogramming power of the Subconscious Mind, I got 28 years of research on this baby. I literally wrote a book on it based on research done by great seeker of knowledge (Napoleon Hill, James F. Cullinan, Teri Mahaney). I have a forum with close to 50,000 post on just that topic.
Go tell that to a "baby trader". Do NOT confuse "new to the forum" with "new to trading".
I turned off the short term TF cloud and it shows a faster change of color of the cloud when trend changes direction.
It's not perfect (no indicator is) and the cloud changes many times it's color during consolidations as shown below but it's the best one I found so far to pinpoint as early as possible the new trend that is starting.
During big trends, it clearly shows you those deep pullbacks or "dips" as shown below when the cloud turned white.
You have assumed that 5 pts win per trade is doable. What will system dynamics be if 3 pts per trade is target for closing the trade? The reason: casually observing the available trades for MicroRussell, it seems that on many days there are not frequent 5 pt trades, especially if they are required to originate from a trend pull-back. I also note that your July 31 Double top short at 14:35 was not a trend pullback trade, it seemed like a sudden trend reversal. If so, it probably isn't a legal trade according to your early game plan?
The following user says Thank You to Willson for this post:
The average daily range of the Russell 2000 back in 2013 was around 14 pts. Today it's 28.9 pts so maybe not everyday have this range but pretty much all will have a 5 pt range even those moving in a very tight range.
One the smallest range day was July 9th and still 5 pts was doable that day. Maybe not in 1 trade but at least in 2.
I never said we will have to do 5 pts in ONE TRADE, I said that to make enough money to buy a 2nd M2K contract costing $25 each, we will need to make 5 pts at $5 each pt.
Now, whether we make those 5 pts in 1, 2, 5 or more trades, I have no clue. My wish would be that we do it in just 1 trade but we'll see.
Remember, Part 1 was telling that we need 5 pts to double our contract but without a solid trading system we will go NOWHERE.
So will we soon be able to create such a trading system? I don't know... place your bet now :-)
Again these are the steps that I have in mind for many years now.
1- Find the major trend of the day (I think my 2 clouds indicator does that very well now)
2- Find the pullbacks/dips made during the trend (I think my 2 clouds indicator does that very well now also )
3- Find a group of programmers/traders willing to mastermind and discuss all the possible best entries on those dips
4- Back test, forward test, sim test live to see if the automated script got us in exactly at the point we wanted to.
5- Get a performance report to see if the system was profitable or not
6- If not, repeat from step #3
Science is research and evidence. That's it. If the evidence doesn't support the hypothesis, then you can either tweak the system (optimization) or start over. Merlin's system is a bunch of moving averages reconfigured into pretty pictures. You can square them, calculate exponential values or do some tensor calculus. It's still a moving average. Moving averages filter out noise. They smooth out the data. They are NOT predictive. Double tops and double bottoms are ex post facto observations.
The reason why people get bent out of shape with threads like this is because everyone has been there, done that. If all it took was moving averages to trade the ES, everyone would be rich and there would be no need for this website. On top of that, the OP is not a student of the markets or a strategy developer. He's hell bent on presenting a not-so-original idea that he can't even code himself. This is analogous to a cancer researcher who wants to direct his/her lab experiments from an armchair in front of a TV. It's ridiculous.
The bottom line is that the idea is not new.
The OP's response to this post by TWDsje says everything we need to know about him:
Mike's website provides an opportunity for collaboration and an exchange of ideas. That's how we all benefit. It's been a tremendous help to me, particularly picking up pieces of code and ideas that perhaps I would have never thought of. Let's not get stuck in the mud.
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Done what? Done listening to people trying to help you? Done listening to people that have traded and won/lost actual real (non-sim) money? Done listening to those that have already done exactly what you are trying to do -- and know with certainty it will not work -- yet still try to spend their valuable time to help you?
What exactly is it you are done with? Done learning? Or done listening?
Your behavior encapsulates the antithesis of what our community stands for. But how long are we expected to continue you to allow the constant negativity against anyone and everyone trying to help you?
You are not here to learn. You are not helping others. There will always be rookies entering the market, and that's fine. Here, we choose to try to educate them with helpful and meaningful advice based on valuable experience, experience gained trading real money (not sim). There are some who like your system, and that's fine -- so long as they know the system itself isn't what is important, and certainly by itself isn't profitable, regardless of what any backtest report says. So long as they recognize that, anyone and everyone can find value in ideas on how to approach a trade. But you sir have completely failed at the rest of trading, the important pieces of understanding how the market works, why it works, why placing blind faith in a system is doomed to fail on its own, your lack of understanding the psychology of trading, even the psychology of trading an automated system.
Let me tell you who is done. We're done, with you. Go on and go back to the other forum and complain about how unfairly you were treated, how so many people loved you but the big bad wolf admin banned you and closed your thread, and poor you for all the time and help that other traders, real traders, have tried to bestow upon you, but how none of these people know better than you. And don't forget to mention how we continued to call out your lack of experience, despite the fact you corrected us so many times telling us just how much experience you have!
Have fun! It's a Monday, and the ban hammer has dropped for the first time in a long time. Case closed!
