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Trading the 6E Old School, With a Twist


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Trading the 6E Old School, With a Twist

  #131 (permalink)
 
kronie's Avatar
 kronie 
NYC + NY / USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: "I trade, therefore, I AM!"; Theme Song: "Atomic Dog!"
Trading: EMD, 6J, ZB
Posts: 796 since Oct 2009


Cashish View Post
There's no School like the Old School

Hoping and Wishing


I have a few rules I abide by when trading, one of them is, no hoping and no wishing when it comes to managing positions. I learned long ago if I find myself hoping the market will do this or wishing the market will do that,



I want to say you deserved those gains,
those trades that caught the spike higher, irrespective of the bar interval / time frame, were excellent.

I had a few of those, except it was news event driven, with full target and stop pre-set and got hit all within the top tail, not the body, of the candle. those were some of the most memorable, profitable trades.

that chart is amazing, thanks for sharing it, because that is an example of how we (should) trade!

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  #132 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
Experience: Advanced
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There's no School like the Old School

Trading in The Zone



No, not the book but the mindset. I'm not sure where I originally read MY definition of "the zone," but according to ME, I would imagine most of us (if not all) have been in it, whether we were aware of it or not. I'm going to assume most of the readers of this thread are adults, just to keep things simple and drive home my point. For me, being in the zone is best identified when I abruptly realize I was just in it. I'm not trying to speak in riddles, but I find it is much easier to realize when I was just in the zone, and now I'm not, than it is to realize when I'm about to enter "into" the zone. For myself I find entering into the zone subtle and uneventful, a slow lingering process that somewhat magically de-energizes all thoughts and concerns unrelated to the task at hand. My definition of being in the zone is when I'm so deeply immersed in a particular interest that I loose all connection to the physical reality surrounding me. How many times have we, as individuals, looked at a clock and said, where did the time go! IMO, this is an example of abruptly realizing we were, in the zone. In my definition I said, "ALL connection," and all does mean all, the temperature of the room, the time of day, responsibilities we failed to fulfill in our past, the responsibilities that may be pending in our future and even those individuals around us, this may seem like a nice state of mind to be in, IMO,it is.

Let's talk about sex, or more definitely the act of having sex, remember what I said about adults. IMO, the brief moment we (many of us) experience during sexual orgasm is one of the best examples of being "in the zone." All chuckles aside, ask yourself what you were thinking about during the climatic moment, were you thinking of your mortgage payment, your golf game, your daughters birthday party, your 401K or even your sexual partner (I doubt it) or were you totally disconnected from ALL your physical surroundings. In several forms of literature sexual orgasm is defined as, "La petite mort," (the little death). Simply it suggests that all things cease (reality around us), and we travel "outside" our "selves." This traveling outside ourselves is what I believe being in the zone IS. Another example might be trying to get the attention of a teenager playing a video game (who's in the zone or "zoned out"), but I didn't think that was as colorful as sex.

No, I not suggesting we break out the "boner pills" before we boot up our trading computers, I'm just trying to portray in words my opinion of the zone. I'll share another personal example unrelated to trading. A few years ago I was rebuilding a Mother-in Law cottage on my property and spent countless hours hammering and sawing. The cottage sits on the extreme edge of my property about one hundred feet from a neighbor's home. One morning I noticed I had a phone message I had not heard the night before over the noise of the array of power tools I was using. The message was my neighbor letting me know how much she admired the work I'd done to the outside of the cottage and how much she enjoyed the "new view" from her home. But she also went on and asked if I would consider stopping the heavy construction at 9pm since that was the time her ailing mother went to bed. At first I thought her request was weird (I usually stop by 9pm), but as I recalled the events of the previous night I realized I was in the zone and my goal for the previous day was to finish the interior walls of the last two rooms. It wasn't until that moment (about 9 am the next day) I realized that while I was working the day before, day slowly turned to night and I had absolutely no conscious thought of the noise of my saws, drills, hammering or CD player let alone the time of day. I finished the last two rooms of my project that night and as I stood there I realized it was well past 1am when I turned out the lights. Before I started work the next day I spoke with my neighbor and apologized for the inconvenience, assuring her I didn't notice her phone message the night before. As it worked out this was the last day of the noisy work and many times during the trimming out and painting I found myself back in the zone oblivious to the trappings of the "outside" world.

IMO, trading in the zone is similar to the above examples, if I'm thinking, I'm not in the zone. When I'm in the zone I'm doing,, not thinking, about what I'm doing, just doing, like being on auto pilot. I know I'll never get into the zone if I'm surfing the web, checking emails or talking on the phone. I've found there are some negative risks to trading in the zone, being completely disconnected from the outside world can be a problem. I'm sure many brows lifted with that statement since most all the written material suggests we try to enter the zone and go with the flow, trading effortlessly without thought, like a leaf floating down a stream. The one negative consequence I've struggled with when trading in the zone is the vacuum of time, anyone who has entered into the zone while trading can surely relate.

My problem became apparent when I found myself "zoned out," oblivious to time and in turn scheduled economic reports. If I was in a trade my common course of action was to exit the trade prior to the release and stand aside until the next opportunity. However, many of the trades I exited proved to be in the right direction with the market and my premature exit often cut my profits short and on occasion were closed with a loss. My problem was this, I had set audible alerts in my charting program that would "warn" me of the upcoming releases, these audible alerts would often "shake" me and snap me out of the zone. After realizing how well I was reading the market and how many times my analysis of direction was correct while I was in the zone I began to question my "set in stone" rule to exit all trades prior to economic reports. I began to study price movements around and during reports. Many online economic report calendars rate the market's expected volatility around releases with "stars, bars or colors" but I suggest traders do a little self study and derive their own conclusions if these levels of volatility are within acceptable limits of risk for their trading style on an individual basis and truly warrant exiting trades prior to or standing aside for a predetermined amount of time. After a period of study I made two changes. The first was simply qualifying the average volatility during several reports and redefining the criteria based on my risk tolerance. This redefining allowed me to totally omit many reports from my alert list, and gave me a greater understanding of what the true current volatility is on the others. The second change was to the alerts themselves, I removed the audible alerts on many lower tier reports and replaced them with visual alerts, I found these visual alerts not as "shocking" to my concentration and over time I was able to "stay in the zone" and trade as "normal" maintaining my focus entirely on the current price movement.

These changes took some time for me to get comfortable with and require an ongoing calculation of the average volatility during several reports but I believe personalizing this information in accordance with my risk tolerance makes the rewards well worth the time, effort and aggravation. Since I believe (for me) it is nearly impossible to "intentionally" enter into the zone, I took the notion that maybe it was possible to create an environment to "keep me" in the zone instead.

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  #133 (permalink)
 eminitrdr 
Marietta, Oh USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Zenfire
Trading: Euro
Posts: 180 since Mar 2010
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Still on SIM...making slow and steady progress.

emini

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  #134 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
Experience: Advanced
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eminitrdr View Post
Still on SIM...making slow and steady progress.

emini


Nice trade @eminitrdr that's about as good as it gets. Well done, this was a morning with plenty of two way trading, which can make it very difficult to commit to direction. You picked the primo spot for an entry, took no heat on the trade and read the target area ,,, I'd say perfectly.

Well done, a textbook trade.

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  #135 (permalink)
 eminitrdr 
Marietta, Oh USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Zenfire
Trading: Euro
Posts: 180 since Mar 2010
Thanks Given: 459
Thanks Received: 207

@Cashish,

Thanks for all your help. Still making steady progress. Still trying to put all the pieces together.

There will be setbacks, but with a good attitude and a willingness to work hard, it can be done.

Always embrace the risk and try to keep it as simple as possible. As Cashish told me, "traders make it harder than it needs to be. All we can do is buy or sell and control our RISK!"

emini

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  #136 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Ensign 10, NT7 DOM
Broker: IB, IQ
Trading: Currency Futures
Posts: 802 since May 2011
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There's no School like the Old School

The Times


This week was filled with pain and sorrow for many Americans, my heart goes out to them. I know what devastation a hurricane can do to families, property and small businesses. I also know recovery takes time, years, not weeks or months. IMO, unless you experience the wrath of a natural disaster first hand, you'll never fully comprehend how deeply individuals and communities are affected. The thought of "life as usual" is seldom contemplated while searching for fresh drinking water or cleaning out a refrigerator full of spoiled food that's leaking out on your kitchen floor. Many small business owners will never return, their losses will be just to great and several of their customers will simply, disappear. We had a small park in the area where I live which included a campground, my wife and I took our grand children there on many occasions. After the hurricanes of '04 it was converted into a FEMA worker housing area and remained closed to the public for almost two years. People who were unable to live in their homes due to damage were unable to find housing because all the livable hotels, motels and apartments were filled with claims adjusters, linemen and the masses of other workers that came in from out of state. Many businesses also needed to relocate as well as replace damaged equipment while they repaired their storefronts, available usable commercial space filled up fast. People who planned to put the contents of their homes or business in storage during the needed renovations soon found the availability of a storage unit was zero, moving companies secured most available units shortly after the storm. These are only a few of the obstacles those effected face, in the aftermath of the storm in the Northeast. Did I mention they might go through this with no power. The street behind me had power one week after the storm, it took another week for power to return to our street.

But life goes on, and those not affected barely suffer a blip in their routine, I guess it's one of the hard facts of life.


Trading Times

On Oct 31 @eminitrdr posted this chart (first chart below) on the thread and I wanted to comment on the time of day this chart begins calculating the VWAP and VP for the European session. eminitrdr has been a loyal follower of this thread and is, IMO, grasping the concepts and forming a method of trading which appears to be working very well for him. A Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) or Volume Profile (VP) can be calculated during any period of time, 1m, 15m, 30m, 60m, daily or weekly, ect. all that's required is the period of time, a time to start and a time to end. I start a VP and VWAP at 2am est because I want to see how the traders in Paris and Frankfurt view the value of the market before the London open at 3am est.. I've taken many trades during this 1 hour period and consider it an important time period for anyone seriously trading the Euro. So let's take pause here and realize it is not 2 thru 3am est that is important it is the hour between the Paris/Frankfurt open and the London open that I believe is important. Since I believe the time period between these opens holds significant importance, I have to adjust my indicator (VP and VWAP) settings when these countries set their clocks from British Summer Time to Standard Time and vise versa, albeit I have to change the settings again when the U.S. adjusts their clocks in and out of Daylight Saving Time (this weekend). I posted a second chart to show the difference in the two settings on this particular day, a subtle difference, but significant to the method nonetheless. Furthermore, if traders expect movement at or during the close of a particular European market, I believe these time changes should be considered, IMO.






A final note, the intention of this post was to show how much the study formations were affected by adjusting the indicator times to correlate with the European time change on Oct 28.

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  #137 (permalink)
 
AttitudeTrader's Avatar
 AttitudeTrader 
Dallas, TX, USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader, T4
Broker: IQFeed
Trading: 6E
Posts: 358 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 6,868
Thanks Received: 869

Cashish,

I'm very late to this party, but I just wanted to tell you how much I'm enjoying this thread. The way you are explaining things (from technical analysis to psychology) is ridiculously refreshing and far easier to understand/comprehend than most.

So thank you for the amount of time and effort you put into this. Posting on my blog has shown me how time consuming it can be to put posts like this together and yours are great (I've actually added links on my blog to some of your posts here so I can refer back to them easily)!

Also, I've recently begun using Ensign and I just created a thread on the Platforms and Indicators section here on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) asking Big Mike if he would create a Sub-Forum for Ensign.

I wanted to let you and @eminitrdr know in case you'd be interested in it too. If you are, feel free to add to the thread to let Big Mike know.

Alternatively, if there already is one that I don't know about, please let me know!

Thanks again for the wonderful content you're providing here.

-AT

"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
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  #138 (permalink)
 
AttitudeTrader's Avatar
 AttitudeTrader 
Dallas, TX, USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader, T4
Broker: IQFeed
Trading: 6E
Posts: 358 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 6,868
Thanks Received: 869

I know you guys are mostly trading the euro, but I thought I'd share an ES chart with you using some of what you're talking about here.

Recently I've been getting closer to my own “style,” and with the addition of some of your ideas, I found a little more reason for confidence in the setup I was looking to take today.

All of my regular stuff is on the chart, but where I entered was also a bounce off of -1SD of VWAP, and prior to my entry, the turning down of the upper Bollinger Band signaled a possible retest of the most recent low and potential turn around (which occurred).

My normal target happened to be just under the VWAP which made it even more reasonable (in my mind) as an objective.

As you say, it's a complex mix of things that make for a potentially good trade, and any one of these things alone is not enough to make that decision.

If I'm off about anything I've just said regarding what you've been sharing, please let me know.

Thanks again.

-AT

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/x3jbdd.png[/img]

"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
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  #139 (permalink)
 
Cashish's Avatar
 Cashish 
Miami FL USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Ensign 10, NT7 DOM
Broker: IB, IQ
Trading: Currency Futures
Posts: 802 since May 2011
Thanks Given: 811
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@AttitudeTrader

Thanks for stopping by and Thank You for the thoughtful comments, I'm glad you've found the thread enjoyable and "ridiculously refreshing." It humbles me that you've been able to incorporate some of the ideas from this thread into the development of your own personal "style" of trading the ES. To be forthright I must say I've never charted or traded the ES, you're "on your own" there. IMO, the more "confidence in the setup" we can attain (by any means) is always a good thing. Earlier today, eminitrdr told me his B Band study was instrumental in keeping him in his 6E trade as price moved to his predefined targets as well. I'll make one suggestion, and raise one flag of caution. I suggest you chart a Volume Profile if you aren't already, a VWAP without a VP is like bacon without the eggs! The reason I say this is because the VP will aid you in identifying areas in the market where you don't want to trade. This is the flag of caution, IF the POC of the VP is between the -1 and +1 SD bands of the VWAP, which would put it pretty close to the VWAP (ave),,, price often moves "effortlessly" thru this range (-1 to +1 SD) very quickly. This is often the case during a prolonged consolidation period leading up to a news release/event. I call this area the "forbidden zone" in the 6E, a place where anything can happen, in the blink of an eye. As an example, I once entered eight consecutive trades bouncing off the -1 and +1 SD levels in the 6E in a four hour period during overnight trading, the market went nowhere, it just rotated between these levels for hours. I'm sure you've forgotten more about the ES than I'll ever know but keeping notes of "what happens where" has been very helpful to me. Life is good.

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  #140 (permalink)
 
AttitudeTrader's Avatar
 AttitudeTrader 
Dallas, TX, USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader, T4
Broker: IQFeed
Trading: 6E
Posts: 358 since Oct 2009
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Cashish View Post

... a VWAP without a VP is like bacon without the eggs! The reason I say this is because the VP will aid you in identifying areas in the market where you don't want to trade.

Ok, I'll keep that in mind...but now I'm hungry!


Cashish View Post
... keeping notes of "what happens where" has been very helpful to me.

That sounds like the kind of thing I hear from a couple of (successful) cyber-trader-friends of mine who continually attempt to beat the real trading "wisdom" into my head.

Thank you for your input and "wisdom" as well.

And yes, life is good!

-AT

"Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitude. It's having the right attitude that's hard." - Robert Pirsig
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