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Cory, just looked through your calcdeveloping area indy and realised that you VaT and VaB are standard deviations, not the usual 30-70% Value Areas. Good, but not the same since those levels are closely monitored by many.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Starting tomorrow I will begin to explain each trade in terms of current trading plan rules which are, simply put:
to trade my pattern entries in the direction of the trend except when countertrend permission exists.
Countertrend rule:
Break of clear trendline Skew flip
2nd pattern entry (like H2/L2 approach)
R-Ratio acceptable (i.e. no huge stops on a CT trade).
Most favorable when the PVP and/or Vwap are far enough away to present reasonable target (1.5 - 4) pts versus being a very long way away (i.e. it is a very strong trending day) or very close (meaning we are already in a probable consolidation zone).
Trend:
Higher Highs and rising vwap = bull;
Lower Lows and falling vwap = bear;
Feb 2. Early start again today but only trades after the vertical line at official open are in the SS.
Note on 'official' trades: it might look like I am cherry-picking good ones, but I always decide before entering in SIM whether or not it is official and once I start I don't stop counting them until I am done. It is too difficult to change SIM accounts in Ninja, I have found. Having extra DOM's makes no difference in that regard, so I alternate from official to unofficial mentally.
Market was choppy in early going and in retrospect should have waited for pickup in speed. Impatience. Many trades which are explained in the SS and because so many will not offer detailed commentary in terms of above post viz. rules. That said, all trades were valid. Early exits to prevent DD is also legal although this morning it took an hour to get DPT+ and several trades if held longer would have made DPT much sooner.
As soon as finished officially, market picked up and grabbed a couple of nice winners whilst reading other posts in forum etc. Having a faster market makes a big difference.
7 trades, 6 winners, 1 BE, no losers.
Net $109.2 = 2.2%.
Note on chart: have returned to more simple chart after experimenting with a few extras except that now that have highspeed which seems to be working well (finally), have added in EDSvolume bars and JstatsLevel II to get more granularity on current/recent volume action. I find the EDS bars can help me fine-tune the key prices that sometimes dValue has smoothed out due to its averaging-at-close-of-bar method. Jstats helps reveal strong potential areas of S/R that are beyond the 5-price limitation in the DOM.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
30 minute chart. On Dec 24 on p 8 of this thread offered as 'Christmas present' to forum members a longer-term trade of buying around 1095 level with 1143+ target.
Well, I got the support level a wee bit wrong, although that was just a ballpark number. Went down to 1088 (close enough), and then it did indeed go back up to 1140+ level (1160's) soon thereafter as foreseen. Wish I had taken my own advice!
"In any case, if a pullback to 1096 level (far right ellipse) holds and there is a HH breakout from around there, should get a nice 40 point rally to 1145 level, but certainly rectangle low around 1115 at very least. Key level in Feb contract is 1143.30 which is the coral dash line just above thicker crimson line mentioned above. Here we have the POC of the last week that was HH HL with swing low that went on to the peak high, and then two =Swing Highs before final plunge, and where the 1 and 2 month vwaps look like they are going to be converging soon."
And a Merry Christmas to you. Before going off to make merry myself, my Christmas gift to all. Well, somewhat. A longer term chart of Gold - the main instrument in this thread and now the lead asset internationally.
Have marked a few basic chart formations …
That 1143 level was also accurate in that first it went to 1142.60, then pulled back considerably to 1122, then went on up higher to 1163. I have not checked, but maybe the Feb contract made it to 1143. ( Nope, only 1137, 6 points lower, but then only 3 days later was at 1160+).
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
Correlated markets? TF, CL (top left, right), GC, Soy (bottom left, right). All moving together. Have seen this many times.
Indicates (to my thinking) that there is a lot going on in terms of the $ business since all mkts now have to gauge their price points relative to US$ valuations.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
Late night dicking around on internet downloading old movie clips from the 1930's. New toy. Also drank coffee in the am and this is often the after-effect. Also it is -18C and in my rickety old domicile the fire has to be stoked regularly below -15 and careful attention paid to freezing pipes etc. Rural life.
Wake-up intuition: just take simple pattern swing trades, i.e. a HH or LL and go for 5-6 tick profits. Did so (within rules) on Trade#1, thereafter it varied a little. This sort of goes along with the Rat approach. In theory I can use my SR approach to determine entry zones/direction, but then pretty much always use simple pattern entries. This addresses and internal conflict: my preference emotionally/stylistically is to place orders at SR levels before price gets there and then see what happens. When it works, it's fantastic, but it is a somewhat slapdash approach and I need to get clear in my head that this is NOT what I do in live trading. It comes from having first tried day-trading using a retracement trade method which does exactly this. Nothing wrong with that approach, but I can first identify a retracement zone (like SR-P, PVP or SR-R), THEN if it is holding/valid, take an entry on confirming pattern and with reasonable R-R (or enter at more favorable R-R after entry is triggered, or with subsequent lower risk confirmation pattern if the move has not already played itself out).
Did take a trade around 4 am which was an instant $100 winner (2%). But not counting it since didn't decide beforehand that it was official. Still not confident in overnight market which has less liquidity although often good speed and orderly charts, i.e. doesn't just waffle around chasing stops/entries etc.
This morning began the day with clear resolution not to trade until had the charts opened for 15 minutes. So what happened: within 1 min of opening the chart put on a trade, albeit did not place it as 'official' in the ATM. (Have 2 strategies, 'official' and 'play' but don't always remember to switch them, but do keep track mentally.)
On the chart have placed 2 ellipses which were Play trades. (This is not determined after the fact.)
Seem to have settled back down to tick versus minute charts.
Seem to like having the EdsVol histograms though not yet sure if it doesn't add too much noise, helpful as they are. Same for Jstats, although seeing the Level II orders above/below DOM is definitely helpful.
The first ellipse is an Eds-based trade. Large Eds histo-bar indicating potential Support. Didn't work at all. But that's why I took it in Play, to see if doing something like that which I would never normally do gives different results. It didn't. Suspect the way to use them that way is to provide confirmation of existing method setups or caution if they indicate the entry price is in no-man's land etc.
The trades are detailed in the SS. I did follow the rules with all, although in one case I am not sure why I entered at the point I did and think that in fact I did NOT follow the rules because I was 'looking through the bar' versus waiting for it to close. So in that case did NOT follow the rules although at the time I thought I was. Instant loser. Re-entered afterwards at the actual H2 point which was fast winner. Live and learn.
(around 12.02 with 2 trades marked 'H2 late' and then 'H2').
Have also marked charts with text to clarify method for myself and any reading this journal. This is part of fixing the rules.
The connection seems to be holding up well. Now 3 days in a row and no disconnects. Am also running a Market Analyser with many instruments to stress the bandwidth demand, and this morning added in an ES tick chart to stress the system. For now seems fine although am having XP OS glitches with parts of previous window remaining on screen, mouse arrows 'sticking' to DOM GUI etc. Might be time for a fresh installation.
Of note: drew rectangle showing how the dynamic PVP level worked as key SR for the duration of the period during which I was trading. Retraced there several times and it always held. Also have marked a couple of SR lines that are in accord with 30 min chart.
The rules are falling into place and think by the end of the week will have them set. Now I understand that the main function of the rules is to give me something to evaluate my trading by versus being 'holy grail' systems per se, can formalise them properly. Small insight with big ramifications. Hit me yesterday whilst wrestling in -40C storm to protect foundation-level water pipes from outside windchill etc.
7 trades, 2 losers 5 winners, DPT made on the first trade so subsequent trades unnecessary.
Trade #1: Picture-perfect CT H2 with shortened PT at the dynamic PVP. Worked perfectly. DONE.
Conditions:
1 (optional but recommended) Positive skew flip. This is when dynamic PVP moves, in this case down and beneath the vwap, making the vwap above it and therefore a positive skew. 6 am start for vwap and PVP.
2 Trendline break (not drawn but obvious and shortly after skew flip).
3 H2 entry.
4 PT was small so could have passed on the trade or held for higher PT with BEX. Elected to take the money and run, probably because the PVP was also at previous SRP level from only a few bars back after the most recent SH around 1147. So this was a double 'magnet' price zone which I expected to at least get probed even if the up-move did not work and wanted to get out fast if it went up there.
All subsequent trades unnecessary but at the end of about an hour was 1.8% up after a 1.2% drawdown. First image pic is of this trade only.
NOTE: I did not take short trades even though in downtrend until later on. This was because mind overly hooked on the CT setups because of confluence with 30 min SR. Need to examine this sort of thing to see if this is an ongoing tendency or just a slight problem with today. In my defense, the downtrend was not strong and the market kept bouncing back to PVP, so really it was more of a trading range with slight downward bias then a real 'down trend'. Still, could have taken a couple of shorts to speed up reaching goals. For example at 12.20 a great setup after multiple failures to penetrate PVP (could have entered up there with 4 tick risk) or at least selling on a penetration of the short-term SR formed by those sideways bars up there around 1111.12 (just before the losing EDS-based buy signal). Suspect I did not 'see' the short setup because had already 'seen' the Eds buy setup which is not part of the rules and purely experimental. Still, it distracted me from trading official method which is my goal now. So new rule: NO experiments until officially DONE.
Rule 1 for this week to work on: 15 minutes before first trade.
Rule 2: no experimentals until officially DONE.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
Took one trade today shortly before the open for gain of $75.00 but did not record in SS and later on put on many 'play' trades in what turned out to be a potentially significant sell-off although in GC, at least, it went down to 1050-ish which is a key fundamental level (where India bought millions of ounces not long ago).
I had Ninja problems later on and had to rebuild database etc. so fell behind on journal-entry discipline today and was, frankly, to entranced with the markets once the steep sell-offs got underway to catch up. Will try to enter the trade tomorrow. It was a very simple setup and exit which basically had me DONE very early on.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
This morning (Feb 5) updated SS from yesterday's trades and manually put them on chart (since a different SIM account from one loaded). Yesterday was a big day market-wise but my personal mission was to stress my connection and Ninja to see how far I could go. Had many workspaces up tracking multiple instruments, multiple JStats and Gom indies whilst simultaneously downloading files in another application.
By and large it held up well although after a few hours had memory issues and had to close down, reopen etc. But apart from possibly 1 sec delays in ES, the data kept up despite workspace/charting/mouse trail 'stick' issues. This morning, with no downloading and less workspaces open, NT kept hanging up. So now have removed most of the Gom indies and Jstat indies and will see what happens when I have just 2 instruments being tracked with them, which is enough for my purposes. And if that still hangs NT up, then will keep with DValue only, although I must say I find the Eds VolumePrice bars helpful in providing far better granularity in terms of which particular prices have seen the most volume recently. If I were smarter, I would hook them into the Gom Recorder and quite possibly they would be the only live-updating addition I would use. I also like the GomCDHA (heikin ashi cumulative delta indicator). It seems to be a very very good swing indicator which is rarely wrong. As such it bears looking at carefully as something to help filter and increase probabilities.
Took 2 trades in early going yesterday, both around PVP/vwap support, both trading pullbacks to that support, both working out well. Have marked them on chart with arrows whose points show the price. I was using a different chart (2 minute?) so the entries don't make much sense on these pics. But part of keeping the record here on journal. More commentary in SS which is attached to today's entry.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
First, almost followed my new 15 minute rule but not really. I do not understand this but it has a lesson. If I cannot give myself a simple rule and follow it, then the whole trading plan campaign is not going to work. And this rule makes sense. To clarify: the official trades below were well after 15 mins, but soon after opening up gold and before even looking at 30 min chart, cleaning up SR lines etc which is my official opening routine, placed a couple of SIM trades because it was a fast market. Am NOT supposed to do that. On the other hand: when trading live I never have this problem (rather the opposite: waiting for overly perfect setups) and think this is a result of being too long in SIM whilst waiting for highspeed connection which was delayed by several months. With that said:
Trade #1: A PVP-retrace in questionable downtrend. It worked with 7 ticks heat (which means entry was not all that good) but in retrospect I was being hasty.
Trade #2: Schapiro Pattern sell (low of last up bar in downtrend). Again, questionable trend, on the other hand, since around the pvp and plenty of S/R levels below, was reasonable; what happened is that price touched then immediately went against trade although luckily not to the stop which was in the middle of nowhere.
Rules: Trade #2 should not have been taken because stop in no-man's land between entry and next SR levels higher up. Excuse: I was having problems with NT and working in other workspaces after placing this order in trading workspace to fix the memory/hanging-up issues. If this was REAL trading I would not have kept that order in the market. But since I forgot about it totally and it was triggered, decided as soon as it was triggered that it would count since when I placed it minutes earlier it was 'official'.
Rules in general:
a) did not follow 15 minute rule.
b) #1 not really a valid trend trade since mkt correcting after fast up-move
c) #2 not really valid since in wide-range barbed wire situation and not even looking at trading chart.
Have to give myself 25% today on rules despite 4% results.
It is lunar New Year on Feb 14th. Will spend next week formalising the trading plan and preparing to go back to REAL trading after then.
NOTE on charts: to reduce clutter with the added-in Gom Volume Profile (since removed) and EDS vol-price histos, took off bands and instead put up a simpler RGaussian 90 line with bands .382 around it. A good smooth trend indy with the bands highlighting good retracement levels. Am increasingly finding that the DValue histo alone provides sufficient context for the range and the relationship of price to vwap and price to PVP (close or far) is essentially the same sort of contextual info that I am looking for from bands, and since the bar/price patterns at any given level are still 80% of what I look at, perhaps having the 7-band indy up there is overkill despite all the time I put into making a fancy indy with 1001 options.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
You don't need a dynamic PVP in that at any given time the current displayed PVP using the normal method is right there. But for review, the dynamic is very helpful because you can see where it was at any given time. Also to use in strategy development as a price point or basis for conditions and then be able to review the system on a chart to see why it was doing what it did since otherwise you could not see the PVP at the time of the trade.
Just quickly marked up a few points in past hour in GC where the PVP provided accurate S/R and often at spots where the price bars did not indicate such clear SR.
Of note: the lowest low on the right. Well, okay, it was an SR-P level (my method), but apart from my method, not a very clear zone. One would have expected it to go down further to test the lows. But that old PVP line (red dash) indicates probable stopping point. Which is what happened. Also, therefore, a good target area.
I like the idea of naked trading, but I do want to see volume-related info like this which price bars and standard lower panel volume histograms simply do not show.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'
