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Trading System Thoughts: Context and Using Cumulative Tick on ES/NQ
By Prospectus
My time is being stretched in many directions–custom projects, donor requests, beginning iPhone app development, and working on my own trading skills. This post is one focused on my recent trading thoughts.
First, an unsolicited testimonial. I’ve been part of Richard Todd’s Move the Markets Team for a while now. I find it to be incredibly valuable. If you are looking for a community of experienced traders that are serious about improvement, both of themselves and of newer members, look no further. I recommend it highly. There are a lot of free areas to start with, and if you want to go deeper, he charges a modest monthly fee for full access.
As part of a conversation I had recently with Richard, I was once again reminded about the importance of market context. As I talked about in my WWJT posts, in a trending market, almost ANY trend-following setup will work. In a choppy environment, almost ANY trend-following setup will die horribly. The specific setup DOES NOT MATTER. There is no “best” set of parameters to filter out the losers on a setup basis. The problem is not with the setup, it’s with the market context. A raincoat is not the best clothing to wear on all days, just on rainy ones. Flip flops are ideal footwear on the beach, but not for climbing Mt. Everest. You pick your clothes based on the weather context you expect to encounter. Don’t agonize over whether a blue raincoat or a yellow raincoat works best, and don’t look for the magic set of sandals that keep you warm even on a snowy day. Metaphor overload, core dump…
The most important thing is to identify when the markets are likely to trend, and then to apply a trend-following setup (buy a pullback in a trend, buy a breakout, etc.) or sit out. Conversely, identify when the markets are choppy and listless, and apply a range-bound setup or sit out. I have demolished myself in the past two Augusts by playing dummy trades (trend continuation) in a seasonally flat and choppy market. I get stuck in the trap of obsessing over the entry, target and stop parameters, so I needed this reminder to get back on track.
I believe your time is best spent practicing contextual skills rather than mining for the Holy Grail setup or magic parameters. Try these steps:
Not trying to come off as more of a pr*ck then I usually am, but my takeaway from that blog was:
1. Its important to know if we are in a trending regime or a range regime in the time frame you trade.
2. The blogger has less than 10K in his TOS account so they don't give him L2 data.
If that needs affirmation I can say he is 100% spot on.
Hey guys. I'm no market wizard. I'm not even net profitable as an active trader yet. I'm slowly learning lessons that many of you may already know. I mostly write my thoughts to help myself solidify them, but also in hopes it helps someone. I learned a lot through bloggers in the beginning. I'm personally wired to be the ultimate market sucker, and I have to work really hard to get in a mindset to overcome that.
I do have L2 data, but I've never found any value in it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'd love for an explanation if so!
