I’ve come this far, after demo-trading Forex for over two years. My demo-trading experience confirms that there are various form of manipulation in the market, which makes me very uncomfortable to embark on LIVE Forex trading. So, I completely abandon the idea of trading but continued to research on other available markets, and eventually decided to focus on Futures. The market manipulation in Futures market seems to be what I can accommodate. I have been SIM-trading the Futures market for nine months now. I want to trade Futures as business NOT as a Lottery, Gambling, or “Lucky Dip”.
My Style
I don’t want to be confused with what happened yesterday, last Friday or some hours ago. All that belong to history. Some historians would say that “history SOMETIMES repeats itself”; I don’t want my view of the market to be clouded with “SOMETIMES”. I don’t want to be deceived by what’s going to happen tomorrow, next Friday or the next hour, because tomorrow is a SPIRITUAL concept to me. I want to focus on what is happening NOW. I want to place my orders based on what I see the market is playing out NOW. I want to place ONLY Market orders; NO Limit orders except those associated with my Market orders’ Profit taking or Loss absorption. I want to be as simple as putting ONLY the EMA 50 on a chart for my trading activities. I want to be very watchful of NEWS time because I must not get caught in the price movement associated with the news.
My Setup
Hardware
Apple MAC machine and Virtual Windows PC.
My power supply infrastructure is highlighted in my post 9 here (.
I have a fairly good Broadband wireless Internet connection. A wired Internet connection is desirable.
Software
Windows XP Professional running on MAC OS X/VMWare Fusion. I’ll upgrade to Windows 7 Professional within the next three weeks.
I need a trading software with its associated effects that will enable me see how BUYERS and SELLERS are playing out, consequently, the BID/ASK, and ORDER FLOW nomenclatures look very appealing to me. MARKET DELTA platform does this very well but the associated cost puts me off. The GOM package on NT is fairly good too, but the data-feed to NT-based brokers does not seem to give an accurate view of the BID/ASK, and ORDER FLOW nomenclatures. Somebody also mentioned that MultiCharts does not do this well too. So, I decided to dabble into the world of SierraChart/TransAct (I welcome views/comments on this combination).
I want to use SierraChart’s Footprint features to view the BID/ASK, and ORDER FLOW of the market NOW, and use the TransActAT platform to place/execute my Market orders.
I want to start my Diary with the 5-Minute, 1-Hour, and 1-Day Footprints (see my attached screenshots).
If and when I decide to use only one Chartbook/Studies Collection, then it will be the 9-Range Footprint and it will be my ONLY Trading panel.
Right now, I want to use three Chartbooks/Studies Collection, as indicated above (i. e. the 5-Minute, 1-Hour, and 1-Day Footprints). The 5-Minute Footprint is my Trading panel. The 1-Hour and 1-Day Footprints are used to view the activities on their respective current bars. In the case that I’m not comfortable with the 5-Minute Footprint, I can always change to a Rainbow chartbook (see attached screenshot), and which is always available on my desktop.
The 5-Minute Chartbook/Studies Collection has the Footprint, Volume Price, Pivot Points, HMA 9, and EMA 50 studies on the price panel, and the Bid/Ask Difference, Volume Breakdown, and Volume studies on the lower panel.
The 1-Hour, and 1-Day Chartbook/Studies Collection has the Footprint, Volume Price, VWAP, and Pivot Points studies on the price panel, and the Bid/Ask Difference, and Volume studies on the lower panel
The 9-Range Chartbook/Studies Collection (screenshot not shown), will have the Footprint, Volume Price, Keltner Channel, and Pivot Points studies on the price panel, and the Bid/Ask Difference, …