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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 ???
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?
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.