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With me, boredom is one of the main reasons I suffer from compulsively changing my chart settings. If I get bored, I go searching for trades. I search on different time frames, different instruments with different indicators which (as everyone knows) is usually always a bad idea.
What I do, when I get bored, is set price level alerts and go and play a game on a different PC. If I stay in front of my trading PC it takes approximately 10 minutes before I start searching for trades and changing my chart settings. It's a real bad habbit but I can't shake it. The only thing I can do, is get away from the screen.
I guess the psycology behind it is because I feel the party isn't happening here, so it must be somewhere else, go and find the action. I only have to look at a few different currency pairs to find a great looking trade (that I've just missed) which adds to my level of frustration as now I've missed the party!
Same thing goes for when I enter a trade. I've planned the trade, set a target and stop, everything is taken care of. I HAVE to get away from the screen or there's a good chance I'll screw everything up with the usual emotional pressure.
Don't get me wrong, I've always got an eye on the charts and I always respond to alerts. I'm just not sat in front of my trading PC.
So, me? I set price alerts and go play video games.
Hi, Aragorn, this is exactly the same, I had to learn, same way, same procedure. I've tested, tested, tested and now, after a couple of years, I found and stabilized an arrangment of indis who are reliable. I've seen a lot of Webinars, spend a lot of sundays to check out a template I can work with and what the best procedure will be. Now, after years, I've found ' My way '. It is hard to realize, how much time I've lost with things like this, but now
I hope to be able to get back a bit, to make some profits.
Sometimes I cannot believe, that it has been y e a r s I have spent with all these things. It was fun to see it work sometimes, but : Whenever I thought ' Now I have reached the target, I found something to improve.
Now I leave most of the time unchanged, what I've created, open max. 3 WS with max. 3 charts parallel. one for overview to see ' Where are we ' , two to see what happens inside the markets in detail.
I n o w say the same as you :
The worst you can do ( as you whrote above )
Never open more than 3 WS
Never / only carefully change your setup from timt to time
Go y o u r way
I emphasize again :
Before I decided to develope charts, I couldn't imagine, that several years will pass, before an usefull result will help me to trade in an reliable manor.
And I have to emphasize :
The greatest and most qualified source to improve my skills was BigMikes page and all the statements of the different members, sometimes just tiny trifle read or found there made a big impact to me.
This is my experience.
I seems to me, it is very simular to your's.
Thanks for your qualified statement. It helped me a lot, to see ' Others went the same way '.
Hi, Aragorn, this is exactly the same, I had to learn, same way, same procedure. I've tested, tested, tested and now, after a couple of years, I found and stabilized an arrangment of indis who are reliable. I've seen a lot of Webinars, spend a lot of sundays to check out a template I can work with and what the best procedure will be. Now, after years, I've found ' My way '. It is hard to realize, how much time I've lost with things like this, but now
I hope to be able to get back a bit, to make some profits.
Sometimes I cannot believe, that it has been y e a r s I have spent with all these things. It was fun to see it work sometimes, but : Whenever I thought ' Now I have reached the target, I found something to improve.
Now I leave most of the time unchanged, what I've created, open max. 3 WS with max. 3 charts parallel. one for overview to see ' Where are we ' , two to see what happens inside the markets in detail.
I n o w say the same as you :
The worst you can do ( as you whrote above )
Never open more than 3 WS
Never / only carefully change your setup from time to time
Go y o u r way
I emphasize again :
Before I decided to develope charts, I couldn't imagine, that several years will pass, before an usefull result will help me to trade in an reliable manor.
And I have to emphasize :
The greatest and most qualified source to improve my skills was BigMikes page and all the statements of the different members, sometimes just tiny trifle read or found there made a big impact to me.
This is my experience.
I seems to me, it is very simular to your's.
Thanks for your qualified statement. It helped me a lot, to see ' Others went the same way '.
Thanks Klausi for sharing. It is embarassing how much time I spent changing charts. I hope most who read this will say, "Wow! Aragorn's an idiot! I would have figured out a long time ago to stop changing charts and time frames and indicators because the perfect combination doesn't exist." That is my point. I hope that others are smarter and wiser than I am so they don't have to go down the same path I went down. But, I had to learn it and figure it out through trial and error. Thankfully I learned it but I sure was "dense" in how long it took me.
I agree an the charts. I have an Orientation chart as well that enables me to see where we are in the overall market. I don't trade off it but I need to know what the overall bias is and where my Moving Averages are that I use.
Then I have a chart that has the indicators that I use. The indicators are actully on both the 6E and the USD. For some reason, that I don't understand, the 6E responds when the USD reaches S/R levels. It's weird. I've almost thought of just using the USD and not having a chart with the 6E indicators. But I'm chicken. There's a kind of security in having a confluence- when the USD reaches Support and the 6E reaches Resistance at the same time... well maybe I might want to take a trade!
I am glad to hear that I am not the only one to have gone down the path of insanity!
Do not blame yourself too much!
I think that everybody needs time to test things, to see the boundaries of the field, to explore roads and check that they are fruitless, etc.
Perhaps that if somebody gave you your current chart at the beginning of your journey, you would not have trusted him (which is normal) or you would not have understood it. It would not have made sense to you.
Your current chart is the fruitful result of your previous change process. So this process has been useful.
Simplify Simplify Simplify. Trading is hard enough. If you are fortunate enough to find something that repeats over and over then you have a good starting point to putting together a methodology. I mentioned earlier about the power in a simple straight line- a trend line. Probably the oldest indicator, in all of trading, is the moving average. And with good reason. If a person was to use one moving average and trade it when the 6E pulled back to it every indication suggests they would do very well. Create a 12 Range chart over the past 30 days. Now add a 9 period Simple Moving Average to the chart. Using a simple 1:1 risk/reward of 12 ticks how many times do you make money and how many times do you lose money? I've said this before but it's worth repeating... As an SMA is a lagging indicator, how do you know where the SMA is going to be? Simple. In Ninja if you select the ray from the drawing tools (F3) you can extend the SMA and can get almost the exact spot where it's going to be.
I use the colored moving average from this Keltner Channel indicator. I make the Upper and Lower bands transparent. As the Neutral color is insignificant I just make it the same color as the falling (red).
You will have noticed that there has been some chop since 14.30 est ,around the 9sma, and your rules of 12/12 target /loss causes some pain. How will you handle chop that can hang around for a long time in a tight range like the last 18 hours although last trade was a profit as I write?
Something simple and crazy for you to consider.
One trade a day.
As from 10.24 est till 10.28, pick a minute in that range. Simply BUY 6e for 12/12 each day. No indicators. Run a back test to see how it looks. Not too long, as backtesting will simply give you a result and has nothing to do with the next trade conditions. Maybe someone can help back test if you cannot do it.
Run it for a month on paper and see how it goes.Tab each minute to see which provided the best result; not that it will have a great deal of significance going forward. Take note of the sequence of losers. Winners don't matter.
Too simple....beats banging your head trying to find the ideal indicator.
In fairness,although I don't 'like' indicators I do use one with a volume bases ES strategy.
Moving Average is for location. Initial post made it clear I trade using moving averages. Nothing's changed. Trade Management is 1:1. I still use Woodies CCI. What's your point? I have no idea what your post is suggesting. It appears as though you want to trade using your "gut." Thanks but no thanks if that is what you're suggesting.
My methodolology has as it's basis answering three questions:
What? Direction. What side of the market should I be on- Buy side or sell side? The color of the MA answers this question.
When? Timing. When the market does this or trades here I look to take the trade. A pull back to the SMA answers this question.
Where? Price. Where am I going to engage the market? At the SMA is the simplest. For those less daring can use Woodies CCI.