TradingOgre 

Wow! No real good place to jump in on this downtrend. Except...... back.... where I first entered!! LOL!

Do you start trading the NQ during the London session?

I've always waited for RTH/US session, finding any advantages during the London session?


great journal btw

Thanks

-P

MiniP 

Do you start trading the NQ during the London session? I've always waited for RTH/US session, finding any advantages during the London session? great journal btw Thanks -P

There are some really good trends that happen that early in the morning. To me it is a good time to learn the movement without the speed of the US session. Liquidity is much lower so if you are above just a few contracts you will get some slippage.

Old habits die hard. I use to trade the London every morning when I first started Forex. Up at 2 a.m. to be fully awake by 3 when London opened. Did my trading then went to work.

TradingOgre 

There are some really good trends that happen that early in the morning. To me it is a good time to learn the movement without the speed of the US session. Liquidity is much lower so if you are above just a few contracts you will get some slippage. Old habits die hard. I use to trade the London every morning when I first started Forex. Up at 2 a.m. to be fully awake by 3 when London opened. Did my trading then went to work.

I use to do the same and it was horrible by about 12 pm I was dead. Depending on news I also use to trade the 2nd half of the Asian sessions and get 1-2 hrs of sleep before work... horrible

I wake up around 5 am might have to have a look one of these days.

-P

Three trades since the opening. All profitable, barely. Need to work on timing my entries. I WILL fix that this weekend. If I have to stay up all weekend and beat it into my head, I WILL fix it. LOL!

+190 on the day. Much more potential for profit. Need to learn to keep my dang mouse pointer off of the "Close" button.

Lunch time choppiness right now. Hopefully they don't stay at lunch too late.

ok, done trading for the day. No new trades. Missed a few entries but as choppy as it is they probably wouldn't have earned much.

Going to take a little break and then start coding the strategy I started on a week or so ago. I have some new ideas and features to add that should make it much better. By Monday morning there will be no excuses as to why I missed an entry or didn't take an optimum entry point.

I will post screenshots sometime over the weekend.

Made a modification to the NinjaTrader tick counter indicator where it places the tick counter next to the current bar. I have uploaded it to the NinjaTrader 8 indicators forum: https://nexusfi.com/local_links.php?catid=27

Here is a screenshot of what it looks like:

So here is the current status: User interface is built, working on the automated entries.

In the picture below you will see six buttons on the bottom right of the chart. Most are obvious as to what they do. You will also see a horizontal line that is currently red. This means it is disabled. If I click the "h-line" button it will turn green and become enabled. As soon as this happens the strategy checks current price and if the line is below it expects to enter short if price goes below the line. Opposite is true if the line is above price. This feature allows for trading swings instead of just automated entries. User can choose between waiting for the candle to close or triggering on touch.

The text just above the buttons shows the status of whether automated entries are permitted. This only impacts entries not triggered by the horizontal line (those are controlled by the h-line button). Auto trading is enabled by clicking the "Auto" button. Once enabled it will enter trades based on my system discussed in earlier posts. All triggers are set up to fire on close of candle.

It uses any pre-defined ATM strategy set up by the user. This limits the responsibility of the strategy for stop placement, target placement etc. If no ATM strategy is entered it will simply open positions at 1 contract. No stops, no targets. If there is an ATM strategy entered it will place orders based on the defined contract size in the ATM strategy.

I will have the rest of the automated entries programmed by late this evening. There are many rules for it to follow and testing each one will take time.

Everything is ready. Plan for tomorrow is to trade with just the horizontal line and let the strategy generate alerts for automatic entries. This will give me time to verify with live data if the code is working right. The horizontal line is simple enough that I am not worried about it on live data and a live account. At a minimum the strategy should help me see trade set ups that I have been missing.

Last weeks lower volume was interesting. Maybe a bunch of people were on vacation at the same time. Who knows? Would like to see it step back up to where it was the weeks prior.

Should be a great week of trading. Hope everyone has a green week.

Do you prefer lighter or darker charts? Not sure yet. Changed mine a little while ago. May have to put on sunglasses. I kind of like it right now. We will see early in the morning when I get started.

Overnight we went back up to Friday's high (within 1 tick). Looking at a long term chart (12000 tick) the last two times this has happened (where NQ makes a double top) there was a significant correction to the downside. One was about a 120 point drop and the other was the start of a 400 point drop. Could this be the start of another drop? Time will tell. I don't let longer term charts set my bias for the day. In my opinion, all long term trends start on the lowest time frame.

I started looking at longer time frame charts recently in an attempt to find a way to get in a trade and possibly ride it out all day. I had hoped that there was some clue during the early morning hours as to what direction NQ was going to go during the day. I have not found that correlation as of yet. Probably isn't one.

If this turns out to be a good week, this will be the last of getting up early to trade. I enjoy the peace and quiet but the volume of trades is too low for long term value. Some days it trends really nicely but most it barely moves at all. Not exactly sure of what time I would start but looking back 6 a.m. looks like a good time to start looking for developing trends.

12000 tick chart:



I have the strategy up and running with auto trading enabled but I have it rigged in the code to prevent auto trading from taking any trades. It will just sound an alert instead. The horizontal line trade entry is still live and will take trades when they happen.

200 tick chart: