Indicators are for some traders very profitable and for some not. I know in person one guy who have made millions using MA and some simple filtering. However it fits his trading-style so its very individual.
I could not get a special edge by using his method - so for me its useless but for him priceless.
And this type of answers you will get here in this thread. Some will say I am extremely profitable with this X indicator while others will say they are extremely profitable trading without.
I belong to the second category. Good luck and main thing never give up =)

Tripken 

I use indicators. Most standard, 1 custom and 1 modified (Linear Regression channel). The custom basically gives my entry signals and is realtime not lagging, the rest are for context like EMA for trend or range, Prev High/Low,Close and Pivot points for prior S/R. Much of the setups are based on PAT's system which I started futures with. Don't think I'm talented enough to trade only the DOM Adding my charts from today for clarity, much said about indi's being not much help, I disagree. I trade ES/MES 2000/1500 tick charts and watch a 3X HTF 6000/4500 tick. No wavy lines just a leading indi and some that show the previous S/R. To each his own rings true! Good Trading all!

The arrows and S/R lines in your chart - have these been plotted using some study OR these are manual? Thanks.

bltdavid 

Just curious, what is the name of the custom indicator?

I call it TK_PowerPivots

kadm 

The arrows and S/R lines in your chart - have these been plotted using some study OR these are manual? Thanks.

The arrows I add manually, everything else are indicators/studies.

cmtrader99 

I really appreciate your insight on this thread. I could really learn from you. I'm going to attempt to search your previous posts because I really like what you had to say in the few posts you made here, some relevant to the original question but more of your responses relate to "price action" which is so critical to predicting a target. Anyway, you're speaking to my trading method and I was following every word precisely because I look at the long term time frames too while at the same time employing 500/1000tk etc for trend; I totally can see how you trade (Bollinger, 20MA), although I have a few different things I adjust (as I don't use Bollinger but it couldn't hurt to incorporate into the mix). But regarding your chart example, delineating the highs/lows and mid-range of previous day... I'll start to incorporate that as well because I can see the value that would offer. Really appreciate your take on price action overall and your explanations. For any beginner traders here who are having a hard time, you'll get a lot out of learning "price action". I'd start by paying close attention to someone like three86 who is already sharing a lot of knowledge. Thank you!

Also for the previous high/low/mid I use for different things on different ranges:

For the long term range the previous month high low mid I use it similar to bollinger to get a feel for what the trend is doing (up/down/sideways) and volatility (big days/small days). For example for the last two weeks es has been flat hanging around the high of March and the previous three weeks was uptrend, the three weeks before that downtrend and uptrend before that. The past and future don't matter but they give reference to the current condition (flat after an uptrend). When the longer term is trending I let the trades ride longer and when sideways I take what I can get.

For the short term I look for where the current price is in relation to the previous and how it is acting such as is it below the high of the previous day, did it gap up and then is coming back to touch the low sometime throughout the day, is it hanging around some part of the previous day. Mostly the intraday action is not "really" what is going on meaning the multi day trend is doing its thing but there are extreme movements to take advantage of. I believe this is why people have such a hard time trading because they are zoomed in and often caught by the chaotic distractions.

For example looking at the past few days the several day trend is pretty flat (yellow line) but price gets extreme away from the trend (the circles). The lower ones are where I want to get in and ride because they are currently "safer" (because the longer 30 day trend was up now sideways). If the longer trend was an uptrend or downtrend and not flat the several day chart would look pretty much the same but just more angle between the highs and lows. It is a lot like actual surfing where the swell comes in and I ride the best waves that I can within the sets of waves and when it goes flat I can still play around in the chop or get out and do something else. The last couple weeks have been the chop which is another reason I think people have a hard time trading - they get lulled into the flats and forget what big moves feel like which can throw off position sizing and risk.

you can also zoom way out to really put the short term things in perspective. We are hanging at the mid (ohlc4) of last year (which is also about the same mid as the year before) and have been sideways for a year:

Indicators are great, since price and volume are great ways to read and understand market, something derived from them has to be de facto fantastic.

Ppl often see them in a different categories, they are not. Indicators are just ways to see/process price/volume data to something that "makes sense to you" and you can use something "only" when it makes sense to you.

Ppl who use indicators and suffer losses are from two categories in my view;

1. They have just slapped some ready made package and tried to copy some other persons method to trade them.

2. They understand what the indicator does but have no way to utilize them, or don't know how to or just aren't suited to trade those particular indicator/strategy based around it, in that particular market or market conditions.

Both the above categories are doomed since they don't do sufficient back test and often just don't even have any solid strategy to backtest. You will be surprised to know that most ppl that trade live have no real strategies, no plans, its almost always a guess work. So not so surprisingly when they fail they blame something that they involved in the process, which is often indicators.

When they can't blame indicators they blame everything under the sun, they claim someone seating at exchange is specifically tracking their account and trading against them.

No comments on DOM users and its usability to them as I don't use it.


So what to do? Learn coding, learn to make habit out of browsing codes of indicators and see what you want to do is actually making any use of that math under the hood. You will be shocked to know often its not, most ppl don't even bother to see how something like RSI is calculated before using it and then suffering losses followed by blame game.


Just my 2c.
Everyone will have different opinion as they are different individuals and trading is extremally private profession.

AllSeeker 

So what to do? Learn coding, learn to make habit out of browsing codes of indicators and see what you want to do is actually making any use of that math under the hood. You will be shocked to know often its not, most ppl don't even bother to see how something like RSI is calculated before using it and then suffering losses followed by blame game.

That is good advice. I started with what do I want to see (and why) and then created a view of that. What I want to see is the current trend on multiple time frames (so I can be with the trend) and also the deviations away from that current trend. Eventually the current trend changes (how often depends on the timeframe) so I want to be able recognize when it happens and react to it. That is for me and how I trade.

Other people may want to see something else or experiment with ideas like when volume is "big" something X occurs Y percent of the time. Or a new weekly high then X happens Y percent of the time. Or when X% of the companies in the s&p have Y earnings something happens Z percent of the time. There are infinite possibilities you can then backtest and figure out all the parts: position sizing, entries, stops, exits, execution. The flip side of that is after you identify something repeatedly happening you also want to be able to recognize when it stops or you will have a problem - it may stop working for a long time. That is why I chose to trade trend because it is something that continually happens.

here is another example on two timeframes. The hourly is going down (against the daily up) and it bounced off the mid (ohlc4) of last week.



And the shortest term easy to see:



That is an easy trade because:
1) the longer term is still flat
2) the mid term is up (higher lows)
3) easy to know when it is wrong (previous low)
4) extreme and obvious bounce on the short term

Why is Anyone required to write from kindness? The world is not kind? The markets are far from kind! I find it so easy to see patterns of people teaming together to write or like posts or perhaps it's one person with 2 log ins or online identities. We never know what's fake or real when online!
Here are my executions from today. Was a very good day. 10k+

Primarily discretionary