Advice on Technical Indicators for optimum Points of Entry

[moggles]

Hi Guys

I am a complete newbie at this sort of thing (well not a complete newbie as I have been paper trading for some time now) and wondered what other peoples best advice was for their favourite form of Technocal Analysis for optimising the best points to enter / leave a trade.

At the moment I am confining my activities to the FTSE100 and DOW and using a mixture of MACD / Bollinger (on price) and Stochastic Momentum indicators. It gives a fairly good response but obviously fails to catch the odd "twitch" or random activity that crops up from time to time.

Anyone got any other recomendations as to good TA indicators?

Cheers

Steve
(Great forum by the way. Learned loads just by "cruising" through the various topics)

 

[Scorpius]

I would focus on points of exit, I have a perfect entry for the Ftse but no exit plan so hence my entry technique means sqaut!!

 

[moggles]

OK and would you care to share (as in the spirit of this forum) what this perfect entry for the FTSE is and any pointers for exits?

Newbie seeking genuine advice here.

 

[trader_dante]

OK and would you care to share (as in the spirit of this forum) what this perfect entry for the FTSE is and any pointers for exits?

Newbie seeking genuine advice here.

With all due respect entries are of low importance. Exit is everything. What few newbies realise is that you can make money by entering markets randomly long or short from the toss of a coin if you are good at trade management.

 

[moggles]

With all due respect entries are of low importance. Exit is everything. What few newbies realise is that you can make money by entering markets randomly long or short from the toss of a coin if you are good at trade management.

And to my question? Good exit pointers are?

 

[acronym]

Hi there, well those are tough questions; I like my technicals, but the reason I use them is to gauge price activity, the old adage "well they all lag" is true, they are all based on multiple units of price-that's fine by me, I want that "bigger picture", that's HOW I gauge price.

So, how to get finer entries, better exits? Rather than going for a better indicator, go for better value-get more ambitous with your orders, set stops&limit orders, once a set-up looks good, hunt for value. Eg, set an aggressive stop order, with a OCO limit at an even better price, If your right about the trade overall, you have just given yourself the best chance of squeezing the most points from your entry.
Exits are different, but staying in for the big return is where, imo, most profit comes from-sometimes strong momentum will build up after an entry, (macd is fine for that)for example, you would be obliged to stay in, even with a large retracement against your stop loss. This is where oscillator divergence helps, imo-I believe its a strong pointer to price strength/weakness, others don't. Stoch momo (maybe on a shorter than normal setting) and standard macd aren't to bad for divergence measures.

 

[trader_dante]

And to my question? Good exit pointers are?

Price action contrary to your position at major support or resistance pivots.

 

[rols]

Price action contrary to your position at major support or resistance pivots.

Absolutely.

In the current volatile markets price action and TA are king.

Trading EURUSD this morning was a perfect example.

Observing the price action around these levels clearly pointed the way ahead.

A short from 1.337 was taken after failure of this support

Likewise the failure to sustaining support at the OPEN price 1.4294

The filling of the GAP at 1.4232

And finally the current support at the 50% retrace from Fridays low and todays high at 1.4181 served as an exit.

I'm off to the links for the rest of the day.

Good trading.

 

[Glenborrell]

Moggles,

Take a look at Trader Dantes thread, making money trading.

You will learn about exists and much more.

Link: http://www.trade2win.com/boards/first-steps/26947-making-money-trading.html

I learnt a bucket load from following the thread .

Glen

 

[Grey1]

With all due respect entries are of low importance. Exit is everything.

100% disagree,,
Exit defines the reward,,
Entry defines the risk

If you were to define this game as a business then you would concentrate on the risk than the reward but if you was to concentrate on reward then ofcouse EXIT would be more important,,

Better EXIT has stronger mathematical base(ignoring trader's psychology) than ENTRY provided the objective was to have a pre defined equity performance threshold . If the objective was to concentrate on Risk (including trader's psychology ) then Entry would be the most important criteria.

Mathematicians who advocate Exit can also clearly demonstrate that even a random entry can yield to profit but the question has always been about trader's psychology as an undeniable factor in the final p/l.

From trader's psychology point of view and risk priority IMHO Entry is by far the most important factor for manual trader.

Grey1

 

[Paul71]

Well, you can't exit if you don't enter? If you are looking for a virtually instant move into +ve territory with each trade, entry is everything.

 

[wasp]

Well, you can't exit if you don't enter? If you are looking for a virtually instant move into +ve territory with each trade, entry is everything.

Which makes the entry (risk) just as vital as the exit (reward). Both are equally as important.

 

[Paul71]

Both are equally as important.

That's it really, sweepy. We need them both.

 

[bluetipex]

Which makes the entry (risk) just as vital as the exit (reward). Both are equally as important.

Your exit may be negative, i.e. a loss.

Stick to your plan, and enter your next trade with equal confidence and accuracy.

It matters not whether your exit derives a profit or a loss.

 

[nine]

To any relatively inexperienced traders reading this thread: read post 10 a few times.

TraderDante is right about many things (and hes right about good management) but hes not right about the fundamental assertion. It is too focussed on. But it is not unimportant. Ok, Tom

 

[trader_dante]

Although I agree with your points about entry defining risk and appeasing the naturally troublesome psychological elements, I firmly believe that running profits is far far far harder to do than cutting losses and if this is the case then it naturaly follows that where you exit is more important than where you enter. I find that time and time again the reason fellow traders are not making as much money as they could is because they are not running profits not because they got in at the wrong point.

 

[new_trader]

Which makes the entry (risk) just as vital as the exit (reward). Both are equally as important.

Why don't we just save all the bickering and say knowledge and skill at trading are the most important factors! People chasing systems and setups etc....people...