Big Ben on the FTSE100

Cheers Split. I fear that trading pins without corroboration of the trade and its direction (confluence) will probably be similar to going back to MA crossovers again - stopped out for lots of small losses, so that your one big winner has to be massive, suggesting a set and forget stop and target will not be adequate - and I still don't have screen time to track my positions once opened so as to be able to run the winners. So Big Ben with conservative stops and targets will have to remain my principal line while pins are for a bit of fun and pocket money.

Maybe this is the reason Niall Fuller, while claiming great success with pins as his main line, also sells training courses........
 
HI GUYS.I see your point and agree with what your saying about time frames under an hour,this is why you must use five diffrent time frames and then divide by five as the shorter time frames conbined with the longer time frames smooth out the prices.

The trouble is there are so many people playing so many diffrent time frames, just because the 4hour rsi is saying oversold the daily or weekly is far from being there yet and so we get the price spikeing out the shorter term moving averages.
Combine it with the MACD and you have two good tool to work with,

I only suggested it as an add on to what you do yourselfs so that you would have an educated buy limit and stop rather than just relying on lagging indicators.
I must say it works for daily and weekly,unfortunately i have to work so i've never been able to try it out on shorter time frames.
I don't see any reason why it should'nt.
But combined with your own methods of evaluashion you would have one hell of a tool kit for scalping 30 points up and down.

Thankyou for your thoughts when i get a week off ill give it a go and let you know how i got on.
 
Splitlink said:
What do you think of two or three tops/bottoms in line with close stops, say just above the highest/lowest of the three? To be honest, I do use an indicator with this. It's a Bollinger. Does the Bollinger come into the "lagging indicator" category, IYO ?

Re: your observation on candles. If you wait for the candlestick to complete you are late. The bar, too. for that matter.

Lower TFs ?
Click to expand...

No, enter at the level.

There is no TF in level trading.
 
I've been trading derivatives from 2008 at NSEI(Mumbai) and now looking to newer markets.Anyone know where I can find index options quotes,better yet an option chain for FTSE 100 ?

Thanks.
 
Pattern from May 2nd high looks like a classic topping pattern. Relief rallies are becoming weaker on lower volume and the last attempt at the infamous 6100 fell well short. If we can't overcome the falling trend line then I reckon we're going down in a big way, any thoughts?
 
trader_dante said:
No, enter at the level.

There is no TF in level trading.
Click to expand...

Interesting... how do you go about identifying the most likely levels, is it just the most clear support/resistance ? do you look for fib confluence from other levels ?
 
You can only use your own criteria on that. I use a high average that does not swing too much, and a Bollinger. Is it ideal? No, because the piercing of a Bollinger could, and often does, signal a trend with the average rising.
That's where attrention must be paid to the bars, themselves.

This isn't Big Ben stuff. Sorry, Tom.
 
Hi Tomorton & all. I've attached the results of my backtest of BB on GBPUSD. Overall I don't consider it very profitable at all, and if I do use it I'll probably opt for 20sl and 20tp levels which are less risky so a bigger £ per pip can be used.
I cannot find any better set of criteria over this period (16 months),
but have not tried a BB range of 8 to 9am. I used 8 to 10 to cover the news release period & let markets settle. It may be swings & roundabouts. Five minute charts were used for all the testing. Any doubts on trades were reckoned to be negative. Slippage of 4pips was applied to winning trades, so the strike rate may be slightly higher.
Once again, if any experienced traders read this, bear in mind we are trying to find a simple way to place a daily set & forget trade without using indicators in accordance with the stated aim of this thread.

See updated file later for drawdowns
 

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Tomorton I mentioned a couple of months ago that my testing of eurusd on BB (8 to 10) showed very poor results, no matter how I played it. However I haven't tried an 8am to 9am range & that might be better for this pair. What do you think? Worth testing?
 
Thanks for results Gelly, I will have a look tomorrow but will in any case immediately benefit from your hard work by cutting my sl/tp on this pair to 20pips.

I think 0800-0900 very worth looking at as opposed to 0800-1000, in fact it's amazing how often the BB range I use as reference period on FTSE100 and GBP/USD is derived from the 0800-0830 bar/candlestick, while the 0830-0900 bar is an inside bar.
 
Also should have mentioned that all UK & USA public holidays are excluded, as are NFP Fridays. I will give a breakdown of results of these days and also a review of the "over 140%" and "over 150%" trades over the weekend.
 
Gelly said:
Hi Tomorton & all. I've attached the results of my backtest of BB on GBPUSD. Overall I don't consider it very profitable at all, and if I do use it I'll probably opt for 20sl and 20tp levels which are less risky so a bigger £ per pip can be used.
I cannot find any better set of criteria over this period (16 months),
but have not tried a BB range of 8 to 9am. I used 8 to 10 to cover the news release period & let markets settle. It may be swings & roundabouts. Five minute charts were used for all the testing. Any doubts on trades were reckoned to be negative. Slippage of 4pips was applied to winning trades, so the strike rate may be slightly higher.
Once again, if any experienced traders read this, bear in mind we are trying to find a simple way to place a daily set & forget trade without using indicators in accordance with the stated aim of this thread.

See updated file later for drawdowns
Click to expand...

I can't help thinking that for a 'set and forget' routine, you're not really giving it chance? Its almost as if you're in a hurry to complete the trade which obviously isn't the case if you're leaving it alone. An arbitrary stop of 20 is a sensitive one for cable unless you've got good s/r within (which you will rarely have because its a breakout system). Also, more breakouts are false than true so a tight stop such as yours would be too often vulnerable to the price ducking back into the pattern which it would do regularly.

Also, i would suggest that sticking to a preordained set of target/stop figures may pay over weeks or maybe even months but not over any real length of time before they would need to be amended to suit the prevailing conditions. Figures that pay in one strong spring trend are not gonna pay when the trend finishes and the summer doldrums arrive and vice versa.

Just me pondering...
 
I somewhat strange week on the FTSE. I've only placed one BB trade and that was cancelled having not been triggered by 1pm. Mostly the opening range has been too great and so no trade has been placed. I suppose one cannot lose if one does not play and thats the best that can be said about the week.
 
Bartlby said:
I somewhat strange week on the FTSE. I've only placed one BB trade and that was cancelled having not been triggered by 1pm. Mostly the opening range has been too great and so no trade has been placed. I suppose one cannot lose if one does not play and thats the best that can be said about the week.
Click to expand...

I agree, FTSE is flapping around aimlessly waiting for the US debt issue to be resolved, best to stay clear! Crucially however, we have seen a failure to overcome the 5938-6000 zone which adds to the bearish picture. Once the US announcement comes through, we will probably see a bounce into this zone but if we can't get above the July 7th high then the downtrend continues.
 
splashy said:
I can't help thinking that for a 'set and forget' routine, you're not really giving it chance? Its almost as if you're in a hurry to complete the trade which obviously isn't the case if you're leaving it alone. An arbitrary stop of 20 is a sensitive one for cable unless you've got good s/r within (which you will rarely have because its a breakout system). Also, more breakouts are false than true so a tight stop such as yours would be too often vulnerable to the price ducking back into the pattern which it would do regularly.

Also, i would suggest that sticking to a preordained set of target/stop figures may pay over weeks or maybe even months but not over any real length of time before they would need to be amended to suit the prevailing conditions. Figures that pay in one strong spring trend are not gonna pay when the trend finishes and the summer doldrums arrive and vice versa.

Just me pondering...
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts, Splashy. The set & forget aspect is the basis of Big Ben and this thread - instigated by those who have to go to work I believe. (Terrible). Managing might or might not improve the s/r. I agree with you generally about the 20 pip stop & I'm often to be found using 40 to 45 pip stops on Cable when managing longer term strategies - hopefully for more reward. As for BB as you say there are many false breakouts & these frequently result in a reversal of 30 or 40 pips. But also many of these false breakouts will breakout 25 to 30 pips before retracing, thus the 20 pip breakeven or take profit scenario. So the 20/20 is very low risk & also has a good s/r. In the period I've studied, a 40 pip stop would lose horribly & the trade often drifting for hours. I believe this is supposed to be a short tem strategy.

I've gone back 16 months (that's all I have on 5min bars), & although I also must agree that markets are always changing, to some extent this is covered by using the 10 day average BB range. It can change fairly quickly, from 52 in May 2010 to 77 about 5 weeks later for example so reflects changing conditions to some extent. Over the period the BB range has been 37 up to 77.
I don't claim to be any kind of an expert, & just hope my input will be food for thought on this thread. And comments like yours are very welcome. Basically we are gamblers, like ALL traders. Cheers Splashy.
 
Gelly has set it out exactly - the thread is to explore how we can make a set-and-forget strategy for the FTSE100 that can be put in place at the earliest possible point in the session and which relies only on objective price levels, perhaps with minimal indicator input.

it is by no means certain that my own subjective input in terms of analysis current chart patterns etc. would improve performance of this strategy, so I continue to play it as hands-off as possible. That should give a base level of performance and entry/exit/position management criteria to build on. Yes, that must mean sacrificing return for knowledge at this stage, but I hope the investment will pay back long-term.
 
Weekly round-up looks dire - 1-3 and 1 No-trade on the FTSE, 2-3 on GBP/USD and 1-1 with 2 Expired +ve and 1 Expired -ve on EUR/USD.

All that is clear is that markets are ruled by uncertainty at present, and every move is immediately countered by an opposite. This bound to play havoc with a set-and-forget strategy, I will continue to avoid the FTSE until it moves into a positive Big Ben win rate over 20 trades but at this rate, I will soon have to scratch GBP/USD as well!
 
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