Hours and Days

[BeM]

shifts2win
Five years... God, you're a ptient one. That's better tahn doing like I did losind 3 times more than what I had made, but I will do like you from now one, I will bet 50p on S&P 500 at FinSpreads, the bastards had disabled me to trade less than £1, can you believe that? Because they said I had higher credit...something, maybe because of my bank statement, they are probably thinking I'm going to lose, then put more money, lose and put more money, lose and put more money until they obtain all my money as the spread. It's fine, I will call them to change it so I could trade in pence, I may crash if I lose another lot like that.
By the way, I paid for a real-time, less professional for you and me, chart and quote from finance.lycos.com which seems to be fine, about $20 per month, that's not a lot, but it's good, you could try it as well. Other stuff and packages that are more professional are much more expensive, they amount to about $100 to $150 per month, if not even more, I don't think we need to pay that much yet, we could maybe use somthing less sophisticated for now, just a personal idea, I may be wrong.
Have a nice time, or maybe week-end!

 

[madasafish]

Yes. I program things to give auto signals. Still a human judgement of course because after all indicators are not evrything.. S&R and trends.. etc...

For costs go to Sierra website and Mytrack.. It's all there but you can add/subtract what you want..

 

[sifts2win]

Madasafish,
had another look, what is the light blue line ? And how do you know a trending day won't become a ranging day ? Sorry to bombard you with all these questions. Is this just part of your armoury and I guess experience tells you what is happening faster and faster as you trade more and more.
Thanks again.

 

[sifts2win]

BeM,
Speak to Dan Benton at FS or Victor. They have been real support and I find v. honest if you're straight with them. Will look at Lycos, thanks. Is it real time ?
5 years in the market but perhaps 3 sbing. My success rate could be better if I took profits instead of letting them evaporate or not letting them run. Trouble is if I leave trade to run it falls apart and if I take profit I miss the big one. I strive to find the method to maximise returns all the time and have nearly turned the corner. I agree with all the words of wisdom on this site. Its your head that will make you a great or a rubbish trader. There are so many traps and fakes and the market changes all the time so you need to survive first, make a profit next and go large later. One day Rodney, one day !!

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

If you read this it might ring a few bells with you.

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=7313017


About a week after this I decided to make the move into futures which was exactly the right thing for me. If you are a short term trader by nature (I ilke to be in trades 5-6 mins max) then you will be much better off in futures than spreadbetting and you don't need lots of money to do it. I trade Eurostoxx with IB and I have just over £5K in my account. I trade 2 hours a day and I'm up 5% in about 5 weeks.

SBs I think are still great value for UK FTSE100 stocks and I will continue to use them for swingtrading. I leant a lot about trading from using SBs last year and it was undoubtedly a cheap way to learn. But I don't think, unless you have a longer term strategy and deep pockets it's a very viable vehicle. IMVHO, FWIW.

 

[madasafish]

Hi Helen
wd, lol
Mike

 

[sifts2win]

Hi Helen,
have saved link for look later. Interesting that you can trade with only 5k. Am still worried real futures will kill me. Need to improve trading style first. I think I am always trying to find the start of the big daily trend change at the very start of it in the 5/15 min charts and then hold on for one huge hit. Probably overambitious and almost impossible I guess. I agree sb only useful for smaller trades and become uneconomic compared to futures when larger sums involved. Just can't get good enough. Success rate still only 30 % but only down £450 this year. Saved by a couple of big wins on Dow and really tight stops.
Thanks again.

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

It may just be you have the wrong style for you. Look at what you are comfortable with. I am very risk averse and hate being in losing trades. My very short term style means I'm in them for a couple of minutes maximum, ideal for me.

Over what time frame/risk level are you most comfortable?

 

[sifts2win]

Hi Helen,
Am also very risk averse but am looking to trade off fib levels or support /resist and/or patterns that look like they offer at least 2:1 risk/reward. I often pass trades if my exposure becomes more than 2% of capital, blah, blah, so I just hold on trying to at least reach a first target. Ideally I like the sound of swing trading but am confused about buy and sell signals and which time frame. Should I stick to the time frame I start in as I tend to pan out and see where the levels could take me in higher time frames when I've opened a position.
Does everybody just trade say 3 min charts and take every buy and sell as indicators trigger in that time frame ? My best results have been in 15 min charts.
My study of 15 min bollinger bands around the 30 and 90 min mark into the session do look promising though. It's a matter of finding a less risky way to enter the trade though instead of just hoping I catch the reversal.
I think I need to focus on one thing and just trade it. Maybe I'm also just too frightened to take a quick profit and re- enter later in case I give it straight back ?
Cheers for now.

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

My approach when I moved to futures was to look at the risk I was prepared to take on each trade and then work out the system and business plan from those. I wasn't as organised with my SBs, maybe that is part of the debate

If you want to look at my business plan and trading protocol just to see how I approached it (I'm not saying it's a right way, just one way) they are on the TBS site and also in my journal on here.

HTH

 

[monarch]

Helen very useful info but what is TBS site?

Monarch

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Monarch,

Here's the link. You will need to register but it's free and you won't get spammed. All my basic stuff is in the European Indices, STOXX FAQ and STOXX General.

http://www.theblindsquirrel.com/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=21

HTH

 

[sifts2win]

Hi Helen,
still finding my way around the site unsuccessfully so for now will just reply wherever I can find you. Why do u trade Euro stoxx futures ? What are these pivots I keep hearing about and if I suscribe to Mytrack data but don't want to trade every stock on the planet just a few index futures what level do I need and roughly what will be the monthly outlay. I'm starting think I should be joining you and saying bye bye to sb's !
Many thanks again. PS. tried to follow your thoughts on TBS but without chart sounds scary !!

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

This is the rationale behind why I chose to start futures with Eurostoxx.


http://www.theblindsquirrel.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=524



Here is a link re pivots:

http://www.snapdragon.co.uk/resource/talk/talk8.htm


I have the Mytrack/Sierra combo and it costs me $59 a month for UK stocks live and Eurex live feeds.


HTH

 

[sifts2win]

$59 that's v. good ! Thanks for links. Do you have a preference for trading stocks or index futures and if so why ? Are you a news hound with a scanner looking to scalp reversals or do you focus on a just a few stocks. I have tried to just focus on the Dow / S&P for the last 6 months to get a real feel and am starting to think I've picked the hardest nut of all ! Typical.

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

When I finally go full time I want a FTSE 100 stocks swing system and the STOXX futures as well. I might move to FTSE futures when I have more money but not yet. With the swing system I use a piece of software called Pfscan which scans for reversals.

www.pfscan.com

You can use it on any market, so it's great if you wnat to trade US or UK. You just need an EOD data feed. I also use a scan in AIQ for "bounce" candidates. There's load of stuff on that on CTS, the system is called FOFLS.


HTH

 

[sifts2win]

Wow,
you really are serious. This stuff isn't cheap. How can get your head around all that and do a Phd and bring up children. You really are a woman !
PS. Nearly went for AIQ last year but chose Metastock eod package with Citifeed data. Jacked it in after a year of building indicators, developing complex models, etc. resulting in no progress and some spectacular mistakes ! What do u think of it ? The Sierra/Mytrack combo looks hard to beat. Will have a practice and look forward to one day giving something back when I can post some great trades too !

Out of interest to everyone I did the Chris Manning course last year £1500 !! - Still waiting for the light to come on. Some very useful stuff, just true what everyone says, nothing beats practise, money management, an open mind and passion for it I guess. Wish I could say it was awesome, but maybe I just couldn't make it work. Seems selling courses easier than trading ! Hmmmmm.
Mike

 

[Helenqu]

Hi Mike,

I started using AIQ for my live charts at first but wasn't impressed, apart from the alarms which were excellent. Like you and probably most other people who are keen on trading I've spent a lot of time with the EDS system developing different screens but the only worthwhile thing is FOFLS and I didn't need £800 worth of software to get that really

Reading and playing about with systems is really helpful, even if it's just to isolate what you don't like and feel right with. But the real learning about yourself comes when face to face with the moving market and money at stake.


I'm not a good trader yet by any means, but I'm further on than I was a month ago and that's all you can hope for. Trading is a skill and it takes time and lots of enthusiasm to get any good at it.

One of the US traders on TMF who is very experienced and has written a trading book (his name is DbPhoenix) read my first year summary and said to me. That's fine Helen, but make sure that by the end of next year you have another years learning under your belt, not this year repeated. At the time I thought it was an odd thing to say. What he meant was settle down and learn your system properly. That's what I'm trying to do now.

 

[ChartMan]

A few of us here have done the Manning thing. My overall verdict is "a very expensive foundation course". I think one route to success is to concentrate on a few instruments, be they stocks, indicies futures or whatever, Learn the nuances of each and know them inside out. That way you will know when to trade, which way, and the probable outcome. I used to think that AIQ EDS was the answer to everyting, but that just wasn't true. Sure, it would pick stocks, but then you had to really evaluate manually what it had picked, or you ended up flying blind. That's not to say EDS can't produce long term acceptable results ( FOLS). Try and decide what takes your fancy- US Stocks, DOW high volatility and big points moves (both ways!), ES for small points move but big$ per point.... and timescales. Somewhere along the road you will find your niche......

 

[sifts2win]

Thanks Helen and Chartman,
My head is spinning and now realise I'm in the right place at last. Fortunately I've stayed with it through all the mistakes by using really tight stops and discipline so there is a huge lesson there. There are so many abbreviations you guys use and no doubt the links will explain as I read more but just one more please - 'what is CTS Helen', I want to study what FOFLS is ??
For me CManning gave me fib levels that I never understood before and horizontal support /resist levels. Also using different settings on indicators to suit the market I'm trading was good stuff too. My golden period was when I was brave enough to quickly reverse a wrong call and ride the reversal. It made me doubt my system so much though that I started abandoning indicators and just started reading the chart and looking for levels to trade off. These pivots therefore look good for me as another level to look for. Put them together with fibonaci time zones and I'm starting to feel like I know where I'm heading. Like you both say it looks like you have to find your own style. I'll soon have enough data to check the system I've arrived at through a long process of elimination and as soon as I can find a way to make good entries and exits I'll look at the results and post them up.
Thanks again for all your input.