my journal

[Yamato]

What a nice classic!
Later!

I am glad you like my videos. They are all connected to one another. Diana Ross is the subject of all videos. There's even a movie you can watch. Pretty good, depending on your mood.

 

[Yamato]

My friend from college, who lives in Rome as well, called me several times and insisted and eventually I accepted to meet him with a girl. He came up to my apartment and stormed my house, as usual. He's hyperactive. I would have regretted meeting him, but this girl had huge boobs plus a smell, a nice scent I still can smell in my hands. It was worth to meet a real woman after all these months, even though I could not touch her boobs.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting that I cared about someone's boobs. I mean, what is the point of that anyway? What kind of a sick animal am I? If she had a big ear I wouldn't care. If she had a big foot or a big hand I wouldn't care. But this other part of her body is big and so I am in a good mood. How strange. Especially since I am not going to do anything at all with it. What a totally amazing excellent discovery.

Now he's supposed to come back here, with two or three other friends, after they eat out, because I refused to go to dinner with them, as meeting my friend for one hour was enough of a disruption in my life. But who I really care to meet again is that girl with the big boobs.

And if possible I'd like to touch them. Not that it's going to change anything in my life, but it's like an irresistible instinct, just like the one I get when I feel the urge to gamble.

 

[Yamato]

Now I am here. I want to go to sleep, but this guy disrupting my life has said he'll come again. I don't want him to come, especially I don't want him to come late. He always makes appointments with several people at the same time, so he is always ditching someone, and late with everyone.

 

[Yamato]

This is what I am going to do. Since he's not bringing to me any girls with big boobs, I'll text message him and say I am going to bed. Actually that I'm already sleeping.

I don't understand why this guy is coming to my house anyway. I don't give him money any more since I've lost almost all of it. I don't pay for dinners or anything, the way I used to do. Maybe he feels friendship or something similar. But he just gives me stress, and I don't know what I give him. Maybe peace? I just keep on complaining about him to his friends he just introduced to me the whole time he's in the house, because he keeps on...

there he goes - he called me.

He gave me permission to go to sleep because he said... well, he said it's up to me, so I said I am going to bed. But if he doesn't insist he's basically telling me he doesn't want to come and therefore he's allowing me to go to sleep. Nothing ever happens with his friends anyway, he brings me all these women, and nothing ever happens with them. I just spend my money treating them to some useless place.

Prostitutes are better, because you don't spend as much time nor money and you get to the point. These women are like a bucket shop, where you pay but you don't trade. And prostitutes are like the interactive brokers of sex.

 

[inzider]

Sorry to bother you on your journal, I hope I'm not....

---------------------------------
Muhahaha! I love your way of perception on things like : "He gave me permission to go to sleep because he said... well, he said it's up to me, so I said I am going to bed. But if he doesn't insist he's basically telling me he doesn't want to come and therefore he's allowing me to go to sleep."

This is priceless!!!! And also, how you turn everything to trading!!! Hehe! Girls for me are mostly predators as most guys but whit a suite. Some are just getting pratice while others are pro.

My idea is that those people have an ego trouble and need other as spectators, if not their show would be worthless. No spectators, no false impression idea about himlself ("he's so hot!...) to leave to anyone - imagine how this is painfull for him... poor him.

And you, you are the kind of guy who don't care about what others think about you, so he's just mystify about your concept of life. "How come he don't need to impress people to feel find about himself, me I hate myself but at least other like me, or I can dominate them. But this guy like himself and don't care about others... "....

I can be wrong, but I'm a loner too, and most of my 'friend" pass by, make their show, then when its done, they shut down and I start to talk...poor them, muahah!..

You take care!

 

[Yamato]

Yeah, loner applies to me. I don't know if it's such a good idea. But what I know is this: with my friend, I get to meet a lot of women, but nothing ever happens, or rather nothing good happens. So what's the point of being social if I don't... I think I just need one. I don't need to meet hundreds of women. I just need one and when I'll be ready, I'll get her. I am not ready, so why should I bother meeting all these while on top of it, nothing ever happens. I mean physically, there's not physical interaction.

Thanks for the feedback and for telling me what you like about my writing. Now I'll write more of it. I've always wanted to write a journal and to have readers, even before I started trading.

 

[Yamato]

Coming up next: what I was thinking as I woke up this morning

This morning I woke up with two ideas already planted in my mind, so maybe I've been developing these ideas while i was sleeping.

1) Remove the hyperactive life-disrupting friend from my life again
2) Adding another element into my pro-trend semidiscretionary system: book reading

Coming up in a few minutes, I will tell you I will go about doing both.

[...thinking ...writing the post below...]

1) Turned off all phones. Text message saying I am tired from yesterday and won't feel like doing anything today. He replied telling me to call him. I replied saying maybe later, too tired to talk now.

USING MARKET DEPTH AS AN EDGE
2) Have woken up thinking of using the book together with the other indicators in my protrend system. Book, Market depth, what do you call it... have been thinking since I backtested all I could backtest and it seems the system is profitable even without the non-testable things (pivots and correlations), why not add another non-testable thing which makes sense, and that could add some edge to my system? I hope to bring my system to having such an accuracy, of say 80% , that I will not be tempted to either discard or second-guess its signals. If I'll succeed in doing that, I'll be so busy and so confident in the system, that I may be able to entirely remove the need and the urge for compulsive gambling, which probably is a wrongly channelled drive to make money.

Now, first of all, is there a book on EUR forex IDEALPRO and stuff? (Can't check now because markets are closed). Or should I use the regular futures book. And then how do I go about interpreting it. I will now do a search on this topic on google and on elitetrader.com.

THOMAS LONG, FXCM.COM INSTRUCTOR
The first good thing my search returned is this video, by Thomas Long:

Now... I don't know if this tom long is the one reading or not, but this guy is reading its text way too fast for me. Way too fast. I've had to listen to it several times, and he still didn't make it clear to me what the hell he's talking about when he says bid/ask ratio of 2 to 1. Neither the first time, nor the second time, nor... he keeps on repeating the same things over and over again, and never slows down. Now, Tom, how do I identify the market maker, which level is he on? You go fast and don't stop to explain the details. Even though I don't think Tom's making this stuff up and it's the closest thing I found to my idea... well, it was better than nothing. Even though quite frustrating.

I am going to section this video, minute by minute and see what I am not understanding about it.

Up to minute 2:30 I've understood everything and it seems quite reasonable. Even though he didn't say what market depth he's talking about: yes, the one made available by fxcm software, which is what? Futures or what? The problem number one is that I am the one not understanding how the markets work, and to understand market depth you need first to understand what market and how. There's a guy I know who understands this stuff, but he's not that good at explaining things. He goes faster than Tom Long. So **** Gaspar Gomez and **** the ****ing diaz brokers, **** them all. I bury those cockroaches. What did they ever do for us?!

"The key is to understand the role of the market maker"... yeah yeah... ****. Ok all clear now until 2:41. "A rush of buying pressure"? What the hell does this mean? "If the market maker is receiving a rush of buying pressure..."... what the hell does this mean? And also how do I identify the market maker on the market depth and which market depth are we talking about again? You gotta explain all this stuff you sonofabitch.

Ok, I was reading and searching for about 15 minutes, on Tom and market depth, and I read a few posts by him that gives the almost certainty that he's not bull****ting me. For example this one:
http://forexforums.dailyfx.com/fx-p...84-top-ten-reasons-trade-protective-stop.html

Also, even though I couldn't find any of his posts about market depth, I found this thread on their forum:
http://forexforums.dailyfx.com/acti...rm-trading-strategies-using-market-depth.html

But now if he's not bull****ting me then I'll have to get to the bottom of the market depth explanation by fxcm people. And that's going to be a lot of work, but I might as well follow this path, because it would otherwise take me hours to find another track and by then I'll just give up.

Another interesting thing is that here:
http://www.trade2win.com/preferred-brokers/forex



Fxcm are not in the t2w "spreadbetting" category but in the "forex" category, whereas I thought that any forex that is not futures is in the bucket shop category, which I thought was synonym with spreadbetting. Lots of things I don't understand and don't know still... to me the markets were always about going up and going down, and not about even knowing anything about why, what, how, who...

GREGORY MCLEOD, FXCM.COM INSTRUCTOR
All right, after all the chatting, let's get down to my task for today. Understanding that video a little more and reading this thread:
http://forexforums.dailyfx.com/acti...rm-trading-strategies-using-market-depth.html

There you go!!! **** the video. This other fxcm instructor, Gregory McLeod, is a lot clearer than the goddamn video! All it took was clarity and two pictures. So, I'll finish the video just out of gratitude for showing me the fxcm forum. But the point is that market depth works just as I thought: if you see a bunch of people on the bid then the market will go up. "Rush of buying pressure"... making it look so complicated! Ok, but then the question will still be: does it work on my market depth with futures or not? That is a major question. And I won't likely be able to test it or anything. Ok, now I'll finish the video.

[...watching video...]

Ok, the video is not bad at all after you have read the post on the forum by the other fxcm expert telling you how to understand the video. Basically another point that across to me is that we're not looking at one specific market depth level, but at the sum of all of the market depth levels. That will be totally doable on futures, and in a few hours I will also know if it can be done with IDEALPRO forex (I don't even know what the hell this stuff is in terms of exchanges and markets traded, but I'm getting a better understanding little by little).

Now I'll read the forum, and tomorrow I'll look at the market depth available on TWS and see what I can make of it and if it can help me filter out bad signals or time my entry better. If it is so, I am counting on making money every single day from the EUR, by adding up all these edges into one system: moving averages that make me go with the trend, pivots, correlations and now market depth. I am quite satisfied. If the edge and the results will be there, then the urges to gamble might disappear. By gamble after all I mean "trading without a predetermined maximum loss nor target", which is essentially what defines my gambling. Trading by instinct rather than by rules makes me lose. I cannot say this applies to everyone.

As I read the thread by McLeod, another point I am getting is the time span of the imabalance in the market depth. It's significant only when it lasts for longer than about 10 seconds. This is good because my signals last about 1 minute, so, provided my futures book is the right book to look at, I will be able to integrate this method into my trading.

Ok, I am done. Conclusion: this stuff they're saying is simple, and they're not bull****ting me. I have to see if it works for me. What I don't like is that Greg integrates into his analysis many other things other than just market depth, so this makes it hard to understand how much of an edge market depth exactly gives him.

----------------

Other useful links (but I never know if it's bull**** or not) I found with my search:
http://www.currencysecrets.com/2005/06/13/dukascopy-market-depth-data/

----------------

MY SEARCH ON "MARKET DEPTH" ON ELITETRADER.COM
Ok, I had more time so I continued my search on elitetrader.com and came up with these threads, and I will comment on and quote from each one after providing their links:

1) market depth as indicator?

It looks like a lot of work is coming my way:

Do a Google search on the terms:
"PLAT order book imbalance"
PLAT stands for Penn-Lehman Automated Trading contest.

There has been a good deal of research done on SOBI,
or Static Order Book Imbalance models. Less research
on DOBI (dynamic) models.

Also, if you can disassemble the order book, you can see the price skew by source which will help scrub out random one sided rates that are sometime bogus "spoofs".

Don't always buy the depth of book at face value by itself. Also, look to disqualify any far outlying orders that are static. They add more noise that assistance.

Hopefully, I'll find a quicker answer here (link below), I don't want to read the usual "academic" essays on trading.

2) Market Depth patterns

Post starting the thread, by rhay:

I scalp the Dax mainly and try to use market depth to position my entries and exits. If possible, I position stops behind/within large volume and sometimes position limit entries in front of large volume.

I realise that this is an inexact and sometimes unreliable science because of the limit display only, pulling and spoofing etc.. However, I do feel that it has something to offer and think I profit from it in quite a lot of my trades.

I have also noticed some patterns in market depth that tend to prodvide support/resistance and to some degree direction.

Has anyone else noticed patterns that they use?

I scalp the dax quite heavily. Generally, I believe that putting stops behind size or getting in behind size will yield poor results in the long run.

Obviously, this is not necessarily true if the size is there because of S/R or something else. The market will very often trade to size, so you might be catching a falling sword on frequent occasions.

Just so you know what my angle is, I trade around 700 to 1500 contracts a day and more on active days. I trade but I also bring on guys and train them to trade my money. I thought you should know that my comments are based on experience.

This is what I've been reading on elitetrader.com ever since, years ago, I started reading posts on the market depth edge: it works, and then, next post, it doesn't work. Personally I didn't find a way to make it work, just like I never found a way to make volume work. But then this might also depend on which market depth I've been looking at. Maybe the fxcm people are looking at a different market depth than me (I am looking at futures).

Let's now read the third post. I want to get to the bottom of this thing. There's dozens of posts on this thread.

Hi Rhay

It is interesting that you bring up the subject of market depth. I to scalp the dax but not to the same extent as FutureTrader71, I trade between about 15-20 round turns aday. I have spent a considerable amount of time studying market depth and I do feel as though there is an edge to be had in there. When I studied MD I was looking at the ratios between the bid and ask sizes at different levels and came up with some very interesting results.

FutureTrader71

I take it you have a direct connection to the exchange and only look for about 1-2 ticks at a time? Have you ever looked at bid ask ratios using the DAX market depth, as my long term aim is to automate my analysis of different ratios at different level of market depth?

Scouse

Goddamn... "interesting results" but he doesn't tell which results, "edge to be had" but he doesn't say which edge... thanks a lot.

More from FuturesTrader71:

Actually, I go for whatever the market will dish out. I scale in and out all day long and will add and hold and reduce depending on the depth, tape and approaching support/resistance.

Yes, I do have a direct connection through my clearing firm to the exchange. I trade in the room next to where the line comes in from the exchanges. It is as direct as it gets.

I don't believe in bid/ask analysis. I haven't gone too much into it but there is way too much fake stuff in there. There are good reason why the market will trade towards size, so bid/ask is not much more than an illusion, in my opinion. Like I said, my skill is based mainly from trading the product for some time and from watching the market from the time I come in until the exchange is closed. It is all discretionary and, therefore, my risk plan is key for the group and myself. I use CQG for charting and rely on that when the market is range bound or quiet. Other than that, I will watch the book and know what is probably real or not in there.

science_trader replies:

You should...

But let me tell you that only a computer would be able to do that for you. Just forget finding something interesting with your eyes only.

At this point i can't keep on quoting everyone, so please refer to the link for the rest. So far it looks like it's not going to be easy to use market depth to time my entries better. There's three opinions, equally divided among all the posts I've been reading:
1) it can be read with your eyes
2) it can be read only by a computer
3) it cannot be read
Only if #1 were true I could use it for my purposes. And only as long as it holds true for the market I am trading. So I will probably discard it because I don't want to use something whose efficacy is unreliable. Better learn to use best the things that I am positive about: pivots, correlations, moving averages.

 

[Yamato]

The weight of smoke

I got up from editing the previous post for a few minutes, and went into the living room, where there's a mess because as I said my friend stormed the house, brought these people, opened my wine - of course I had to allow him - and I saw they left some cigarettes and some half-smoked cigars. Well, I saw it yesterday, but I saw it again today, as a nice surprise.

I smoked a cigarette, and I noticed how I felt quite happy that I could smoke their cigarettes. It's interesting how I get happy from getting something worth less than a dollar after they stormed my house and made me open one bottle of wine (because the girl with the boobs specifically asked for wine), that must have been worth about 20 dollars. But now I feel fortunate that they left some cigarettes behind. I remember I had this roommate in my senior year in college (the first senior year), and he wasn't a good roommate because he didn't pay his share of bills on time and he even ripped me off for a hundred dollars in the end. But I felt lucky because he let me smoke his marijuana pipe, that he left in the living room. This is similar to how casinos give you free drinks and other things, while they take from you thousands of dollars via gambling. Actually I should tell my friend that if he brings some marijuana next time, then I'll let him open even two bottles of wine.

Watch "Smoke"

 

[Yamato]

From Smoke Script:

Auggie Wren: The boys and I were just having a philosophical discussion about women and cigars.
Paul Benjamin: I suppose it all goes back to Queen Elizabeth.
Auggie Wren: The Queen of England?
Paul Benjamin: Not Elizabeth the Second, Elizabeth the First. Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Raleigh?
Tommy: Sure. He's the guy who threw his cloak down over the puddle.
Jerry: I used to smoke Raleigh cigarettes. They came with a free gift coupon in every pack.
Paul Benjamin: Well, Raleigh was the person who introduced tobacco in England, and since he was a favorite of the Queen's - Queen Bess, he used to call her – smoking caught on as a fashion at court. I'm sure Old Bess must have shared a stogie or two with Sir Walter. Once, he made a bet with her that he could measure the weight of smoke.
Tommy: You mean, weigh smoke?
Paul Benjamin: Exactly. Weigh smoke.
Tommy: You can't do that. It's like weighing air.
Paul Benjamin: I admit it's strange. Almost like weighing someone's soul. But Sir Walter was a clever guy. First, he took an unsmoked cigar and put it on a balance and weighed it. Then he lit up and smoked the cigar, carefully tapping the ashes into the balance pan. When he was finished, he put the butt into the pan along with the ashes and weighed what was there. Then he subtracted that number from the original weight of the unsmoked cigar. The difference was the weight of the smoke.

Smoke
Paul Auster
Wayne Wang
William Hurt
Harvey Keitel

 

[Yamato]

Preparing for tomorrow: memo on what to do

With all this talking about smoking, about women, about market depth, I need to summarize what I have decided to do next week, otherwise tomorrow I might hesitate.

I have not decided to use market depth, but I will remind myself, daily, to look for a way to use it. I will monitor market depth as I make my trades, but will not miss any signals because of it.

Another change, as of last friday, is that I will accept all signals, because there's no reason why the first signal should be the only one accepted or that it should have a higher probability of being profitable. And since the system is almost entirely based on univocal rules, my psychology won't be unstable or at any rate will not be an issue at the time of a second or a later trade (whether a win or a loss).

I will now list all my trading rules, and all info on my system, marking in red this weekend's changes:

PRO-TREND DISCRETIONARY SYSTEM

HOTKEYS
"B" for "buy 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
"S" for "sell 1 at market" with 20 ticks bracket order
----------------------
CHARTS
SET UP THESE CHARTS ON IB'S TWS:
15 MINUTES OF ES, CL, GBP, ZN "line" mode
2 DAYS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 15-minutes CANDLES WITH PIVOTS
4 HOURS OF EUR.USD@IDEALPRO 1-MINUTE CANDLES WITH 15 and 210 moving averages
----------------------
RULES
ENTRIES must be made if:
1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
6) find a way to use market depth in timing entries (by postponing signals that look bad)
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.
----------------------
TRADES:
Here's my trades as of today and the time (CET) they took place:
20091130 17.20sh to 17.30sh: takeprofit
20091130 21.50sh to 01.00sh: takeprofit
20091201 17.50sh to 18.50sh: early exit +1
20091202 18.40sh to 00.15sh: stoploss
20091203 08.10sh to 08.30sh: takeprofit
20091204 10.40sh to 13.00sh: early exit -5
20091207 16.10sh to 16.30sh: takeprofit
20091208 17.30sh to 19.00sh: takeprofit
20091209 18.40sh to 19.00sh: takeprofit
20091210 19.00sh to 20.20sh: stoploss
----------------------
BRACKET ORDER:
Pictures of my weapon and some shots I made.
Some shots I missed.

 

[Yamato]

I went into the bath tub and, right after I got out, I was still in my robe, that friend of mine showed up again. This time with some 18 year old model, a real bitch. We spent 20 minutes together and luckily they left. I don't know why I agreed to meet him twice in the last 24 hours.

Well, despite wasting 20 minutes with my life-disrupting hyperactive friend, I still remember that intuition I had in the bath tub: give market depth another try, as far as that rhay guy.

He said:

To take things a little further I use the depth on either side of the market, applying ratios and presented in a non-DOME like manner. I use this in conjuction to what I determine as upcoming (as well as previous) support/resistance in my charts and along with other indicators trade accordingly.

It's probably pretty crude and very unmathmatical compared to some of the papers I have attempted to read - some mentioned earlier by Science_Trader - and also compared to what you guys have come up with. However, it seems to work pretty well and I would love to know if there were ways to improve it.

Sorry not to spill the beans about exactly how it works but I'd like to keep something up my sleeve !

So now I'll do a search on all his posts to see if there's anything more that he reveals about reading market depth, without the help of a computer, which is what I want to do.

[...searching... reading...]

There weren't that many posts, only 10, and all in that thread. The thread is not that good but I could not find any better threads. Everyone only says as much as they need to show off, but no one explains for the sake of explaining.

I will continue my search on google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=market+depth+EUR

On the other hand there's not much to verify: I will look at the CUM SIZE, and see if price goes where the CUM SIZE is bigger or where it is smaller, or randomly. Whether I check this on TWS' Market Depth or Book Trader, it won't make a difference. On Market Depth it's called CUM SIZE and on Book Trader it's called Bid Size and Ask Size. I'll use Book Trader because it is missing the details and it doesn't distract me with having to look in the middle of a bunch of numbers.

So, more links on market depth and interesting quotes from them:
http://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6471

Don't forget not all trades come out of market depth. Those traders who hit the bid or ask won't even appear in the depth at all.

However, in the US where trades are executed through a market maker, market depth analysis becomes more valid. Many day traders turn this into an art form by trying to determine which MM is in control of the market at any particular time (the axe)

Coming back to OZ though where all trades are throrgh SEATS, I don't believe depth tells you anything.

New google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...epth+analysis&aq=0&oq=market+depth+ana&aqi=g1

Some people, like the guys here below, seem to say that it's simple and market depth is an extra tool to identify support and resistance, others say it's hard to use it and you need the help of a computer, and others say it's useless. It makes me wonder whether we're talking about the same market depth and the same markets.

http://www.learntechnicaltrading.com/ProTrading/MarketDepthSupportandResistance.aspx

It is sometimes very easy to identify support and resistance points using Market depth. Having access to the market depth for day trading is an advantage as you can read where the big players position themselves and where the big sellers are during the day.

Either we're talking about two different things, or these people who say "market depth is useful and simple to use" have never traded and are just writing online trading encyclopedias.

For now I suspend my research on market depth analysis. I hope I will remember to continue doing it in the future, because it seems like it might be useful.

Here's what I'm focusing on right now, and what I'll be focusing on tomorrow:


So far I am seeing two possible ways of interpreting market depth. Looking at a given level to see if the size is high and there's a resistance or a support, and this method doesn't concern me because my system looks to make 20 ticks, whereas the levels available are only 5 ticks away on my TWS Market Depth. The other way is the one I mentioned: looking at CUM SIZE to see where the strength is, the way suggested by the Fxcm instructors, but I don't know if it works on my Book Trader, which is on futures.

IT SEEMS TO WORK THE OTHER WAY...
Ok, looking at my method of analysis, and so far it's seeming to go the other way, as someone else pointed out: if the CUM SIZE is bigger on the bid, it goes down, and viceversa. Why not use it this way then? I'll look into this.

No, wait... not that true either... I'll have to stare at it for hours before noticing any patters. It doesn't mean anything for now.

...NOPE, I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT
I'll keep my eyes open but for now I just have to quit this endeavour. I should stick with the things i know that work, and set this aside for now.

 

[Taishara]

Hi Travis! I found your journal! But I am obviously not going to get it read today! I am going to hit the sack and I will pick it up and read more tomorrow! Or... rather my tomorrow... which is every one elses' later tonight. May you find many pips during US session today!

 

[Yamato]

Thanks, same to you. Don't worry about reading everything here. You could use the search feature and look for words that interest you.

 

[Yamato]

Coming up next: trading based on pro-trend semidiscretionary system

Stay tuned for my upcoming semi-discretionary trades.

[...checking usual stuff...]

pivot line is at 1.4659, slow ma is at 1.4641

price is at 1.4653, so I can't trade yet

Requirements not fulfilled in red:
1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes

 

[Yamato]

Looks like it will be a SHORT, but it will take at least 30 more minutes.

 

[Yamato]

1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes

 

[Yamato]

Basically it all looks like a range to me, and like it hasn't decided yet where it will go. And we don't even know if it will go anywhere today.

All my futures, stocks, forex, bonds, CL and GC look bullish. Except my indicators show me a bearish setup on my system, so I'll have to take the signals if they happen.

RULES
ENTRIES must be made if:
1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.

And I wrote these rules, because I have come to grips with the fact that my eyes are always deceiving me at least parially when I am looking at a chart (it always looks like there'll be a reversal to me).

Mother ****er! My ZN system is losing again in the meanwhile. But that's automated so I am ok with it. I almost feel as if it weren't losing my money.

 

[Yamato]

I anticipate another half an hour doing nothing.

RULES
ENTRIES must be made if:
1) time is 15.00 to 20.00 CET
2) your entry and your take profit are > 10 ticks away from any pivot lines
3) you're checking "correlated" chart for exact timing of entry
4) the 225-period ma is in favor by > 10 ticks
5) the 15-period ma gets crossed by price (in favor) after being on the other side >= 4 minutes
EXITS
Bracket order of 20 ticks.

 

[Yamato]

No action for another half hour.

 

[Dommo]

No action for another half hour.

Isn't it usually like this at this time of day? NY nips out for a deli sandwich, and the world stops.