ES/NQ Trading - looking for solutions

[syswizard]

You said before that Multicharts was sending your trades to the IB API. I assumed they were being triggered automatically.

I'm not sure how you trade a system or method where the underlying concepts have not been proven with backtesting. Basically you are just guessing. It's not that backtesting will give you a profitable intraday system. Most likely it won't. But it will show you what doesn't work, ie pretty much everything. And it will give you invaluable info on stop placement, profit taking and max adverse excursion.

My experience has been that if you can't code your methodology, it is probably either too discretionary or too complex. Or maybe just not thought out sufficiently. That opens you up to emotional, reactive trading, which will only work in a raging, one way bull market.

Newbies need to always trade with the trend from the next higher time frame. They need to focus on one go-to pattern and trade it with perfect execution, rather than chasing a half dozen possible entries. They need to trade one lots until they are both solidly competent in managing trades and can show consistent profits.

They need to understand what invalidates their entry. For example, let's say you enter on a reversal bar off a pullback. If the low of that reversal bar is taken out however, your entry criterion has been invalidated. Time to exit or at least put your finger over the sell button. Do not wait for your hard stop loss to get triggered. Of course, the rest of the world can see your reversal bar and know that if they run the low, a lot of stop losses will be triggered. So you can get whipsawed without some discretion, but the fact they were able to move price below the low of the reversal bar tells you that buyers are not that strong. It might or might not be a winning trade but it is not the best trade. As a newbie, you only want to be in the very best trades.

I am going to give it a go....but heck, it's going to be a ton of coding....with all of these rules that I can "see" right now.
My experience with autotrading intraday is the profits are tiny and the trade frequency is high. I built a system with a "straight-up" equity curve. When I applied commissions it was "straight down". So this is an arena only for big boys who have no commission costs and a small exchange fee.
Right now, I'm at $2.09 all-in at IB...I can't compete on an automated level. I'd have to get that down to $0.50 and that ain't gonna happen unless I join the CME.

 

[syswizard]

Its not about being quick enough, or having a hesitation complex.

Sorry to disagree.....Oh yes it is. He who hesitates in this game loses.....money.

Set limit orders around your objective stop losses and profit targets and then let price fill accordingly, and if you lose, great, take that small loss and move to the next trade. If you make a profit, great, move to the next trade.

Don't you know your order mechanics ? If I'm long at 2345 and the market is at 2346 and I put in a limit sell order at 2340, I'm out immediately. You must have a sell stop order for the 2340. Yeah, I can put a limit order above the market when long, but not below.
Note: I rarely use a limit order to get out.....mostly market. Same with getting in....market most of the time.

 

[MattZ]

Matt - when I get consistently profitable I'm going to consider this. Right now stop orders are placed on Interactive Brokers servers which are connected the CME Globex servers. I know that's not the best, but it's at least better than locally stored stop orders.
If rithmic is connected directly to the exchange, that would be a huge plus.
And the fact you support Multicharts is a huge plus....I don't want to spend time learning the language of another trading platform and having to do a complex conversion. That would really suck. I'd be back to programming instead of trading....lol.

I am ready for you at any time. Yes, Rithmic would place orders on the exchange, and as far as I know, the RithmicAPI + can place the entire bracket server side on the exchange. Also, we do support Multicharts along with their team in the event we do not know a variable. All the best, and I hope you get where you wish.

 

[syswizard]

I fucking did it again this past week. I turned a possible winner into a loser by closing out my trade when I thought it would fail even more than it was failing. That turned out to be the worst possible place to exit this week, at the very bottom.

Bottom Ticked....omigosh can that rattle you. Happens to me all too frequently as well as does it's brother Top Ticked. I think the algos are responsible....as they "know" where the maximum move is going to be.

 

[TP_Dutchie]

Don't you know your order mechanics ? If I'm long at 2345 and the market is at 2346 and I put in a limit sell order at 2340, I'm out immediately. You must have a sell stop order for the 2340. Yeah, I can put a limit order above the market when long, but not below.
Note: I rarely use a limit order to get out.....mostly market. Same with getting in....market most of the time.

Of course I know order execution mechanics. I don't know the specifics of the trade set up you are talking about or what time frames you are implementing, as well as indicators so I can't really speak on why you would get out at that price.

Why not work with limit orders? So much better. But following objective stop losses and averaging your entry price closer to your objective stop loss through limit orders will turn your losses into $40 instead of $400, everytime ... which your account can sustain over time.

I'd love to chat more man. I love this stuff

 

[syswizard]

Why not work with limit orders? So much better.

Because I don't get filled all of the time....and then I see the market rip in my intended direction...
and I'm not "in". Oh, does that suck.

I'd love to chat more man. I love this stuff

You bet...same here. Trading the Eminis is much more complex than one would think.
There is this guy with a handle of MBAGearHead.....he posts his results on the web.
http://mbagearhead.blogspot.com/
Look at his equity curve for 2018, 2017....and he is barely up in 2019.
I don't know how he continues to live with all of the losses. I mean he must a rich dude to withstand the constant drawdowns.

 

[nkhoi]

No f*cking way...you would have pry my dead hands away from my 3 powerful indicators.
....

if you post a chart that includes your entries, bar type and type frame then I can add my trailing stop indicator to it to see if it help.
edit 1: MBA said he has other rental income to live on.

edit 2:
"Why not work with limit orders? So much better.""Because I don't get filled all of the time....and then I see the market rip in my intended direction...
and I'm not "in". Oh, does that suck."
I think the "not filled" problem is only in ES due to the long queue, NQ is way better at filling your order.

 

[TP_Dutchie]

Because I don't get filled all of the time....and then I see the market rip in my intended direction...
and I'm not "in". Oh, does that suck.

When I first started, I was hungry for that hard / aggressive market entry, until I learned limit orders. Now I use them religiously with TradeStation, its made my life more easy.

I don't know about that dudes trading strategy, so I'd have to look into it. I just know that in any condition, I can go win 70% of my trades, and when I'm wrong, I take a smaller loss and move to the next set up and limit orders have helped me so much, along with objective trading and no emotional trading

And the above scenario is only possible because I follow OBJECTIVE stops and targets, and I manipulate my break even and scale in / out of trades. Zero emotion.

 

[Carlw]

When I first started, I was hungry for that hard / aggressive market entry, until I learned limit orders. Now I use them religiously with TradeStation, its made my life more easy.

I don't know about that dudes trading strategy, so I'd have to look into it. I just know that in any condition, I can go win 70% of my trades, and when I'm wrong, I take a smaller loss and move to the next set up and limit orders have helped me so much, along with objective trading and no emotional trading

And the above scenario is only possible because I follow OBJECTIVE stops and targets, and I manipulate my break even and scale in / out of trades. Zero emotion.

I personally don't know anybody that's trading in the 70% win ratio more power to you we got all learn something from that

 

[syswizard]

I personally don't know anybody that's trading in the 70% win ratio more power to you we got all learn something from that

Same here. When I hit 60% I am thrilled. I can even make money down to 40%....but the profits are usually meager. Anything below 40% and I am losing big-time.