This is the beginning of version II of the stochastics thread. I have pared down the thread into month long excerpts. This version is a substantive abstract that is in a chronological arrangement primarily for reference purposes. The editing is very severe to pull together a factual learning chronology for those who have previous pro-active experience with the strategy. February is first block of content.
Bold print is the first time the idea is presented. I also have colored (Green) and changed point of type size for comments to 10 point.
For reference to orient you:
Here is the comment that lead to the Break Out of the thread:
âI don't want moving averages or stochastics, or any other squiggly line interfering with the price action. While these may be helpful to some, I have a problem with them. â¦.What I'm suggesting is that it's all in the price action.â
I responded to the post:
You can see here how not combining Magee, et al
(TA) with
indicators is a disadvantage in being able to think about what indicators are telling a person about a trade.
To get the
stochastics straight, you can do two exercises:
First, just use it on
paces of the market that are definitive (fast paces only).
Second, set up
three defaults on the stochastics to find out what the settings are for. Use the
original (14, 1, 3) and
Pring's (5,2,3) new setting for good extremes. Pick another
intermediate one (10, 2, 3) to show parts of the others.
What follows is all the posts as I excerpted them to show a dialogue that makes it clear
how to trades the ES mini using a strategy that involves the indicator Stochastics and other stuff. At first I responded to others and at some point I initiated posts. You can tell what is going on by the sequence.
A comment by someone:
âIn fact over the past months I been thinking over what you allude to, i.e. enhancing one's decisions by additional input to an already solid foundational understanding. However the more I'm in the markets... and the simpler it's kept, the better it goes (for me). Yes I do utilize some other indicators. But have no doubt that too many nouveau traders believe "more is more" (or more is better)... when (imho) some of the best on-floor and off-floor/screen traders know that "less is (often) more".
My comments:
Look at ES on the 5 min today (17 FEB 03) using beginner's STOC (14, 1, 3). Now that's oversold!!!
What happened was that the STOC stayed oversold and the price, as expected, continued a strong upward trend.
A
relative indicator is always going to be at
an extreme under these conditions.
It is an
entry signal for fast pace markets and a
"hold" signal for all other paces.
You also get to know that a prolonged "oversold" (ondersold) (outside of 20/80 band) leads to what?......the answer is a
lateral period of
congestion leading to convergence and centering. Where will the Stochastics arrive at at the end of this pattern of three formations?? Where else but on
neutral....because it is a relativistic indicator and
50% is neutral point.
Reversals?? What is the
indicator sequence for reversals on stochastics? Well there are three kinds of trends and only two pairs of them can lead to reversals. The other two pairs have as a first trend a lateral trend. When can you reverse? Not until you are making about
150,000 a year per contract on the ES.
Its best to do a wash trade several times a week as a warm up for reversals. Once you can do wash trades any day of the week you can then see where reversals are possibilities and how to extract yourself when you need to.
If the pace is fast and you are picking off 10 or more points on an ES trend, then you are seeing "overbought" all during your hold period. When you slip out of the trade,
the stochastic is headed out of overbought and NOT to a reversal. Now that it is gone from "overbought" it goes to one of two places. The first place it must hit is neutral. From neutral it can chose to reform into the prior trend (resume as they say) or cool off from the prior trend into an opposite trend. No reversal here: neutral comes first.
When you get to slower trends than fast paced you will see all the typical formation patterns folks use.
A
long trend at a slow pace with the
20-80 taped (intermediate level trading) looks like
icebergs floating in a row (count three usually). You enter when "over sold" appears as first iceberg. You hold through the second and third iceberg. You didn't exit like in the fast pace when for a duration the "oversold was" sustained.
You exit only when the
lines come out the other side of the tape which proves there are no more "rezooms". Each iceberg is, of course, a rezoom.
You can see how by
building on the "fast pace only" beginner thing and
including slow paces too that you creep up from 90,000 a year beginner level per contract to 150,000 by adding slow pace.
I know that the effort of using an indicator like stochastics to get started is not pleasant...maybe. To me it seems a good way to understand the market better and get into
learning what sequences of patterns or indicator signals mean.
We still aren't able to trade reversals. first you have to do two more things. To
get ready.
If anybody is reversing out of "overbought and is pulling down less than 150,000 per year, just
stopping what you are doing will put you further into the chips.
If my stuff is hard to read to one of two things: use a yellow high liner to accent stuff. Or second after you highlight use black to kill about half the rest. Do not cross out the annual money made; you need to underline that in green.
A person comments on the chart set up:
Attempt at "Fast Trades"
In an attempt to learn more and it seems others are interested I am trying to trade jack's 'fast or rocket trades'. I have read through quite a bit to try and get it straight (MIF and Don Cameron's site) and will report here my trades and hopefully Jack can critique them and provide further insight to his method. I will also try my best to attach .gifs with the trades written on charts. I have my screen setup as Jack suggests:
5m Price
Volume
Stoch (5,2,3)
Stoch (10,2,3)
Stoch (14,1,3)
MACD (5,13,6)
and have a 1min screen with same info to get a better picture as what potentially lies ahead for the 5m.
Use the Stoch (14,1,3) enter LONG when both the fast and slow move above 80 and exit when both leave the 80. Enter SHORT when both the fast and slow are below 20 and exit when they both leave the 20. Ignore anything else on the stoch indicator.
I snipped many pages here
Here is what I found:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/donald.cameron2/
I have read several things Jack wrote in all the different places on the web. And the things you can read between the lines are very valuable. This goes beyond some simple rules for a Stochastic indicator These sites give a quick "primer" if you want it
http://sputnick5.www8.50megs.com/
http://mycoolstars.hypermart.net/jackdocs/
With only a very basic understanding of the method, and understanding that Jack may well have passed on some trades, I calculate a gain of 9 1/2 points on the day. This was achieved simply by taking all of the 14-1-3 signals on a five-minute chart.
Here is a comment on the back testing:
Running Jack's "system" through a back test over the last five years yields a juicy profit factor of .84. Nor is is fadeable since the test does not include slippage and commissions..â
Back to work:
You will find that in a while the slower chart (5 min) will go bullish. The 1 min chart can be used to anticipate the action on the slower chart. What is the message I am giving you here? I am suggesting that you use fractal pairs to trade. Trade on the slower and use the faster to anticipate.
Re: Question
. Assuming a 5 min. chart is being used, and both stochastic lines breach either the upper or lower band, is the proper methodology to wait until the close of that 5 min. bar to ensure that the stochastic lines do not retrace?
ENTER AS YOU WISH. (This is a new comment. By now you know that washing (flat turn) is in the picture)
Also, what is the entry point? Is it above the high of that last 5 min. bar, or is it above the close of that bar, or is it something else?
MARKET
As you watch on entries, enter when the slow line appears. Often it will disappear and come back again. It is slow and shy. When you have been making money for a while ,cheat a little and use just the fast line on the 5, 2, 3 then go back to the 14, 1, 3; this will allow you to make a lot more money sooner.
For leaving leave at the first opportunity on the 14,1,3. after a while watch the MACD (5, 13,6) if it is still on the same side of the neutral line, then hang in as long as more profits accumulate.
I will use Macd for trend, channels for range (and formations to show S and R), we are using stochastics to make money temporarily.