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Journey to develop a system and an edge
- Thread starter TraderStavros
- Start date
Quote from TraderStavros:
There was not a real specific reason why I chose the ES over anything else but I just checked and it doesn't look like my broker (TOS) has the ER2.
It may be that my stops are too tight. I was using a couple points as 2*ATR(10). Perhaps I should increase that to 3. 3 would be more in line with 1% of my equity anyway.
In regards to entry/exit signals: I am looking for a trend (at least 3 bars) and when it begins to reverse I take the opposite position. It's very simple and I may just be doing it backwards!
EB8HG
Quote from ammo:
TS, for what it,s worth, the openings are the easiest to trade and by 9:30 -10:00 you could do very well, i lose most of the time if i trade between 11 and 1 , so i dont after 2:30 its also very hard to trade the last half hour, these are chicago timeframes
Interesting, I"ll be sure to look at these time frames closely.
Quote from davidmaria1:
EB8HG
Mucho gusto, I'll take a look at that.
Quote from ammo:
ts meant to ask you in last post, if your working with oil all day why dont you day trade that?
I'm sorry if I was misleading. I don't work for an Energy firm that deals in Oil. I work for an Energy company that owns two local Gas and Electric utilities. We have a good deal of unregulated businesses as well but I don't deal with anything that would provide me with an edge on any commodity let alone oil. Thanks for the suggestion though, had I had experience with it I may not have thought to apply it.
Quote from TraderStavros:
Coming from Schwab I really enjoy their platform. I cannot compare them to other Futures brokers though. It is Java based which you can make of that what you will but that is good because I can use it on my work computer where I likely could not install Tradestation or something else similar. I know you can negotiate a lower commission rate and I am going to attempt to do so this week. I just need to do some research to find out what a fair rate is.
I decided to take the advice and just monitor the markets on Friday as the break may be causing some problems for me. While waiting for some service to be done on my car I was doing some reading in The Master Swing Trader about Bollinger Bands. I have been familiar with them for a long time but for some reason the way he spoke about them really reached out to me and made a lot of sense. On a lark I opened up my laptop and watched the ES with a 5-8-13 with 2stds. It was really interesting to see how the bars really just kept bouncing off of the bands and hovered near the central line. I placed a trade and made 1.75 points in 2 (2min) bars. That felt good and what was I needed to keep going!
$4.72 per round trip is what I consider the going fair rate if you trade less than 150 RT's per month, and it gets cheaper after that, $4.36 for 150-500 RT's.
one way to do it is to run tradestation or any other app at home, and log in using logmein.com. it's free, and it will minimize what you have to install at work, minimize the computing power of work computer required (since java is a resource hog), and only need one web browser open.
what utility do you work for?
Quote from bandit77:
$4.72 per round trip is what I consider the going fair rate if you trade less than 150 RT's per month, and it gets cheaper after that, $4.36 for 150-500 RT's.
one way to do it is to run tradestation or any other app at home, and log in using logmein.com. it's free, and it will minimize what you have to install at work, minimize the computing power of work computer required (since java is a resource hog), and only need one web browser open.
what utility do you work for?
Thanks for the advice. I would love to use some sort of remote desktop (VNC, Logmein, etc) but we have an extremely tight security policy and it restricts me from getting it working. I'm really crafty to and thought I could push through the firewall to get SSH to work properly but alas I failed. I gave up as if I pushed the issue I would be putting my job in jeopardy and well, I don't want that. I would likely have some delay to that would need to be dealt with also. What I have been doing though is bringing my laptop to work and tethering it to my Cell phone which gives me EV-DO speeds (25k/s avg) which is decent for running a trading platform. The downside is that it's highly visible and unless I get a better location in my office I don't think I want to have that going all day.
I work for DTE Energy in Detroit.
I did two trades on the 31st. I increased the size of my stop and I think that really helped me. Also having confidence in the system helped to and I learned a lesson never to trade against the trend. My first trade was profitable with a short giving me 2 points but then I tried to play a long bounce off the band and took a .50 point loss. I'm close to being breakeven from when I started trading futures two weeks ago. I'll keep posting as progress continues.
Rough day yesterday. Two things I need to work on is overtrading and taking profits. I let two winners go because I got greedy. I also felt that wave of emotion overcome as I started having a few losing trades and I need to control that. the 5-8-13 Bollinger wasn't working to well yesterday but going short before noon was. I need to stay consistent and not go against the trend. I am considering trying out the ER2 now that I know what the symbol is on TOS AND I got my commissions reduce to 2.75 each side.
My strategy for today is going to be more calm and a little bit tighter on the stops. I would rather take more trades with smaller losses than these larger ones. This may be dangerous thinking but I would be happy with just $200 or so in gains a day. Would taking a few extra cars a shorter distance be feasible or is that opening a pandoras box of risk until I get the system worked out more? I am thinking that I may be trying to get too much out of each trade and that may be hurting.
Code:
Cars Entry Exit Points Gain Initial Stop
1 1,472.00 1,468.00 (4.00) (205.50) 1468.00
-1 1,459.00 1,456.75 2.25 107.00 1464.00
1 1,451.50 1,454.00 2.50 119.50 1448.00
-1 1,455.75 1,458.00 (2.25) (118.00) 1459.00
1 1,463.50 1,464.00 0.50 19.50 1460.00
1 1,459.75 1,456.50 (3.25) (168.00) 1456.50
1 1,457.25 1,455.25 (2.00) (105.50) 1455.25
-1 1,449.50 1,451.00 (1.50) (80.50) 1451.00
1 1,452.25 1,453.25 1.00 44.50 1449.00My strategy for today is going to be more calm and a little bit tighter on the stops. I would rather take more trades with smaller losses than these larger ones. This may be dangerous thinking but I would be happy with just $200 or so in gains a day. Would taking a few extra cars a shorter distance be feasible or is that opening a pandoras box of risk until I get the system worked out more? I am thinking that I may be trying to get too much out of each trade and that may be hurting.
<i>"I am thinking that I may be trying to get too much out of each trade and that may be hurting."</i>
Very common misconception. How many price swings greater than +4pts ES did we see yesterday? +8pts? +10pts? +20pts?
Those type of swings happen every day. For the past several months, those swings happen multiple times daily. Knowing that the market WILL make those size moves today, tomorrow and next week, it is reasonable to assume at least some of your trades will be open at the time if by nothing more than random chance?
Asking from the market what it naturally does anyway is not out of line. What will kill your (or anyone's) career grave-yard dead is an inverted risk/reward ratio. Using a -3pt or -4pt stop while taking profits at +2pts is a guaranteed, 100% sure path to failure.
That approach may work for awhile, in certain market conditions matched up with compatible tactics of entry. However, it is equally certain that a period of changing price action will whack those stops left & right, digging a far bigger hole of debt than any subsequent pile of profits can fill.
Very common misconception. How many price swings greater than +4pts ES did we see yesterday? +8pts? +10pts? +20pts?
Those type of swings happen every day. For the past several months, those swings happen multiple times daily. Knowing that the market WILL make those size moves today, tomorrow and next week, it is reasonable to assume at least some of your trades will be open at the time if by nothing more than random chance?
Asking from the market what it naturally does anyway is not out of line. What will kill your (or anyone's) career grave-yard dead is an inverted risk/reward ratio. Using a -3pt or -4pt stop while taking profits at +2pts is a guaranteed, 100% sure path to failure.
That approach may work for awhile, in certain market conditions matched up with compatible tactics of entry. However, it is equally certain that a period of changing price action will whack those stops left & right, digging a far bigger hole of debt than any subsequent pile of profits can fill.
Quote from austinp:
<i>"I am thinking that I may be trying to get too much out of each trade and that may be hurting."</i>
Very common misconception. How many price swings greater than +4pts ES did we see yesterday? +8pts? +10pts? +20pts?
Those type of swings happen every day. For the past several months, those swings happen multiple times daily. Knowing that the market WILL make those size moves today, tomorrow and next week, it is reasonable to assume at least some of your trades will be open at the time if by nothing more than random chance?
Asking from the market what it naturally does anyway is not out of line. What will kill your (or anyone's) career grave-yard dead is an inverted risk/reward ratio. Using a -3pt or -4pt stop while taking profits at +2pts is a guaranteed, 100% sure path to failure.
That approach may work for awhile, in certain market conditions matched up with compatible tactics of entry. However, it is equally certain that a period of changing price action will whack those stops left & right, digging a far bigger hole of debt than any subsequent pile of profits can fill.
At the risk of seeking over-explanation are you saying that I am incorrect in assuming that I am trying to squeeze too much out? Would you advocate continuing with my 1 car trades but perhaps with a tighter stop in order to let the losers get out early?