Something very simplistic

[dbphoenix]

Originally posted by DraXon
Quah,

I know this not part of your system, but would you ever consider letting your profits run if there's strong momentum running behind you?

DraXon

FWIW, I've been noting this at the same time I've been noting everything else, so I can't offer any pearls, but "letting profits run", in most instances, requires a certain amount of hope, not to mention thinking. In order to make this happen, the price would have to move through the target and provide at least a tick of leeway for the stop. Otherwise, price would slip back below the target, in which case you'd be back in the same old same old of hoping that price would come back to the target, etc.

If the idea of letting profits run is to work, price has to drive right through the target, as it did during the 1025 trade today. In a situation like that, one can use whatever his favorite trailing tactic is.

Otherwise, you're likely to end up in a mess, second-guessing yourself at every turn.

--Db

 

[Quah]

Originally posted by dbphoenix


FWIW, I've been noting this at the same time I've been noting everything else, so I can't offer any pearls, but "letting profits run", in most instances, requires a certain amount of hope, not to mention thinking. In order to make this happen, the price would have to move through the target and provide at least a tick of leeway for the stop. Otherwise, price would slip back below the target, in which case you'd be back in the same old same old of hoping that price would come back to the target, etc.

If the idea of letting profits run is to work, price has to drive right through the target, as it did during the 1025 trade today. In a situation like that, one can use whatever his favorite trailing tactic is.

Otherwise, you're likely to end up in a mess, second-guessing yourself at every turn.

--Db

Yes, exactly. And back into the old habits of improving something until it doesn't work anymore.

 

[zorak]

I've been trading the ES today, and my results differ from some of
yours.

For the 9:43 Trade, you have:
845.50 Long
844.25 Stopped out, reversed
843.00 New exit for the short
843.00 Covered for b/e

I have:
845.25 Long
844.00 Stopped out, reversed
842.75 New exit for the short
845.25 Stopped out for a double loss

According to QCharts, the open for minute 9:43 was 845.25.

Because you entered at 845.50, you ended up with a higher
exit for your short position...which you were able to hit. The
lowest price in that timeframe was...843.00, which occurred
during the minute of 9:46, according to QCharts. Getting a
worse entry price enabled you to fill for a b/e, which just
happened to be at the exact low price during that time.

Oddly enough, the exact same thing happened for the 10:04
entry. You had:

848.25 Long
847.00 Stopped out, reversed
845.75 New exit for the short
845.75 Covered for b/e

I had:

848.00 Long
846.75 Stopped out, reversed
845.50 New exit for the short
848.25 Stopped out for a double loss

According to QCharts, the open for minute 10:04 was 848.00.
Again, your worse entry meant you ended up with a higher
exit for your b/e. The lowest price during that timeframe
was...845.75, during minute 10:07. So because you had
a worse entry, the price you needed to hit to b/e turned out
to be the lowest price during that time frame.

Am I missing something? Is QCharts giving me incorrect
information? Other than these 2 trades, we matched exactly
on our entries...but you somehow got a worse entry than I
did on these two, which ended up allowing you to hit your
exit for b/e, at precisely the low price for those timeframes.

Here is a webpage showing the QCharts data for each of
the 2 periods in question. The first one shows the open
of 845.25 for minute 9:43. The second shows the lowest
price of any of the following minutes, at 9:46. The next 2
show the appropriate data for the 10:04 trade.

http://www.mclainmachine.com/mofo/entries.html

Is this just a coincidence?

zorak

 

[Quah]

zorak- I don't know what to tell you - I've seen this before though - i guess different vendor feeds are going to have different data sometimes. Those prices today are based on a feed from ESignal. I'll compare to QCharts in a minute.

I wonder if you will get different bar opens if you switch to a different QCharts server?

 

[Quah]

Okay, I did some checking - seems that QCharts has conflicting information.

For example, on the 10:04 trade, if you are connected to the sterling-10 server, you will get 848.25 as the open, like I did. If you are connected to the 64.210.188.29 server, you will get 848, like you did originally.

I check with a Tradestation user, and he had the same opens of those bars that I did.

 

[dbphoenix]

Originally posted by zorak

Am I missing something? Is QCharts giving me incorrect
information? Other than these 2 trades, we matched exactly
on our entries...but you somehow got a worse entry than I
did on these two, which ended up allowing you to hit your
exit for b/e, at precisely the low price for those timeframes.

zorak

To a large extent, these are the breaks. If you're using a limit order, it's impossible to know until the trade is actually executed whether or not it's going to be filled. One of the clearest distinctions between paper trading and real trading is that you never really know whether a trade is passing through your price or not unless you never take your eyes off the T&S. But even then, you can't know for sure if your order would have been filled.

But even if you're trading for real, accuracy to a tick just may not be available to the home, regardless of claims. Quah may have squeezed through these two trades, but you may do the same on other trades on other days. Unless you're trying to do exactly what Quah is doing, a little variance now and then is only to be expected. And if you are trying to do exactly what Quah is doing, don't be surprised or disappointed if you aren't successful.

--Db

 

[dbphoenix]

Originally posted by Quah
Okay, I did some checking - seems that QCharts has conflicting information.

For example, on the 10:04 trade, if you are connected to the sterling-10 server, you will get 848.25 as the open, like I did. If you are connected to the 64.210.188.29 server, you will get 848, like you did originally.

I check with a Tradestation user, and he had the same opens of those bars that I did.

There are also questions of reaction time, broker efficiency, etc. When one gets down to success or failure depending on a tick this way or that way, then perhaps some work needs to be done on target and stop flexibility. Either that or just assume that it will all even out over the long term.

--Db

 

[dbphoenix]

Originally posted by dbphoenix


There are also questions of reaction time, broker efficiency, etc. When one gets down to success or failure depending on a tick this way or that way, then perhaps some work needs to be done on target and stop flexibility. Either that or just assume that it will all even out over the long term.

--Db

BTW, this suggestion was made not to Quah, but to anybody who's trying to emulate Quah.

--Db

 

[Quah]

Originally posted by dbphoenix


There are also questions of reaction time, broker efficiency, etc. When one gets down to success or failure depending on a tick this way or that way, then perhaps some work needs to be done on target and stop flexibility. Either that or just assume that it will all even out over the long term.

--Db

I agree, it will all even out I'm sure - and not all trades end up being as tight as those two.

However, it seems to me that QCharts could at least be consistent...lol.

 

[ctrader]

Originally posted by Quah
Okay, I did some checking - seems that QCharts has conflicting information.

For example, on the 10:04 trade, if you are connected to the sterling-10 server, you will get 848.25 as the open, like I did. If you are connected to the 64.210.188.29 server, you will get 848, like you did originally.

I check with a Tradestation user, and he had the same opens of those bars that I did.

FWIW, the chart I am looking at for the 10:04 bar( actually 10:05 bar because 10:04 marks the end of 10:04 bar, not the beginning), has the opening as 847.75!

In the end it will all work out. But it sucks to eat a double whammy on your first day.