Tiddly's winks

[volpri]

Just read a post from @volpri



NQ today was crazy. The first 3 hours saw 3-minute bars of near 150 ticks!! Mid-day saw 75 tick 3-minute bars. My day started off with an incorrect assessment of the volatility. I took on a few whipsaws as volpri described. Once I settled in for the day, it was just another day.

This brings me to mentioning that volatility works both ways... I do not agree with the zeitgeist volpri speaks of... grab them profits and forget about letting winners run. Volatility works on both sides of trade, loss AND profit. Letting the volatility work for you on the profit side is as important as corralling the risk.

I suppose I didn't explain clear enough. I mean't grab them as the market gives them to me and enter again if price volatility continues to give me reasons to do so. Zeitgeist "par excellence" in "times" of volatility whether on one bar or many bars. LOL. No reason to let volatility go to waste. It is just locking in profits while I can. One advantage is I get to compound as volatility takes price back down below my previous profitable exit (that I locked in profits on). Thus I get a second entry, even cheaper, and wait for volatility to give me another profit. I am speaking of a bullish move in this case but it applies to bearish moves also. I am a scalper of 1 to 8 points in the ES and as many times as ES will give me sufficient volatility to make multiple entries and exits well I will play that over and over as long as the volatility goes on, if even on a single bar.

The modus operandi isn't to just corral risks but to maximize profit by grabbing them profits. Then repeating, compounding profits. J.M. Hurts explains the concept in his book.

But not everyone agrees so no problem. We make our own way.

 

[tiddlywinks]

Good luck. I used Sierra for quite awhile. Then just simply, over time, got away from them. The fiasco with TT routing in Feb was enough to keep me from signing back up. But now I hear Sierra is working on their own direct routing to CME so I am getting things ready to go back to Sierra. I did like them. One just has to get used to reading through lots of support help posts for help. The guys are engineers and they write like em. Forget using phone calls for support on most issues and whatever you do don't upset them. Upset them and you likely won't hear nary a word from them. I remember Sierra being a good stable environment.

Do you use their Denali data feed? Or TT. I think at the moment they are still using TT as an option for order routing but they are working on their own direct order routing.

Refactoring to 64-bit was straight-forward. It would be easier if the Sierra crew would maintain the changes to ASCIL functions and statements separately, but between the compiler error descriptions and Sierra site search anything can be accomplished! LOL.

Right now, Im using CQG feed. The descriptions/explanations on the site are getting easier to decipher, but still quite confusing IMO. So no Denali for me at this time... As for CME direct, I am not an early adopter. But that would certainly be the way to go based on what I've read. Importantly, nothing is broke for me, for now. But I feel like there are substantial changes/investments to be made to my trading infrastructure in the coming months... Hey. Infrastructure. I need to form a lobbying organization!

I've used SC for YEARS! I wanna say the first version I used was around v700. I'll check to see if they maintain a customer since date, the next time I pay my SC bill! TiddlyTrivia.

 

[tiddlywinks]

I suppose I didn't explain clear enough. I mean't grab them as the market gives them to me and enter again if price volatility continues to give me reasons to do so. Zeitgeist "par excellence" in "times" of volatility whether on one bar or many bars. LOL. No reason to let volatility go to waste. It is just locking in profits while I can. One advantage is I get to compound as volatility takes price back down below my previous profitable exit (that I locked in profits on). Thus I get a second entry, even cheaper, and wait for volatility to give me another profit. I am speaking of a bullish move in this case but it applies to bearish moves also. I am a scalper of 1 to 8 points in the ES and as many times as ES will give me sufficient volatility to make multiple entries and exits well I will play that over and over as long as the volatility goes on, if even on a single bar.

The modus operandi isn't to just corral risks but to maximize profit by grabbing them profits. Then repeating, compounding profits. J.M. Hurts explains the concept in his book.

But not everyone agrees so no problem. We make our own way.

I got into this volatility discussion a while back. So many on ET do not understand the dual-utility of volatility. For instance, they'll reduce size, but not adjust the target expectation. That's a double whammy from the profit pov! For instance.

Anyway, I don't even know how to classify myself anymore. My edge is the use of volume. Volume, in combo with the price pane, tells me when to continue or change (or sideline). Sometimes a scalp. Sometimes much much much more. I guess intraday trader fits. I do know 3-minute bars with a price range of 100+ ticks makes for a fun time, bar by bar!

 

[volpri]

I am a believer in volume. That is what my handle stands for Vol (volume) Pri (price) VOLPRI! I just found that for scalping 1 to 8 points in the ES I don't really need to look at volume (most of the time) to make a decision. The range of a bar it's open, it's close, its spatial relationship to the bars "just before it" is usually enough for me to detect if it was made on increasing or decreasing volume.

For example, I don't need to "see" volume to realize that those 3 bull bars to the left were likely made on increasing volume and that the next 2 bear bars were likely on less volume as some profit taking takes place. The final bar closing as a bull bar that made a higher high than the previous bar would be the bulls probing back after taking profits and new bulls entering long so it was likely made on higher volume than the previous bear bar or at least near equal volume. Since I trade bar by bar and do so in the three contexts that I have spoken of in my journal (larger, intermediate, and immediate) and I tend to mostly "scalp" just correlating volume to bars with a visual glance usually suffices. I usually don't actually need to see the volume. Usually a visual glance at the bars is enough to scalp a trade without really needing to "see" the actual volume.

For me, to verify the volume it would just another decision for me to make before making an entry. However, if I have any doubt I can also snap volume on take a peek then turn it off.

 

[tiddlywinks]

I am a believer in volume. That is what my handle stands for Vol (volume) Pri (price) VOLPRI! I just found that for scalping 1 to 8 points in the ES I don't really need to look at volume (most of the time) to make a decision. The range of a bar it's open, it's close, its spatial relationship to the bars "just before it" is usually enough for me to detect if it was made on increasing or decreasing volume.

For example, I don't need to "see" volume to realize that those 3 bull bars to the left were likely made on increasing volume and that the next 2 bear bars were likely on less volume as some profit taking takes place. The final bar closing as a bull bar that made a higher high than the previous bar would be the bulls probing back after taking profits and new bulls entering long so it was likely made on higher volume than the previous bear bar or at least near equal volume. Since I trade bar by bar and do so in the three contexts that I have spoken of in my journal (larger, intermediate, and immediate) and I tend to mostly "scalp" just correlating volume to bars with a visual glance usually suffices. I usually don't actually need to see the volume. Usually a visual glance at the bars is enough to scalp a trade without really needing to "see" the actual volume.

For me, to verify the volume it would just another decision for me to make before making an entry. However, if I have any doubt I can also snap volume on take a peek then turn it off.
View attachment 264580

You forgot to mention the Hz support created by the low nipples of the last two price bars. LOL! Or is that last price bar an outside bar?

 

[tiddlywinks]

Smacked around by NQ yesterday and today, Mon, 8/23 and Tue, 8/24 for a net loss of 1950.54.

This is what happens when I attempt to "out-think"... which means second-guessing 1) the system and 2) what IS occurring on the screen. In my case, as I suspect is the case with many other traders, item 1 is explicitly linked and synced with item 2.
It's a good lesson... just enough to feel the fail.

NEXT!

 

[Overnight]

Smacked around by NQ yesterday and today, Mon, 8/23 and Tue, 8/24 for a net loss of 1950.54.

This is what happens when I attempt to "out-think"... which means second-guessing 1) the system and 2) what IS occurring on the screen. In my case, as I suspect is the case with many other traders, item 1 is explicitly linked and synced with item 2.
It's a good lesson... just enough to feel the fail.

NEXT!

Don't try to get comfortable shorting NQ going into a holiday season. I mean, that's how you lost some money yesterday, yes?

Dude, keep this in the back of your mind as we enter the cool season in the Northern Hemisphere...

 

[tiddlywinks]

Don't try to get comfortable shorting NQ going into a holiday season. I mean, that's how you lost some money yesterday, yes?

Dude, keep this in the back of your mind as we enter the cool season in the Northern Hemisphere...

I don't trade like you. If I can't short, I'd earn 50% less, at the least!
Besides... On her Singapore trip, according to Kamala it is time to start the christmas layaway...toys will be in short supply this year because of climate change.

 

[Overnight]

I don't trade like you. If I can't short, I'd earn 50% less, at the least!
Besides... On her Singapore trip, according to Kamala it is time to start the christmas layaway...toys will be in short supply this year because of climate change.

Well, you can short other instruments. Like the VX futures? (although I wouldn't touch them with a long pole personally. Too large.)

 

[tiddlywinks]

Well, you can short other instruments. Like the VX futures? (although I wouldn't touch them with a long pole personally. Too large.)

I'll stick with US indexes and from time to time metals for daily mana.
Softs and Ags at times for swings, usually lasting in terms of months.
Micro interest rate products might be interesting swings at some point too.

No need to gum things up with a misunderstood derivative of a derivative.