Extracted Thread (per thread starter's request)

While we can take the bouncing trades between the range (sell high, buy low)... Which by the way I think are the riskier trades because you never know when the breakout will happen, so if you are going to do that you really need to have your risk management in place.
You had better be ready for the Breakout when it comes... and it will invariably come.

@ JohnnyBSmart:

I appreciate good advice and good sportmanship, and you seem to have both. But there are 3 keys points in your last post that I feel I must address before things get out of hand.

First is your statement that price rarely goes flat in a sideways manner that can be confined to a small box. I strongly disagree. It's true that my CZ's happen less often than your S&R lines, but since I'm not in competition with any other system it really doesn't make any difference one way or the other. We don't judge by how many CZ's we get, but rather by how condensed/consolidated they are. All we need is 6 or 7 CZ's per week in order to bank a profitable number of low risk pips, and this system does exactly that.

Second, bringing up S&R lines is distracting. They don't compliment my system as far as I can tell, and I've been trading CZ's a long time. So if you want to post here, please stay on track and don't bring in other indicators or other systems' philosophies. There are lots of other threads where S&R lines are being used and more details are welcome; just not around here. Around here the CZ is the S&R area we are concerned with, and it's flat Left & Right across the chart.

Third, you keep bringing up the first pic of the thead for some reason. That pic was only meant to be a very basic outline of what was to follow. It was just a teaser. It was never meant to be the ultimate description of the method, and many other (and better) examples have been given since, most of which were made in real time. I even attached a PDF that shows about 20 CZ's that were formed with my privately coded EA, which are the boxes I actually use in live trading. Using that pic to try and say what's wrong with my system is extremely misleading. Please stop. You'd get much better results by using pics from your own charts, with CZ boxes and no standard S&R lines of course.

Finally, since this is my thread and my system, if you don't mind I think I'm the only one around here that should be testing the members, if I ever do. A ship only needs one captain. Thanks for understanding.

Hello ForexHard,

You seem to have taken offense with my posts. I assure you none was intended. I like your system and I'm only interested in helping you making it better. I simply stated what I saw and one of the reasons I continued reading your thread.

After working with the system I found a problem getting the box to show up in all the right places. If I started with higher values on the BoxRange I got less boxes in a given time period and some obviously non-breakout anomalies. Lowering the BoxRange got more boxes but again was a problem of boxes upon boxes resulting in closed trades and re-buys in the same direction. I could not get a setting that showed all breakouts and kept getting non-breakouts.

I remembered that some months ago I accidentally found an indicator that I noticed highlighted breakouts. At the time I was reviewing a thread that traded from a line of equilibrium. I thought the moving average being used to define this line of equilibrium was rather weak and a better method of defining this line could be found. After searching the internet I found an indicator which I really didn't think too much of after reading the code but placed it on the chart anyway. Voila! It was dynamite and I now use it on all my charts.

The funny thing is I had forgotten it's potential as a breakout indicator until last night reading almo's post. That wasn't the coders intent but it did just that quite nicely. I brought up this template that was actually never completed and I had saved it for future consideration. I was racking my brain trying to remember the name I had given the template when I saw it. The name I gave this template was "The Stair Step System".

I had discussed with squalou his use of the ATR values as a means of finding breakout patterns but at the time I didn't really have any earth shattering ideas except using the Bollinger Bands at a setting of six.

Please understand that what you can do manually in seeing the breakouts on the charts is an entirely different matter when it comes to coding the indicator. Finding or coding that indicator is a difficult task. First and foremost we have to define exactly what it is we want the indicator to do. In this case it is finding the situations that lead to breakouts. Once this is done then we know what we are attempting to define by the indicator. This is all I was trying to do.

As far as the use of S&R's you already have them built into the indicator. Fib levels are levels of the S&R. Granted the use of Fibs here is really a misuse if you ever studied the Fibs. I use the fibs on the daily chart and define the fib retracement levels by the last major pivot point. I only use them because big money uses them. We only follow their lead if we want to succeed at this game. Trading the M15 without an eye on the higher timeframes is a recipe for disaster and is viewed by many as trading blind.

The indicator shows pips on the chart which are derived from the very low or the very high. This is very nice but without some idea of how to get this in real time trading it's just a mirage. Their are already traders here like almo who recognize the value of knowing where the PA is likely to stop and reverse maximizes a traders net pip gain. He like many here didn't just get off the banana boat.

Your desire to not discuss on this thread the best way to close a trade is noted and I will not post anything relating to it.

Your statement" Using that pic to try and say what's wrong with my system is extremely misleading. Please stop."

What is this? You put the chart there, I didn't. I quite like your choice of charts but if you have a problem with it then remove it.

I have never said anything negative about your system so where you're reading this in my post I'm completely at a loss. Please show me where in my post I've offended you or your system and I will remove it with no argument.

It was my intent to post the indicator on a chart as I discussed above and to discuss further it's possible use in squalou's indicator.

I posted "Vary rarely for any length of time will you ever see the PA stand still or even move horizontally."

You posted"First is your statement that price rarely goes flat in a sideways manner that can be confined to a small box. I strongly disagree."

These are two completely different statements and those are your words and not mine.The chart I was about to post would have shown with a written explanation of what I meant by that statement but as I was writing that post I had completely lost track of time. I noticed sunlight coming through my closed window blinds. I looked at the clock and it read 5:50 and I thought wholly crap I need to get to bed. I closed the post and went to bed.Since you are coming across as a person I'm no longer interested in helping succeed with this indicator and subsequent EA, you need not worry about any further posts of mine as it just won't happen again.

Good Day,

Johnny

Since you are coming across as a person I'm no longer interested in helping succeed with this indicator and subsequent EA, you need not worry about any further posts of mine as it just won't happen again.

As you wish. Good bye...

Don't sweat him forexhard, he has a tendency to come into everybody else's threads and try to push what he thinks is the best way to trade and tries to change the strategy completely around (he's tried that in my threads and others too). But yet he doesn't bother to open up a thread of his own to explain how apparently successfully he is, which is kind of hypocritical.

Yeah, I got that impression. I've never read any of the guys stuff before here, but when all he did was focus on the one meaningless pic I caught on real quick. I tried to let him off easy, but then he just doubled down on his arrogance. Good riddance.

Congrats on your 10th vouch, btw.

Yes, thanks to you sir, much appreciated.

@ Mer:

Sorry Scott, I got sidetracked before I could comment on your post #556.

I just wanted to say that I see what you mean regarding the 61.8 fib, and that I also think that a similar jump stop would be beneficial to the EA. Whether it should be determined by fib levels vs. pips is the question. Keep those examples coming. You might convert me yet.

G/U opens with a CZ that started on Friday. A few bars have been added already today in this pic, and everything is looking typical. In my opinion the volatility of this CZ is bascially back to normal, or how things were before the default situation started. Let's see what happens after Europe opens for business. It will be interesting to see if things stay this calm.

The buffers are set at 7 pips, and I'm waiting for 2 bars to close outside one. Long or Short, it doesn't matter. Price crosses either buffer line, 2 bars close outside, then a trade goes live.

Now almost 8:30 AM in Europe and still stuck in the CZ's range. Just waiting for a Big Dog somewhere to step up and make the market move. Eager to see what sort of volatility follows this range...

This is a wonderful thread... my how it has taken off... many congrats to FHard.

A question for the EA gurus... Squ in particular (your EA is a work of art) is there a way that some kind of dashboard could be developed for the breakouts... ie, some kind of indicator which tells you which pairs are currently in a CZ?

I guess we might set different CZ parameters for different pairs, but conceptually being able to see on a dashboard (a bit like Squ did for the Ibuks method) which pairs are in consolidation... would help focus our attention.

Simply brilliant work all round. Thank you so much for sharing.

Best wishes

That ended up being a very nice breakout to the upside.

"That ended up being a very nice breakout to the upside."

You can say that again!

Price has now retraced to an earlier CZ. Any guesses as to whether or not price will consolidate here again too? Will a CZ be made here today? Curious minds want to know...

FH, earlier in thread u briefly alluded to using brokers who allowed hedging...now, many many times I can see exactly what u mean

made 122 pips, great system :-)!

i highly disagree.

trading a range, buy low and sell high, we get the best r:r trades ever. it works that often and the reward is awesome. breaks are a bit different thing,we dont know whether they are fake or not, i dont trade breakouts at all, i trade the retests after breakouts,works better imho.

thats my 2 pips

take care

Well, I'm not much of a "talker", but I will post here:
Since 7 days ago, 437 pips stoled from the criminals, using this sistem.
Thank's again, Forexhard, nice one! And I must say I appreciate your efforts to open our eyes ;-)
Keep it going...

forexhard's system is basically a volatility breakout system. systems like this have a long history and adapt well to changing market conditions.

And here it is, right on time. G/U M15.