US 30 Index, Trading with Indicators

First contribution to FF, so a little clumsy at making this look good. Open to suggestions. I'll start with some housekeeping.

It seems that some threads post a Disclaimer or Risk Warning and some do not. Some post rules of the Thread, with warnings to trolls. To save some space, I'll just propose that you read pretty much any Disclaimer and conclude that your reading or subscribing to this thread means you accept those terms completely. Then, read Forex Factory's, "Code of Conduct" and "Best Practices." That should keep us on track. If I have to elaborate, I will.

Okay, so I will post this and see how it looks. Assuming I can live with it, I will go into how to set up your charts, trading signals, personal disclosure, whatever else you might need.

I am using two charts of the US30Index, M30 and M1. I trade from the M30 and have the following on that chart:
1. Round number or quick draw indi. Use either of these to draw horizontal lines. I don't use these for signals, just as a point of reference for my eyes. If you use quickdraw, you have to tell it where to start drawing lines, i.e., about 34000 for the US30.
2. Spread indi, spread on this asset should stay around 30-40 points.
3. Candle time, to tell me how much time is left before a new candle.
4. Vertical time lines indi. I set mine at 14 and 20. I'll go into that more later.
5. The PSAR with setting at .1, available on your platform.
6. Tenkan-Sen line from the Ichimoku indicator, also available on your platform. The Tenkan-Sen line, only that line. Tenkan-Sen is the red colored line and when you go to edit in Colors, it will be first on the list. Make it the color you want and the thickness you want and select each of the other colors and mark them "none." So, only the Tenkan-Sen shows on your chart. For your edification, Tenkan-Sen means the conversion line and tracks the mid-point of the highest and lowest prices, typically over nine periods.
7. MQLTA ATR Trailing Stop. Note that this is an EA. It provides a trailing stop based on ATR.

I use the M1 chart for confirmation and have the PSAR and Tenkan-Sen on it.

First of all, Thank you for sharing your system! I trade US30 on M5 chart.

I've a question about your long trade on M30, isn't PSAR pointing downward?

TRADING TIMES AND A FEW PARAMETERS

This method involves trading the US 30 Index. Not all brokers offer this product. Specifically, US brokers cannot offer it and a number of non-US brokers do not. Two of my personal favorites, Oanda and Forex.com, are US based and cannot accommodate me for these trades. If you do not have a broker who offers this index and you are unwilling to open even a demo account with a broker who does, just to check it out, this is not for you. I trade this index on FXChoice. Spreads on the instrument with this broker will run 30-40 points and I have yet to run into a swap situation.

I believe FXChoice is on the same time basis as Oanda and Traders Way, which is GMT +3. I trade from CST (Chicago ‘Burbs) which I think is GMT +7. I won’t pretend to be an expert on this and stay pretty confused, especially when DST comes into play. But, you won’t need to know this anyway. We will anchor before the open of what is called the “core trading session” of the NYSE. That is 9:30 am EST and 8:30 am CST. You will definitely be able to see the times I trade. Just know that you may need to extrapolate times for your own circumstances. Your personal time zone and platform time may be different from mine and different from each other. You know your platform time is shown at the top of your Market Watch window. When I reference time, I may use my local time and platform time interchangeably. You’re smart enough to keep up.

FXChoice and, I suppose other platforms, continue feeding data most of 24 hours and all those hours look tradeable to me. I’m not always sure where that data is coming from, but guess they are feeding aftermarket trading. I have noticed that, on my platform, datafeed stops on this market after the 23:30 bar and begins again on the 1. That is to say, the zero bar typical on currency pairs is missing. Gaps between those times tend to be small, so if you decide to let your trade run over, you will probably be okay. Personally, I am able to trade from about 14 to somewhere 1-2, depending. That would be about 6:00 am to 5:00 or 6:00 pm CST.

mashfx, thanks for your interest. will appreciate your contributions. believe you got a little ahead of me. i haven't pointed out any trades yet, and, yes, we would want the PSAR and Tenkan-Sen to be indicating long.

I'll do a quick overview of what we would be looking for and we can flesh it out more later. On the M30 chart, for a long trade, we would want the PSAR to be below the candle. We would want the Tenkan-Sen to be at least flat, preferably up. We would also be looking at the candle itself. Up, down, confused? The setup for long would be PSAR below, TS flat or up, candle up. Next, we shift to the M1.

M1 is noisy, so we can't be too specific as it is jumping around. We just don't want to step in front of a train. Watch the M1 long enough to see the PSAR, TS, and candles agree in general with the M30. Then, go.

From the M30 chart above, on June 7, from the 14 bar I would drop to the M1 looking for a long trade. Then, when signals change on the 16:30 bar, I would look to go short.

Attached is a week from April. See if it starts to make sense. Oh, and though I use the ATR Trailing Stop on my live trades, I can't use that on my Simulator, so these results are with a 75 trailing stop.

Pipwoof,
Thanks for posting your method. Have you included all the indis that you posted in the .tpl files? (asking because the .tpl files when I load them in MT4 are missing indies - time vertical lines, spread, some others - need to add these indies manually).
Thanks.

MidnightRun, my bad. Thanks for catching that. I have reposted the templates. Hope they're right this time. The M1 just has the PSAR and the Tenkan-Sen. I trade from the M30, so it has more indicators and the Trailing EA.

cleaned up the objects and included vertical lines&EA per spec

D1 US30 bar is bouncing from tenkan-sen and printing a nice pinbar. I've been HODL-ing three pos since yesterday and will get out @BE around 34735. IMO price will test yesterday's high tomr

I'll pick out a couple of trades from April and May and go over entries. The chart above is the M30 from April 12. I start looking at the 14 bar, but if you had been at it earlier, you would have had a better outcome. In any case, we are looking for a buy. Now, let's shift down to the M1.


Pretty clear that the M1 is agreeing with our buy signals. Unfortunately, this trade resulted in a loss. Hopefully, you can see the decision process.

Now, let's look at a winning trade on May 20. Here is our M30 chart which shows a buy about 15:30.

And the M1 which comes into agreement.

Okay, here is a simulation for last month, May 21, entire month. Would I have actually traded it this way? Well, I think so. Believe I tried to be honest with myself. If you have any interest in this, there is really only one way to see if it is worth anything. Set up your charts, put 'em on a sim if you have one. If you don't, just walk through the charts. Use a 75 trailing stop. Trade it the way you would have and see if your results come close to mine. If you wonder why I don't show some account results, that's because I'm a lousy Forex trader and all my accounts are a mess. I have a half-a-dozen Forex accounts at three brokers. I stay in the black, but barely. I try a little bit of everything. I would tell you the whole story, but I think it would go the way of that commercial, "You got up early, nobody cares," "You're not much of a Forex trader, nobody cares." I didn't become a full-time trader with Forex. What worked for me was options, TD Ameritrade, on the Think or Swim platform.

I haven't given up on Forex. When some brokers started offering Index trading, I took a renewed interest and came up with a couple of ways to trade. So far, this method has pretty much offset my losses in currency pairs. Heh.

Do you use only the trailing stop and let the trades run or do you set specific Take Profits too, like round numbers?

When actually trading, I use MQLTA Trailing Stop EA. I've been a little undecided about the multiplier to use, but usually 1.5. The simulator will not permit using an EA, so just set a 75 trailing stop. No TP, let trades run until trail is hit or signals reverse. Like to close out by 20-23 bar.

This morning, indicators are up, but 14 bar is red. M1 shows a pretty strong down move, so waiting for and expecting an opportunity to buy when signals align. For what it's worth, implied open is up. ATR is a little low for comfort, so set the trailing multiplier at 2.5, gives about a 60+ stop loss. But, still holding off entry.

15 bar, SAR is above price, candles are slightly blue. No entry yet.

Yes wait for next buy opportunity too.

A few thoughts on your trailing stop. You may prefer just setting a 75 hard stop and the MT4 trailing stop, also at 75. That's close to how my simulator works. When using the MQLTA Trailing Stop EA, use your head. If a 1.5 multiplier gets you too close, move it up, 2 or 2.5. Though this market is often slow outside of core hours, it can also get volatile quickly. Always give yourself 60-80 points of slack.

7:55 am and the sar has dropped below price. watching the m1.

Stars are in alignment, time to spin the wheel of fortune. Long at 34578.