Andrews Pitchfork (Median Line)

Thanks for the in-depth explanation Kent. I experimented with a few other charting packages and was not impressed with them at all. VTTrader for one was completely hopeless, the forks would jump all over the place quite inexplicably.

It turns out that the problem I was having was not due to the implementation of the 5th digit, but because when I had re-downloaded MT4 the 'max bars in history' was still at a minimal value, so when I drew a pitchfork on the daily, perhaps with pivots going back a few months, when I drilled down to the lower time frames, there were not enough bars in history to look back and see the pivots so they did not exist. I assume in this case MT4 just roughly guesses where these points are in the past and so you get an inaccurate fork. Also, even after increasing the max bars in history, it was still necessary to scroll back all the way to see the pivots so MT4 could correct itself. It's not perfect by any means, for the reasons you mentioned and in general other markets with volume data (and the ability to draw tick charts) lend themselves to a greater variety of methods of drawing the forks. But it ain't so bad really. Use VT Trader for an hour like I did and I guarantee you will have a newfound appreciation for MT4.

Profitable trading to all you forking traders and have a forking great weekend.

Hey birdt,

You're welcome, and, you posted another key reason why sloping objects
can radically shift around in MT4 compared to where they should be drawn.

You are absolutely right about MT4 "guessing" where to put the past coordinates when it hasn't loaded all of the bars back to that coordinate. It would have to make a guess how many bars, and the only guess would be to assume that every bar exists, even if the real bars don't exist due to inactivity or downtime. I actually think the algorithm is so bad as to assume "virtual" bars over the weekends, which would account for giant swings in object placement. It's only when you actually scroll backwards and get the data loaded that the true number of bars that are in the broker's datastream are loaded which leads to an explicit count, and then MT4 can do a better job, if not perfect.

Personally, I wish that MT4 had the ability for me to specify a window of time for which my charts would ALWAYS put a bar, even if there was no tick. The bar would just repeat the Close price. My window of time would probably be from Sunday 5PM EST to Friday 5PM EST. (I may be skipping about an hour or two of Monday's Sydney session but I prefer to have a "week" be exactly 24 * 5 hours of bars.

If one could do the above, then the sloping lines could be much more consistent between different brokers with different hours and datafeeds. Missing bars due to holidays or broker-downtime wouldn't skew the results, but with my proposed method, neither would you have giant gaps over the weekends when virtually nobody has any meaningful bars occur. It's obvious on charts like H1 and H4 that trendlines work over long periods of time but they would get totally messed up if huge gaps or bars were inserted for every weekend.

(With respect to missing bars, I guess I don't know what I'd do for calculations like MA's. If a bar is missing due to a holiday or downtime for one broker compared to another, the calculations are going to be off no matter what. Missing a real bar is bad. Including a fake bar is bad too. It would seem there is no good solution...).

I am using MT4 for my PF's and it's working pretty well, but you're right about tick charts. Maybe there is a way?? (I think someone had a method
to create tick charts with MT4 but I don't know any details about it. Anyone know??).


Have a great weekend!
Kent (pips4life)

looking for charts with out gaps in time start here

http://articles.mql4.com/136

!

...

The market geometry of Eur/Usd is doing exceptionally well..

Re: 15-min Gbp/Usd Long at 1.4280; took partial profit at 1.4458.

Hello all

I just want to inform all of you who want to learn more about median line .Tim Morge have a great video on his www.marketgeometry.com blog
Its very informative video + one great article and more video will come.

Have the best and sorry but im so so busy to post.
Regards
Catalin

what is the best time frame to trade forks?

Jeff,

Please take a look at the attached chart and tell me if you think I drew this pitchfork and associated target lines appropriately. It's this evening's chart on M15. My server time is GMT+0 so times you see are GMT.

I pm'd you but then found this thread. Want to revive it?

Nice to see how price is respecting the upsloping MedianLine.
Lets see how it holds.

Cheers

Nik

Hi Ed:

Yes, it was correct. Didn't receive this thread's update until now. Here's my attached chart in the 5-min time frame.

Hve a good one
Jeff

Hi Enikma:

Great chart as always. I was stalking on the same setup of the Eur/Usd and the Gbp/Usd for quite awhile. Good to see that we are in the 'same page'. Take care.

Have a good one
Jeff

Hi Tom:

Please see attached. As mentioned, Tim's chart is a CME Euro Future Daily chart and there's slight difference in terms of highs and lows. In the case of Spot FX Daily Eur/Usd, the fork is drawn using Catalin's way. And a sliding pararellel has to be instilled for the re-test for the long entry. Take care.

Have a good one
Jeff

There you are, Stefx. FWIW, that's how I draw em. Hope this helps. I don't want to put all these out of context charts on Cobra's thread; not too appropriate at all. Take care.

Have a good one
Jeff

Hey Jeff,
See you already have a place to migrate to..
When you draw the SH's (parallels) do you draw a trendline over the ML and a vertical bar for the penetration and then just move it into position?
Nice chart BTW, not the same as I did but very close, a user discretion thing.

Hi Scrutch:

Yup, that's way I do it. turn the trend line into 'ray', then make sure it's of the same slope of the median line and slide it to the price pivots. Take care.

Have a good one
Jeff

but I'm watching

Nice work Jeff

Thank you Jeff for your post - as always it is very informative.
I was wondering,when in your opinion pitchfork "fails" and when it is consider "done" ?? I assume breaking of the parallel line finishes the validity of the pitchfork,is that right ?

Moreover,could you explain a little bit more that "vibration" term ? I mean,I understand that it is the PA obedience of the fork but how do you choose the actual angle .. all in all PA obeys many things

Hey Cobra...nice seeing you here!! :*)