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  • #4,841
  • Aug 27, 2011 12:43pm Aug 27, 2011 12:43pm
Quoting xXTrizzleXx

Information can actually be a good leading indicator provided one knows how to interpret it correctly. I also wouldn't go by the assumption that news is already automatically built into the price - if it did, then price would not change when a news report comes out. However news does get factored in, but there is a time lapse involved, during which one can actually participate.

You make a valid point but you would be surprised how much is out there in the open that can function as leading information.

Regards,
xXTrizzleXx
Thanks Trizzle for your detailed insights. I appreciate your effort and time spent. I certainly don't want to open a can of worms and cause distraction as we all know where Graeme stands in terms of paying attention to news releases. News releases and earnings reports (for stocks) have caused me significant grief in my 10+ yrs of trading stocks. Until 2007, I found it very hard to overcome paying attention to news media but now I barely listen to any analyst. There are all manipulative whores of the financial industry with their own hidden agendas to manipulate the phycology of the uninformed investors.

I base the erratic behavior of price action right after a news release as more of an after-effect caused by market structure and participants more than anything else. True effect happens mostly after the dust settles.
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,842
  • Aug 27, 2011 12:54pm Aug 27, 2011 12:54pm
Quoting MidKnight
Heya V,

I agree with the trizzle that this topic could be a dangerous and massive distraction to the thread content as it has been known to start holy war crusades on trading forums!

Yes, the price action that has happened is lagging to some extent, but it depends what your goal is. If you are aiming to trade within 10 pips of the pivots but are on a 60m chart, then that is not going to meet the goal most of the time and could be considered lagging. As trizzle said price action is at least market generated information and in the FX world without...
So true MK. I had no idea there was a 'holy war' going on. Here's I was thinking how smart I was to bring up this discussion topic Unfortunately, I don't browse forums that often anymore.

I did fell into that trap of doing bar to bar backtesting a while back to identify setups and find an edge for candle patterns. It's a fallacy! There is no hidden edge in my opinion as one can fall into the trap of doing curve-filling unknowingly. Having said that, I do feel candle by candle analysis can give a statistical edge based on what Graeme has mentioned I(in regards to know thy pair... marry her and know how she moves from 200 ema etc etc) I got a gazilion spreadsheet with OHLC data for every pair and every timeframe ready to give my information on the fly of any potential setup I an currently looking to take advantage of. Statistically knowledge of what a pair has done in the past and how often can provide a significant validation to your thought process... especially on your weekend's hindsight analysis on weekly/monthly timeframes.

My apologies if I have caused distraction to this thread.
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,843
  • Aug 27, 2011 2:20pm Aug 27, 2011 2:20pm
Quoting forex_fan
I am not using FBs or 200 ema or any of those for the matter of entry, but I've developed my own method of entry derived from trying 3 X20 exercise, which has been really successful.
...
I have read the whole thread and it appears that too much of emphasis is given on understanding Flying Buddhas and 200 ema etc entry methods in the later part of the thread. I believe the real success comes from 3 X20 exercise and patience. Graeme always wanted people to find their own entry method using 3 X20 exercise but it looks hardly anybody bothered with...
Hi forex_fan,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I feeling guilty of stirring those questions and discussions with Graeme on FlyingBuddah and 200ema. There is a lot on this thread that was shared by Graeme as a result of our interaction with him. If one can simply read first 20 pages of this thread, one can find all the answers by practicing 3x20 exercise. Even the 00 entry 'system' discussed was just to help new comers realize the power of participation and growth.

Unfortunately, I practiced 3x20 for a month last year, had good success on M5 timeframe, gained confidence, then moved to daily/H4 timeframe and got burnt. Since past two weeks, I am also back to practicing 3x20 and it is absolutely critical for this method to work. I am also changing my opinion that razor sharp entries are indeed required to keep risk and drawdown to the minimum. I have overcome phycological issues with trades exiting on BE... in fact, I feel proud now if BE is hit... just a different mindset required if you completely believe in long term growth and participation.

I would recommend for those trying 3x20 out and have fulltime work commitments to use a mobile trading platform to practice. Also , remember not use any 'system' or entry method... If you base entries just on gut feel, it will open doors for amazing discoveries imo. I plan to take this all the way until 6 months so help my God

Could you or someone clarify one question please? is it absolutely critical to take only one entry at a time? I think it is as it helps develop patience and reduce risk by only one open entry at a time but then it also extends time and effort to meet the 3 TP goal for the day forcing me to do casual entries just to meet my daily goal. Not sure if this is critical as we will have to move on to opening multiple positions across multiple pairs once we graduate from this exercise. Perhaps it is important to take this baby-step first to finetune your mind at the subconscious level and make entries second nature in matter of minutes when cellphone alerts get triggered. It is a well thought out exercise
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,844
  • Aug 27, 2011 2:32pm Aug 27, 2011 2:32pm
Quoting VEEFX
Hi forex_fan,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I feeling guilty of stirring those questions and discussions with Graeme on FlyingBuddah and 200ema. There is a lot on this thread that was shared by Graeme as a result of our interaction with him. If one can simply read first 20 pages of this thread, one can find all the answers by practicing 3x20 exercise. Even the 00 entry 'system' discussed was just to help new comers realize the power of participation and growth.

Unfortunately, I practiced 3x20 for a month last year, had good success...
Hey Vee,

your contribution to keep this thread alive for new traders is commendable.
One position at a time will help you a lot because it is 5 minutes which requires higher attention. You don't have to achieve 3 wins by rushing into trade. Instead you can calculate monthly or weekly trades and average out.

Simple is better. I'd recommend "Trading in the zone" book for trading psychology help.

Regards
  • #4,845
  • Edited 8:13pm Aug 27, 2011 4:48pm | Edited 8:13pm
Quoting pipEASY
Good evening, PC

Thank you for the question.

Please allow me to speak from my current statistics, it looks like I have been adding 8 positions per day for the last 2 years of every trading day.

I spend about 2-3 hours per day looking at areas of interest across all charts and setup alerts to my cell phone. I also spend a hour looking at my journal as it also tells me whether there is a clear trend or a retrace at the moment.

So in total I spend about 4-5 hours per day without fail. This amount of workload is considered full time...
Just curious if anyone would disagree with me that based on what you read in this post from Graeme, one would have to put in more effort in terms of numbers of hours per day or week to keep up with contineously participating in the market ? Does it really mean that more successful you become over time, the amount of effort also goes up in keeping up with loads of positions to keep on participating in order to maintain a good performance curve ? I think one has to increase exposure as accountbalance keeps growing which means making more entries.....i guess success does come with a price!!!!!

Any thought provoking ideas on how to address this aspect when we all hopefully find success thru this journey??

EDIT: I guess you could increase lot size to reduce trading hours

(sent from my HTC 'trading' device)
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,846
  • Aug 27, 2011 8:57pm Aug 27, 2011 8:57pm
Quoting forex_fan
Hey Vee,

your contribution to keep this thread alive for new traders is commendable.
One position at a time will help you a lot because it is 5 minutes which requires higher attention. You don't have to achieve 3 wins by rushing into trade. Instead you can calculate monthly or weekly trades and average out.

Simple is better. I'd recommend "Trading in the zone" book for trading psychology help.

Regards
Thanks forex_fan. I don't think I am in a position to coach or give advice but just a friendly caution for what it is worth. I believe you might be approaching the same path I already took last year with 3x20. I find M5 timeframe to be relatively very easy to catch breakouts and squeeze 15-20 pips from compelling momentum out of the market. I tried last year (demo of course) and found success and got excited but got worn out super quick watching price action as it requires more screen time and mental concentration. It is almost addicting to feel the market at that level. It wasn't until few weeks back I read a post from Graeme that he uses M5 to gauge the market sentiment by switching to M5 after entering his position. That is how (I believe) he makes a subconscious judgement whether other traders are joining him or not. If they don't join him then he quickly gets out with a minor loss. I am thinking of introducing this approach into my current 3x20 exercise soon.

If you ever plan to move to a higher timeframe for entries in the future, you might run into the same challenge I faced (and still facing).

p.s. I looked at your trades and feel 14 trades on 8/16 seem a bit excessive exposure imho. M5 timeframe did the same to me but I am in no position to judge your trading style by looking at a just a screenshot. Apologies in advance if I offended you with this post.
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,847
  • Aug 27, 2011 11:16pm Aug 27, 2011 11:16pm
Quoting VEEFX
Thanks forex_fan. I don't think I am in a position to coach or give advice but just a friendly caution for what it is worth. I believe you might be approaching the same path I already took last year with 3x20. I find M5 timeframe to be relatively very easy to catch breakouts and squeeze 15-20 pips from compelling momentum out of the market. I tried last year (demo of course) and found success and got excited but got worn out super quick watching price action as it requires more screen time and mental concentration. It is almost addicting to feel...
Hi Vee,

I adapted the 3*20 exercise to my circumstances, by basically trying to get 20 pips when I can without limiting it to getting 3 in one day. I also do a number of trades at once. And after improving a little, I stopped setting a limit of 20pips and simply moved all positions to BE at 20 pips.

They key of course is to improve the BE to loss ratio.

I personally found it easier on the 1hr/4hr chart. I think generally 20pips is a good SL for the 1hr.

Given, you had such success with the exercise on the 5min chart, I've no doubt you'll soon find the same on the 4hr/1hr.

Cheers
SJB
  • #4,848
  • Aug 27, 2011 11:22pm Aug 27, 2011 11:22pm
Hi, VEE, definitely your point is valid, in my opinion.

I've found that to keep consistent entries, i have to consistently watch the market, if we do everything manually.

sometimes it is impossible to strictly spend 1 hour per day, for example.

so one solution is we may use an EA to do the entry and break-even. say, the EA could be an insider-bar, horizon breakout, MA cross, or u name it.

anyway, let the EA do the entries for us, and we manage the "diversification" now and then.

that's what I did.

Quoting VEEFX
I think one has to increase exposure as accountbalance keeps growing which means making more entries.....i guess success does come with a price!!!!!

Any thought provoking ideas on how to address this aspect when we all hopefully find success thru this journey??
  • #4,849
  • Aug 28, 2011 5:15am Aug 28, 2011 5:15am
Quoting VEEFX
I have overcome phycological issues with trades exiting on BE... in fact, I feel proud now if BE is hit... just a different mindset required if you completely believe in long term growth and participation.
Hi Vee,

Because what you were doing on the 4h charts was not working, you appear to be in a state of confusion, and the way to overcome this is to write down some rules for your entries, basically what you would like to see before entering (could be something like "If I see a pinbar on the 4h chart, I would zoom in the 5m chart and observe the retracement to see if there is potential for an entry"). Trying to enter based only on what the gut tells you is not going to work consistently, best to have some logic behind what you are doing. I'm not saying you should completely ignore your instincts, but they should work together with your logic.

You feel proud for hitting BE ? How about not feeling anything, and instead analysing what is going on then and there, perhaps if you hit a BE the market is turning, or perhaps a new low risk entry in the same direction as the original entry is forming, sometimes the market needs a bit more time to work than we thought.

From remembering your posts in the past, I assume you got burnt on the stacking side of things... you were stacking against the market sentiment with no SL, hoping that the retracement would end, and you can profit when the market turns in the expected direction, all because your gut was telling you to. I would say don't be greedy, add new positions only when the previous one is in profit and SL moved to BE. The whole point of stacking is to keep the risk constant, whilst the reward would grow exponentially, but you can't keep the risk constant unless you move SL to BE before opening a new position.

Hope this makes sense.

Kindest Regards,

Cam
  • #4,850
  • Aug 28, 2011 8:01am Aug 28, 2011 8:01am
Quoting cameron1st
I would say don't be greedy, add new positions only when the previous one is in profit and SL moved to BE. The whole point of stacking is to keep the risk constant, whilst the reward would grow exponentially, but you can't keep the risk constant unless you move SL to BE before opening a new position.

Hope this makes sense.

Kindest Regards,

Cam
Good Going cameron1st:
might I add that BE (break even + costs) implies: if New Stop position gets hit, we would be in for a small profit, at worse (Spread & Commissions dependent) we would have gained experience and saw no reduction balance as a result of that trade's closure.

Bless!
  • #4,851
  • Aug 28, 2011 5:25pm Aug 28, 2011 5:25pm
Quoting VEEFX
Appreciate your response Cam... every bit of opinion is helping me think and finetune myself as a person and trader. I understand and agree that price action 'analysis' is far superior than analysis based on a bunch of indicators.

Having said that, if a entry 'system' is solely based on close of candle, then won't the lagging indicators have the same or similar effect on price action based entries (if we ignore everything and focus solely on entries for a moment) ??

p.s. This thought is provoked by Graeme's posts on using commonly used indicators...
Hi Vee,
Re: lagging indicators and a piggy back –
My point is either abstract or insightful, I’ll leave this for each person to decide…

… You know when you see a flock of birds turning in mid flight with what appears to be complete synchronicity? … they go up they go down, they turn, they twist, they go down and down again only for them all to turn up and go to a new high without a hint as to why or how they all did it at the exact same time? I’m sure everyone has seen this behavior.

How do they do it? Is there a genetic ability? Is there a instinctive behavior they have and we don’t? Do they have a secret indicator only birds know about? … No!

For a flock of 10,000 birds to all turn at what appears the exact same point in time each bird only pays attention to it’s seven closest in flight neighbors … yep, only seven. If a change in direction is required due to a predator or danger, once this low critical number have seen it and reacted then the chain of events starts and the flock changes course with an impressive speed and coordinated effort, but with little or no understanding of why they are doing it except for it is what the birds around them are doing.

Nature has programmed an unquestioned greed and fear response in to individual’s behavior as well to the behavior of a mass group to increase the probability of survival.

I believe this maps well onto the markets with the predators / dangers found near S&R and the behaviors shown by the mass of traders at these points, which can be taken advantage of (?) if you have used an indicator or candle pattern to map and understand the expected ‘flock’ behavior.

As I said, it’s either abstract or insightful.

Take care.
wash, rinse, spin . . . repeat
  • #4,852
  • Aug 30, 2011 6:24am Aug 30, 2011 6:24am
Quoting VEEFX
Just curious if anyone would disagree with me that based on what you read in this post from Graeme, one would have to put in more effort in terms of numbers of hours per day or week to keep up with contineously participating in the market ?
I would have to disagree. Having a consistent trading regime is all that's needed. Over time you'll accumulate legs of the millipede. For me, continuously participating means opening MT4 a few times a day and running through all the pairs. Alerts if a stop run can happen, range breakout, blah.

Quoting VEEFX
Does it really mean that more successful you become over time, the amount of effort also goes up in keeping up with loads of positions to keep on participating in order to maintain a good performance curve ?
Your loads of positions would be all set to breakeven though..after the cost of said positions have been accounted for. No need to manage them, IMO.

Quoting VEEFX
I think one has to increase exposure as accountbalance keeps growing which means making more entries.....i guess success does come with a price!!!!!

Any thought provoking ideas on how to address this aspect when we all hopefully find success thru this journey??

EDIT: I guess you could increase lot size to reduce trading hours
You shouldn't be increasing exposure over time. That would mean increasing the chance to drain your acct (unrealized profit). Starting out with an increased exposure over different pairs would make more sense.
  • #4,853
  • Aug 30, 2011 10:30am Aug 30, 2011 10:30am
Quoting tic
Hi Vee,
Re: lagging indicators and a piggy back –
My point is either abstract or insightful, I’ll leave this for each person to decide…

… You know when you see a flock of birds turning in mid flight with what appears to be complete synchronicity? …
Insightful for me! Thanks tic for that contribution.

Alan
  • #4,854
  • Sep 3, 2011 5:05am Sep 3, 2011 5:05am
Quoting pipEASY
This thread was initially started with intention of only 5-7 pages but now its coming towards 50 pages.

I understand readers are here to learn but I admit I cannot teach 'effectively' in a forum environment.

What I am planning to do is compile a very concise reading material with great planning.

Please allow 1-2 months.

[color=purple]I hope this reading material that I compile will help a jogger to run and then to fly. It will have an open ending so everyone's input can be added into it with updates. More...
Hi Greame & Senior Traders
Pls. advise if the link to the said reading material is ready?
English is not my main language so I am slow but patience enough to read Greame's inputs here.
Thank you for your pointers and wisdoms, Greame.
Cheers
  • #4,855
  • Sep 3, 2011 2:23pm Sep 3, 2011 2:23pm
Quoting greencap51
Graeme and all contributors to this thread

Thank you for all your input and help.

I have just finished reading the thread for the third time.

1st effort, off I shot thinking "great idea - this will be easy" - went down in flames.

Re-read, and started doing Graeme's exercises (3X20), but followed to literally, entering without understanding price movement, and then thought "I cant trade on 5 minutes so I can never make this work". So went off to other threads to find the perfect 5 minute entry method that would complement Millipeeding...
Thanks for this post. It was great to go review those 2 posts from Graeme - it really put things back into perspetive for me.

Cheers..
  • #4,856
  • Sep 5, 2011 4:21am Sep 5, 2011 4:21am
Pipeasy quoted in post 4379
Quote
Just by following a very very simple rule,

"buy when price closes above the open price of previous down candle"
"sell when price closes below the open price of previous up candle"

Please can someone confirm whether my understanding on this entry method is correct.

I assume (for a buy signal) that the next up candle that beaches the previous open of a down candle, does not have to be the very next candle after that last down candle, but can in fact be several candles later - please refer to the chart shown.

I think this is correct, but would really appreciate if someone can say I am on the right lines.

Thanks again.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: eur usd 1 hour.gif Size: 23 KB
  • #4,857
  • Sep 5, 2011 6:42am Sep 5, 2011 6:42am
Quoting greencap51
Pipeasy quoted in post 4379

Please can someone confirm whether my understanding on this entry method is correct.

I assume (for a buy signal) that the next up candle that beaches the previous open of a down candle, does not have to be the very next candle after that last down candle, but can in fact be several candles later - please refer to the chart shown.

I think this is correct, but would really appreciate if someone can say I am on the right lines.

Thanks again.
Hi,
Yes, your understanding is correct. The fact of breach is what matters, not how many candles it took for the breach to happen.

But in your pic buy setup was not what is called "perfect" setup. That long entry would work in your pic, but in many other examples such PA would invite price falling back again.

In my opinion, perfect setup would be a number (4+) of narrow down bars, which were considerably breached with single up bar from the very first attempt.
  • #4,858
  • Sep 5, 2011 8:16am Sep 5, 2011 8:16am
AlexanderSV - thanks for that confirmation.

Cheers
  • #4,859
  • Sep 5, 2011 10:24am Sep 5, 2011 10:24am
Quoting cameron1st
Hi Vee,

Because what you were doing on the 4h charts was not working, you appear to be in a state of confusion, and the way to overcome this is to write down some rules for your entries, basically what you would like to see before entering (could be something like "If I see a pinbar on the 4h chart, I would zoom in the 5m chart and observe the retracement to see if there is potential for an entry"). Trying to enter based only on what the gut tells you is not going to work consistently, best to have some logic behind what you are doing. I'm...
Thanks Cam. Good idea about writing down rules. Regarding stacking, I was indeed trying to mesh stacking with some of my old 'habits' which make me a killing when I get it right. I think, I am slowing realizing the benefit and importance of aggressive risk management by keeping only one position exposed to market gyrations before opening another one. I am also deep into 3x20TP and plan to complete my 6-month graduation this time. There is a whole LOT to be uncovered with 3x20 than it appears on the surface.

As I have said repeatedly in the past, consistency and smooth equity curve are my primary goals to gain out of this thread. Achieving smooth curve through diversification is pretty straightforward and is more of an art than science. It's the consistency that I have a long way to go and feel 3x30TP is my ticket to get there. Thanks again for your insights.
Staying in my lane...
  • #4,860
  • Sep 9, 2011 11:02am Sep 9, 2011 11:02am
Quoting chonghm
Hello Graeme,

Here's my homework. For a volatile pair like gpb/jpy I will use breakout near the .000 level. From your chart I have 8 short and 7 long. If stop loss at the .000 mark all the shorts are still alive. 5 longs stopped out and 2 long still surviving.
Total pips for short 4,394 less approx 500 pips stopped out equals to 3,894. This excludes the floating profit of 200 pips from long which is still alive.
For diversification I would probably clear s7,s8,b6 and b7 if the price breach 142.
For your comments "Sifu"
Thank you once again.
chonghm...
Your method is excellent, simple

Great

Thank you
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