Nexas's Intraday Range Bar Trading

Graphic evidence why it's better to just read the charts and not try to predict the future (see my earlier post). Oh well.

Just curious, did anyone short the eur/usd @ 1.3090 with an approximate 40 pip target tp and 35 pip target SL?

I did hours back and am still in it. this was according to the 8 pip range although I'm sure even higher pip range bar charts would show the same trade...

I got in this EURUSD 24 pip RB trade this morning. Up 50 pips, planning to exit 5 pips short of support. If this were live, would have exited long ago. I entered shortly after the break of the trendline instead of waiting for candle close.

haha.... well, i must say that a 24 pip range bar does clear up the noise big time in this scenario... you would been able to catch the whole wave going down...

is there a reason why you are using a 24 pip range bar?

Nexas - would you say using as you suggested, 50 pip range bars, or basically anything bigger (like 40 pip range or 30 pip range, etc.) would have a greater than 7/10 strike rate? or would you say long term results would be unknown.

I am setting up profiles with 8,12,18,24,36 ranges. Picking trades with the cleanest look with my price channel. Also looking for trades with bounce off S/R. Problem with MT4 is it takes time to build up many candles with the larger range bars. Anybody know how to speed up the process of building up range bars?

I'm just experimenting with range bars now. If I decide to make the switch, will probably use other charting like Ninja.

smart, i've been thinking of doing that, cuz as i mentioned, i don't really have much time to trade typically. last week has been an exception.

but gotta tell you one thing brother, mt4, it's the bomb when it comes to charting. problem is the brokers. so unless your doing this for fun, mt4 will definately be a problem when you put in the big dollars.

there are constantly these 20+ million bid and asks appearing on my platform. I was close to peeing in my pants when i attempted just one 1 million trade (10 full lots, 100usd 1 pip). if you are profitable, and on an mt4 broker..... i doubt it's going to be pretty. so you might as well start with a broker that will make it happen for you long term, were you to succeed.

I must say, mt4 is definately the bomb for charting. easy to use, free. problem is that it's also easy for the broker to manipulate it. news, blah blah blah blah. there's always some excuse from the broker, once a customer starts injecting bigger dollars into a broker who in turn controls the mt4 software which that customer is using.

Hi Scjohn,

Yes with seeper retracements I usually wait until price reaches the previous high or low before I use that strategy. But sometimes it can be completely discretionary.

Shallow for me is a negative r:r.

If you wanted to test a different exit technique... you could look at using a 10EMA and exiting on a close the wrong side of it... I have played with this a little, but over time dollar wise it seems to be really quite positive.

Let me know what you think.

Nexas

nexas,

in the past, did you ever try trading your method, but using normal time bars?

edit: i mean the reason i ask is, in my opinion, any trendline break strategy using time bars would not work without having a very good understanding of s&r, and indicators, although lagging, would be necessary at least to watch the pointing direction of a CCI or MACD. but it's real hard for newbies to learn that stuff quickly. even if they could, they would lack the experience necessary to juggle so many decisions quickly (like myself). As a result, if you just go in on trendline break (worried you'll miss the move), all the pro's would be sitting on the sideline waiting to see what would happen after that.... price would probably hook for the times that the break's were real. That hooking action would take out the newbies (like myself) out of fear or uncertainty, whereas the pro's haven't even entered yet.

In my opinion, with range bars, we would have entries which we cannot see using TF bars, our entry would probably be somewhere after a newbie has gotten in and before a pro would. This is what I was thinking this morning. Not sure if you think what I am saying is correct or wrong or anything to add.

Have you tried without any ema's? since range bars basically show financial support... support...support, then the other way. I know taking directionless trendline breaks using Time bars would be stupid since it's just random, but with range bars, it's always about real money support followed by a fade, so would it make sense that even if a trade is going against the ema's, but, hey, if there is support in one direction on price followed by a fade, heck, just go for it. perhaps I'm missing something though, and just talking rubbish.

Thanks.

I assume you mean less reward than risk.

Do you take trading costs into account when calculating r:r? For example, on the 4 pip chart, the average risk is about 6.6 pips. 4 pips for the bar, 1 for the one back, 1.2 for spread and commission, and about .3 to .5 to actually get the trend break.

So, in my world, reward (distance to the swing hilo) would have to be almost 7 pips to get to a 1:1 r:r on the 4 pip chart.

Hi Scjohn,

Yes correct. I like to have a positive risk reward including the spread and the 1 pip behind the high or low.

Hence the reason I like more than a 4 bar pullback :-)

Nexas

hi nexas,

I want to get your opinion on this: your tp exit point, for many systems, is the entry point. in an example of long trades, a lot of traders like to see the price go long, retrace and then go 1 or 2 pips above the previous high point (i.e. price making a higher high) before getting in.

based on the way you trade, you'd be getting out with profit right around the time others are getting in on the exact same direction.

can you educate me on this? thank you!

and btw, last night was very good. i am unable to trade the 4 pip range. not enough risk to reward, and still too choppy for me. took a long trade on the 8 pip range not too long after usa open which would have offered 1:1 risk to reward, but I just pulled the tp line further up on the ATM on ninja trader to 1:5:1

one last question nexas, on the 4 pip range, you know how when you draw a trend line, and a current bar breaks it... then the current bar goes back below the trend line, and then the next price bar comes out below the trend line too... for me I will now redraw the trendline and extent it further... do you do the same? or do you not care and once price breaks and as long as risk to reward ratio is good, you will go in at the open of the bar? or do not even wait for the open of the next bar? i.e. once price breaks the trendline, you don't even wait for the next bar to open, you are in immediately? thanks!

I was looking at a band like you are using just today. I was going to try a 13 SMA set at high and low with the 100 SMA on a 5 range bar chart. What are you using in your chart?

I've been using 5 Smoothed High/Low with 8 Smoothed Close Shift 5 ( the teeth of Bill William's Alligator). I've been using that for another strategy with time based charts, just trying it out with range bars.

Well, things have certainly tailed off at the thread. I was a bit surprised as I've been happily trading my filtered version of the setup and making quite a few pips. Why would people making money lose interest? Then, I finally got around to updating my trade journal and the answer became apparent -- money was not being made consistently (or probably not at all). Yes, there have been some wild days when all was golden, but the overall results of the unfiltered setup have not been good.

I've been doing a lot of travel and very little trading in the last few weeks but I did get my journal up to date from Feb 9 (when I started trading my filtered Nexas trades on the 4 pip with an 8 pip guide) through Feb 27. This period includes a statistically significant number of Nexas triggers (100). In all cases the EMA's on both the 4 pip and 8 pip lined up. I used the entry and exit criteria I recently clarified with Nexas. I keep the journal on Excel which allows me to do quite a bit of analysis and even "what if" playing. I capture all triggers in the journal whether they were taken or not, so the results carry a mix of both actual (I was sitting at the computer and decided to take or not take) and "hypothetical" trades (based on reading the charts).

Here are the results of unfiltered Nexas.



Essentially breakeven over 100 trades, although with 4 winning days and one very big winner. I've had problems with multiple pictures on one post, so I'll show the filtered results on another post.

Here are the results obtained by application of a few simple filters.



As you can see, the difference is rather dramatic. About half the triggers get filtered out and the results are rather nice. If you've been following the thread for a while, you know I've been an advocate of filtering trades and have posted multiple examples.

It's late here now and perhaps no one is really interested so I'll stop here. If anyone would like to discuss the filters, let me know.

SCJOHN.....I'm aware of you using the momentum indicator as a filter. Are there other filters, other than moving averages which Nexas uses, that you are using to filter out trades. I'm talking about indicators which might be in most charting programs. Also, am I correct in assuming these results were generated over a little more than two weeks. Keep on posting.

I have only just recently come across this thread and am very interested in the intraday range bar system. Thank you Nexus and all the others who have been able to contribute.

SCJohn, I would be interested in you discussing the filters you have used. I assume you have been using non proprietary methods to filter the trades you have summarised.

I have worked through your examples of using the momentum indicator as a filter (you have explained it clearly), however I have to say that I am finding it a little difficult to actually apply the techiques. Anyway I look forward to you discussing your filters further.

David

Hi,
very nice job Scjohn.
Sure there is un interest in your filtering.
personally, in addition to Momentum, I try also the Stochastics, and still looking for for an improvement.
Keep on posting.
Nice day everybody.

Hi Scjohn,

Thank you for your update and indeed please talk more about the filters used in your results if it improves the bottom line by the magnitude you speak of!

With regards to myself, I have been doing fine but I haven't been as active. This week I haven't even looked at a chart as I have had a lot of money put on ice for the moment. I had a large account with WorldSpreads who have just gone under, so I am just sort of dealing with the fall out of that at the moment.

But I will be back in the saddle perhaps next week once my mind is little clearer.

But again improvements like the ones you have spoken about are always welcome.

Nexas

The journal covers 13 days of trading from September 9 (when I moved my thrust trades over to the 4 and 8 pip range charts from the 7 pip range chart using the 10 minute chart as the guide. My thrust setup produces many more pips on the 4 and 8 vs. the old way.

It includes all the triggers that I saw. Obviously trend line breaks can be subject to interpretation but I feel very good about the data (about 70% of which is actual vs hypothetical).

In an earlier post I talked about struggling with using proprietary vs. freebee indicators. The problem is simple. I get FAR better results using the proprietary information and indicators (which can be had for the enormous sum of 495 bucks from Barry Burns) than I can with freebees.

To ask me to not use the proprietary stuff is like asking a carpenter who has a nail gun, a fine assortment of power saws, and laser levels in his truck, to build a house using a claw hammer, a hand saw, and a plumb bob.

It's not even close. Let's look at my three major setups over those same 13 trading days (again about 70% actual and 30% hypothetical -- still too lazy to consistently get up early to trade London).

Without the proprietary information and indicators I got from Barry Burns, much less than a third of it would be possible. All the setups I actually trade use the proprietary stuff.

Almost 8 am. Time to trade. Will post more later.