james16 Chart Thread

hello there guys i just have a question about platform. im currently using mt4 right now, how can i view a TF showing how many minutes or hours left before a bar closes?

thanks in advance.

Hi magbabakal,
you need indicator for that. Try this one.
http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...73#post4827173

Mav

thank you Mav, ill try that.


Mav,how can i make it work? i already put that file inside experts folder>indicator folders. it doesn't show in my MT4.

did i do it right?

Hi, sorry to hear that. I tried that indicator myself before posting it and it worked just fine. I assume that you closed your platform before copying indicator into the folder, also the indicator won´t start by itself (you must start it in menu it should be under custom indicators).
Well, I found another one (again tried this one by myself and should work).

Mav

Its working now Mav, I didn't know that i have to close the platform. Btw can we change that minute into hours or days, when using Daily or weekly TF?

thanks again Mav.

I´m really glad it´s working now.
No, this indicator works only with minutes and seconds.

Mav

Hey Hiten

You got a nice response from ghous that does sum up a lot of my thoughts. First off it just takes times period. No way around that. Your trading evolves without you knowing it as well since we get so caught up in it. I will say those charts were when I was a much more aggressive with PA then I am now. As I have grown I have wanted and realized the strength even more of being picky and thus resulting in a much smoother equity curve for me.

When trading any situation for me it comes down to the story and then judging what I believe are trouble areas and strength of those trouble areas as well as then how to approach my trade itself. I determine things like what do I want to do at this point, where should my stop go, where should I take profit. All of this is based on the particular trade itself as opposed to a flat out rule.

I don't find managing trades these days more difficult then finding trades. In fact I think most people can find trades too but they refuse to be picky enough and wait for the good ones. Even I needed to learn the strength when an account grows how important being picky is. My trades per month are probably nearly half of what they were when those charts were posted years ago.

One thing I did was track all things like FTA, trailing stops, fixed take profits etc. I did this for all my trades all the time for a long time. Back in the day I was more likely to let things play out. I had a much more up and down equity curve. I would catch larger winners but also take larger losses(or more full bar losses). Now I sort of swing where I have more wins, smaller wins, smaller losses and constantly look to manage that risk.

I judge the strength of a FTA simply based on my feel for that situation. It's not always the perfect ideal thing but it's always logical. Mostly what happens is people take poor entries and they know the FTA and do nothing at the FTA. I like to sway where I take stronger setups and use that FTA to make a new decision. Sometimes that's to get out, many times it's just to reduce my risk and watch price reaction.

You have to find what your comfort zone is. Some people will trade like james and get to b/e take some profit quick. Some will be much more relaxed and look for larger targets, and many will fall somewhere in between.

The more picky you are with your entries though the easier trade mgmt and more clear it usually is though in my experience at this point in my trading


attached is a trade I am looking to take. I have no idea how it will work out but I know the thought process I am taking with this trade. See if you can determine how you would play it. Remember what you might think doesn't make your right or wrong. That's why we demo. I just know what works for me in the long run and this trade is just another one to add to that. Some of the exiting stuff is just a bit more in depth since you have a lot of concepts and factors at play. That's why often you see me just stressing in this tread about looking for big bars at clear swing points. It's an easy stepping stone to get ones feet properly planted.

Hope that helps
Mike

Hey Mike,

what I've done is made a few scribbles on your chart to show you how I see it. How would I play this? well as soon as I saw the setup I hesitated so already I know I'm not 100% confident. I would enter on the break of the pinbar because I would want price to break past the first horizontal line I've drawn as that was a resistance point in the past. My stop placement is what I'm struggling with. I would probably place it at the end of the pinbar to feel safer, but I know the pin broke past an upward trendline, and also occurred in a consolidation box and so the trendline and consolidation lows could provide resistance if price did go back up. This way I could have a smaller stop, but like I said, I would feel safer with a larger stop at the end of the bar. Now if price got to the FTA I would probably close one position for profit and move the other to b/e while trailing stop. If price started going up before it hit the FTA? I would probably see how it closed. If it closed above the consolidation bar lows and trendline, I would probably get out for a reduced loss.

Hey M

Yep be careful here. This bar doesn't have a great nose protruding away from previous price. Notice the low is only slightly lower and a smaller bar. We have decent trouble just above us that can't be ignored

Here was my chart

Best
Mike

Hello I am hoping someone can assist me with the EMA's. I am really new to James 16 and need to know how to get the 150 and 356 EMA on my chart.
Could you let me know please thank you

Hey Pip

Welcome to the thread

To place an EMA on your chart in MT4 go to Insert, then indicators, then trend, then select Moving average. There you can input the number and make it exponential under the drop down menu

If you have trouble let me know
Mike

Thank you Mike

Yesterday after some thinking I skipped the trade for the reasons you also mentioned.

Trend continuation?

On usdcad there was an engulfing with EMA 365 confluence some minutes ago.

I skipped the trade because I found the engulfing bar too small to open a trade generally, especially on H4.
However the confluence is indisputable.

Any agree/disagree opinions guys?

Hi Ghous,

Thanks a lot for your reply, I really appreciate.

You raised quite a lot of interesting points. Took me some time to think about it

Well, in all honesty, I used to think in terms of weekly / daily / whatever returns, until I realized the effect it had - freezing. Then I changed "profit in $" for "profit in points". It helped a bit... but I couldn't help looking at the equity then

I really do not give a damn if I make 30% a year. I am well aware that a 1% a month with 2 months off translate in 10% something yearly - which is SO far from any sort of regular bank return. I would say I behave the way a "family father" would do, just like driving. Safety first

In this regard, I do consider waiting as part of the game. My regular job is R&D manager for pharmaceutical firms. I am used to the trial and error process, as well as waiting for and being absolutely certain that all the best conditions are met for the experiments to work as expected.
I also totally agree with your "paradox" thing. I know that, if I need my experiment to work then it certainly wont. While if I anticipate everything I need for this experiment to work, then I know I don't have to feel stress or anxiety, because either it works and that's fine, or it doesn't and that's fine too, it just means the working hypothesis, the first question, wasn't the good one. But usually it will give the expected results

Yet, I guess the "safety first" is where I get stuck.
This made me thinking pretty hard.
I knew I had an issue with statistics, and I guess this is where I don't apprehend the whole picture.
My "safety first" makes me focus on not losing this trade. By doing so, I forget the simple fact that "there is a random distribution between winners and losers" as nicely said in whatever trading book it was...

I have no problem with cutting a losing trade way before the SL is hit., even after a bunch of losing trades. Sort of James's and Jarroo's way: If it goes say -30 pips then it doesn't break hard so it's not the best trade, so I'd better be out. And I even don't look back to see what profit (or loss!) I could have made. I only check the trades I've taken at the end of each month to address better entries / better exits.
But I would take full profit much sooner. You're right...

On the other hand, I would give more room at the exact same trade after a few winning trades. You're absolutely right again!

I guess I have to write down worst / best case scenario for each trade I take, so there is no room for any decision making process during the trade, the same way I do it at the bench. And to consider each trade as really independent from the others - the hardest part of the issue for me, at the moment..

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, and sorry for the looong post. I was just trying to sort out the mess in my brain

You can screw up at trading in two possible ways. Either you are too aggressive or you're too conservative. If you're too aggressive you mess up by over leveraging, over trading and over risking and if you're too conservative you screw up because you can't handle an inevitable element of successful trading - losses.

Both of these schools of thought and mindsets can be worked upon over time and I am glad that you understand that the trial and error process will take some time.

Also good to hear that you realize how trading income can comfortably surpass any other kind of income out there if you can treat it professionally. However the universal constant direct relationship between risk and reward means that in order to make the kind of money through trading that most can only dream of before they get up for their 9-5 corporate slavery session, you've got to be willing to accept a certain degree of risk to achieve it. This normally serves as a good starting point for developing the right mindset for people too fearful in pulling the trigger or holding on to promising trades because they don't want to see the red figures. The second most important thing to understand is that regardless of what you do or how many layers of padding you put on before you step into this game you will still take the hits. Its inevitable and thank God it is that way because what your losses will teach you your winners won't. They will keep you on the ground and time and again help you recall that you don't control the markets and that you gotta watch for you butt.

That said, the James16 material provides us, with adequate knowledge of differentiating between the high potential and the low potential trades. Enough material that you can stack up to develop a trading system for yourself with your own unique rules for risk and reward (which results from the trial and error process i.e lots and lots of practice). Once you have it in place then its all a matter of putting it out there and letting it work out while understanding the basic market dynamics that tend to stimulate emotions the most i.e flat periods, choppy markets or a few losses in a row AND many winners in a row!

Yes its nice to be in a shell that keeps you safe from taking dangerously high levels of risk, but you still need to roam around and flex your muscles in that caged boundary you operate in.

Also what I see a lot of people do in order to mitigate the uncertainty that comes with making decisions on the spot is to go for totally non discretionary set and forget systems where they will place a stop and a TP and want to forget about it till either one hits. Not saying you're doing this but just using your viewpoint of despising discretionary trading as a launch pad. I believe that while its difficult to make decisions on the spot and clearly sounds protective to use a set and forget method, I also believe that the heights of trading efficiency lie with a certain degree of discretion.

Yes you should have entry rules that must not be compromised, but its way better to gauge momentum as the trade goes along rather than make up your mind about what you expect from the trade and take it all or nothing. As Mike tirelessly teaches us, the value of watching price as it bursts through or holds up at trouble areas and basing our trading decisions on this (moving stops, taking partial or full profits or deciding to hold on) is way superior than having to exit at a stone cold level.

Set and forget methods rely primarily on price doing exactly as one expects, discretionary systems are flexible in that they will enable you to keep going with the wind if its strong as well as provide you early warnings when you anticipate the wind to be strong when in effect its not as strong as we think. Because the markets are built around an illusion of randomness its best to be flexible and willing to accept and adapt to market action contrary to our anticipation. Just helps you be more resilient and effective as a trader.

And yes the James16 material covers the knowledge you will need to be an efficient discretionary trader in depth, though that still doesn't mean that mastering discretionary trading is going to be easier than following a strict one dimensional trading plan.

g.

@mbqb11

Mike, do you use any indicators in your trading. I see some people use MAs and MACD? Also do you apply order flow as taught by Darkstar as I came across one of your old threads titled "My Thank You To Darkstar"? I recently bought his book, but I still haven't worked out how to use it in combination with J16 methods.

Thanks
Dan

GBPNZD is good for extra 150 pips broke above consolidation area and ready to go for another level up. am I right? Time will show

I have got a question with regards to the patterns that you speak about in the forum.

The market doesn't care about patterns, it care about price. so why trade that way?

I just try to understand the logic or human psychology behind those patterns, but I failed doing so.

Thanks.

realy cool stock simple as ABC

another one...