Extracted Thread (per thread starter's request)

Greentruck,

Four things...:

1) When the good guys refuse to post, it only leaves the bad guys. You should have posted.

2) I do not use the thread indi. The indi I use is privately coded with my own custom algorithms, so my boxes are not always the same as yours. FWIW, my indi is just much more selective, which keeps me from over trading like I was reminding Fractal a couple of pages back.

3) Yes, the EMA filter can repaint as you switch around your charts. There's no way around this; this is a permanent feature of using a moving average. If you don't like this, then you can either change to Bar Close, or use Bar Close and EMA together. If you still want to use it, then forward test with a larger value and see if that helps. Trades will take longer to open with EMA5 than EMA3, for example, giving a little more time for Price to pick a direction.

4) Losses are part of the game. You MUST lose some trades, or else the world would run out of money just paying you off. And where would that leave the rest of us? SSBO is for short term trades, but it is meant for long term traders. If your winners over the course of a calendar year bring in 20,000p... and your losers take back 13,000p... then you are still ahead 7,000p. So stop losing sleep over the -13,000 and focus instead on your yearly profits.

Finally, for someone that has read the thread 4 times, your questions are very noobish. Because they have already been answered several times. So either you are lying, or you don't retain information very well. For the sake of argument I will give you the benefit of the doubt. But before you go in for #5, you need to start your diary. Because what you need isn't more reading, it's more knowing. And a trading diary will give you that. Good luck!

EDIT: It looks like I'm talking to myself, but I'm not - honest! LOL Greentruck just deleted all 3 of his posts that I was responding to. I could go ahead and delete it as well, but it has some general info that others might find helpful, so I'll leave it up.

Tight CZ building on the E/U...

Nice breakout for GBPUSD.

You got it!

Looks like you also fixed your uploading issues. Keep posting those pics!

Euro came home too while I was sleeping. Nice stuff to wake up to!

A CZ in the offing for the cable? Let's see.

Breakout for EURUSD cz?

Yes, indeed, I got it right now. Thanks for your encouragement. Cable does it again today.

Looking good! Price was consolidating a little on it's way back to the CZ from Monday. A Cable CZ of less than 20p is usually a good thing. I find those revenge arcs to be very, very interesting.

Here's a pic of my Cable chart. Notice that my indi did not pick out that same CZ. There's nothing wrong about your indi picking it out or anything, but it's a prime example of how selective I am, and how I've designed my CZ filtering algos to keep me from over trading. I'd rather be out wishing I was in, than in wishing I was out, etc.

BLAMMO!!! 125p straight down.

I'll give 10,000 to the charity of choice of any FF member who can prove to me they used the news or so-called fundamentals to predict this move within the last 24hrs, and actually risked equity on it. That goes for FF staff as well.

I won't be holding my breath waiting....

Thank you. Very good tip. Amazing break for EUR as well - a twin performance of the cable !

Cable breakout?

EUR breakout nicely.

nice win. i have my e/u settings a bit tighter so i didnt qualify that as a cz. how about FH, did you trade that or not?

how did that g/u work out for ya? did you trade it?

FH said that he dreams of 20 bars under 10 pips czs. does this count FH? i only know to qualify czs by pa so here it is. is it cocky to say i am about to exploit this cz?

Cable yes, Euro no.

And literally just this minute I have CZ's popping up on both, which is kind of amazing even for me considering how my indi is coded. The fun part now is waiting to see which one will hit TP first, and if any of them will hit QTP. Pips will be made tonight!...

Breakout for Cable?

e/u was bumpy but it got there. i scored easy on u/j though.

FH, since you brought up filtering your czs, heres been my journey:

ever since you taught us to identify cz's with x number of bars and x pip height, i have been searching for a way to filter them or filter setups. i was trying to come up with simple and effective way based on pa that i could easily know which czs will have the highest possibility of winning.

at first i tried to just pick the longest ones czs out there but then they happen so rarely that the results are the same as some of the shorter ones. at some point, i feel like you get over the length bubble and when they get past a certain length in bars, it doesnt qualify it anymore than a shorter cz of length.

then i tried thinking that i need a solid support and resistance line on the top and bottom. some czs might qualify with x number of bars and pip height, but it only has a single high or low or it just doesnt look like a nice rectangle when you take the box off. so i tried only picking ones that have solid tops and bottoms where you can connect common lows and highs with a nice horizontal line. this made a bit more sense to me and also why i like to draw the boxes by hand.

i have found that czs inside larger recent czs tend lose on the first couple breakouts because it seems to bounce back and forth off recent old highs and lows. also czs that form on the same price line as recent czs so that their extended boxes are touching. i found that i had most success when the charts are trending which led me to the next idea.

then i had the idea of the setup and exit. i found that if a nice looking cz with all the qualifier we like, setups from one direction and continues to breakout in the same direction, i found these to be more successful on the first breakout to that direction. to me this also goes with the title of your teaching: stair steps breakout. so in this type of filtering, you wait for a cz to stair step up from the last cz, then only trade it when it breakouts towards the direction that would hopefully make another step. in the end, you would be taking the trade that enters into clean air (no recent high or low to bounce off of). but getting this clean air doesnt seem to happen as the pa loves to dance all around before a new cz leaving recent highs and lows behind it.

i also played with the ave bo. you said that this was one of the main things you look at for research with the indi when looking at your settings. so for example, if the indi said that it averaged long breakouts at 70 pips but short breakouts were only 40 pips, then i thought, maybe i should just trade the next cz to the north.

in the end, i felt like i was just trying to predict the market and force an idea on the charts so i gave up thinking about it since i havent slept much in the past year trying to think about it.

i imagine you went through the same kind of headaches too FH. is my thinking in tune on any of these ideas or i am just pissing in the wind, lol?

If I answer, are you just going to delete your post again?

The short answer is yes, you are wasting your time. You are now practicing a blend of curve fitting and market prognosis, none of which can be shown to work. Put another way, you are still trying to outsmart the market. The correct way is, once a CZ is formed, that's it for the thinking, worrying, and filtering. Get this now, or stop trading and take up another hobby before you hurt yourself: No one on the retail level knows, and no one can ever know, what PA will do next. Period, end of story. Anyone who says different is either lying, stupid, or is trying to sell you something. The absolute most you can 'know' and exploit to your advantage, is what SSBO already provides to it's users: Wait for the pause, then follow Price where ever it leads. Just like it says in the first post. Which boils down to this one question: "What do you consider a qualified CZ to be?" And then my question to everyone after that is, "Can you now turn of your critical thinking and simply follow Price out of the CZ?" These questions are easy to ask, but they take time to answer. In my estimation, between 100 and 200 days. This is also where the trading diary comes in.

So stop spinning your wheels. It doesn't help you, and it gets under my skin. It's all been dealt with before. Nothing you ever think or say will be new, it just seems new to you. It's time you get the diary going, and time to start answering these questions for yourself. When you come in here, I want to see the questions and answers together, not just the questions. Tell me what you have found, not just what you are searching for. Show me growth and the confidence that comes from experience, not just how to flail around and beg for scraps.

There are NO shortcuts, there are NO secret filters, and there are NO special indicators. It's just you and your diary and the next 200 days. Enjoy!

i apologize. you must of not seen my post. i left it there for a day and said i would delete it as i think it just was waisting space. i will explain what again what i said in that deleted post. you mentioned that my question about entries disappearing was a noobish one and then wondered if i had indeed read the thread. you called it repainting. yes you are right. that is a noob question. once i realized that what i was talking about was called "repainting", i remember all the post about it. i have read this thread many of times and when the term repainting came up, i knew it had something to do with the indi. i was busy drawing manual boxes so i didnt pay attention to it. so yeah, i feel like a dummy for asking that question. and my instinct was right about it to, i just wanted to know if my instinct was right and you gave that answer to me. thank you.

thanks for answering my recent question. again i stated that my instinct was that all my thinking about flitering was a waiste of time. i was correct and thanks for validating my thoughts. i figured you had been through the same puzzling questions when you first started years ago so you would relate is all. its hard to think about these things by yourself and everyone else seems to just be a bad influence.

as far as a diary goes, i know i am noob but noobs can keep diarys too. i have one that is going on 2 years now, lol. many note books of hand written notes and many word docs with pics and notes of every trade, etc....and your right, the diary is so awesome because i can look back a year ago at all my questions to my self that i put in the diary and now i can answer them. and i know what you are thinking, "man you are a noob now, what questions did you have back then? lol." i know its crazy. i also look back and think, i am so stupid for doing that, lol. and you should see my wall. i have post printed out from you that have posted. just like this last one, i will print it too.

i really like what you just wrote above. and just like in your last response. you said, "concentrate on what you know". i had made the same statement with myself after being sidetracked others and trading a different system. it was hard to see them be successful and not jump in. and we were all successful, for a few months. then it was over, lol.

at the end of the day i ask myself, what do i know? the ONLY thing i know that when there is a cz, the pa will not stay there forever. end of story.

does that work for a question and answer for ya, lol?

all i can say is thanks. everything you say hits home and its so obvious. i am my own worst enemy.

thanks to you i am up 2% this week. so i cant say thanks enough.

I keep lurking around - thought I would add a little concept since greentuck is talking about filters - one of my filters is the failed cz. My notes helped me on this one. I don't remember this being talked about in the thread if it has, what the heck its a good reminder if it hasn't, I came up with something new. If its new then I am expecting a laugh from FX if it has been covered in the thread then you can roast me to your hearts content because it falls under the category of new to me.