International markets traders banter

[Trembling Hand]

What are your thoughts TH? ...

Sounds and looks reasonable but thats just the way of a bull market. Bears get slaughtered. Nothing new about that. 'Smart money' F-up just as often as 'Dumb money'.

Must be time for this one...

 

[barney]

Sounds and looks reasonable but thats just the way of a bull market. Bears get slaughtered. Nothing new about that. 'Smart money' F-up just as often as 'Dumb money'.

Must be time for this one...

Lol .......

Interesting that while the DOW holds firm the FTSE has taken a bit of a bath so far tonight relatively speaking yet the Pound is the currency of "choice" ..

I guess mean regression will set in and the FTSE will likely rebound 30 ticks after the US open and the pound will resume its downtrend into next week .... Who knows

 

[barney]

I guess mean regression will set in and the FTSE will likely rebound 30 ticks after the US open and the pound will resume its downtrend into next week

Nice 3 day "Mirror" pattern repeat on the FTSE last night ...

The Open to Open on Tuesday/Thursday was near enough to a 1% total move ..... and last nights 40 point move down was almost exactly to the 3 day 50% level ...... be worth testing some of this stuff ... if I knew how

 

[kid hustlr]

Interested KH ... re the change part. Are you meaning simply a change re your approach to your rules/entries etc as you mentioned above or are you looking to trading different instruments/different strategies to previously? Cheers.

Just approach barney - a little more rigid with my set ups and also defining them better. less reliant on how i good i think the trade is at the time and more reliant as to whether this set up meets my criteria

 

[barney]

Just approach barney - a little more rigid with my set ups and also defining them better. less reliant on how i good i think the trade is at the time and more reliant as to whether this set up meets my criteria

Ok Thanks Kid.

Just thinking about 'rigidity' in relation to trading, its an interesting thing. If it comes from being dogmatic and stubborn its basically useless, but what you have found is rigidity borne out of experience creates strength and calmness ..... Makes total sense!

 

[kid hustlr]

Ok Thanks Kid.

Just thinking about 'rigidity' in relation to trading, its an interesting thing. If it comes from being dogmatic and stubborn its basically useless, but what you have found is rigidity borne out of experience creates strength and calmness ..... Makes total sense!

Yeah it's a fine line and all trading is a ridiculous mind f*** at the best of times. Myself personally I find my trading is greatly influenced by my mood - if im feel frisky i'll be very active and look for excuses to get in, heck even on friday my stats say I trade more. Compare that to when I'm uncertain of myself and I can pretty much always find an excuse to not take a trade - or even worse get out early.

By having a better defined plan i just read the map and execute, none of this crap about how I'm feeling, is the market super bullish, or just a bit bullish or maybe somewhere in between, i needed to define things better.

Last night as an example the FTSE has been in this painful choppy uptrend of late, the old me would have said 'ok look for bullish entries but be weary of market conditions'. The new me says 'it's crap conditions, unless you get criteria a, b, c, d then don't trade it. But by the way if you do get those criteria then you have to take it'

It's subtle but for me its a key change and it also lets me outline where I'm going wrong vs where I'm not. In the past I couldn't really measure what I was doing wrong, now I'm finding it easier to outline if it's my execution, my pre market planning/trade ideas or my overall context & understanding which could be leading to problems.


I'd be interested to know how the likes of T/H who have been around forever approach things, my feel is the more natural you are at this and the better you are at managing risk/emotion the more you can afford to play the hand as it comes, whereas those earlier in the beginner cycle should know how they are going to play the hand before it's dealt, even if most of the time that means folding.

 

[barney]

Kid/TH other futs traders .... Only ever tried futs in a gambling fashion so keen to give it another try if I can find something that makes sense. Currently just bouncing around ideas to confuse myself, but I wonder if any useful patterns might emerge when back testing a large amount of data on the kind of stuff like the chart below. Its a simple box overlay of weekly percentage ranges on the FTSE since Xmas so nothing special, but I wonder about the kind of questions that might be answered by knowing more about a larger amount of data?

for eg ... "Week A" has a high range uptrend finishes near highs. The following Monday initially rises but then closes near its lows ... is this more likely to be a reversal than a follow on week?

Or, after the high range week, Monday is flattish but forms a double bottom on Tuesday and rises into the Tuesday close ... probability that Wednesday will trend higher? .. etc etc Lots of other questions!

Is this the kind of research you guys would recommend pursuing at this stage? Cheers.

 

[barney]

Yeah it's a fine line and all trading is a ridiculous mind f*** at the best of times.

Gotta head out in a minute but thanks for the detailed post KH .... Will digest it later tonight after a customary Friday beverage! Cheers

 

[Trembling Hand]

Or, after the high range week, Monday is flattish but forms a double bottom on Tuesday and rises into the Tuesday close ... probability that Wednesday will trend higher? .. etc etc Lots of other questions!

You can do this kind of stuff in excel pretty easily. Only trouble is as you get more specific with the setup the less it happens, so lower amount of signals therefor you cannot have confidence in the stats holding up next time it shows up.

 

[Trembling Hand]

LOL at the DAX hey!!

 

[barney]

You can do this kind of stuff in excel pretty easily. Only trouble is as you get more specific with the setup the less it happens, so lower amount of signals therefor you cannot have confidence in the stats holding up next time it shows up.

OK Thanks TH, I remember you were saying something like that a couple of weeks back ...... you found a 90+%? success rate on a trade that basically never triggered!


There has to be some merit in the concept of having a rough ides whether the market usually does A or does B when it has did C the week before though doesn't there? .....

I'm not looking for anything definitive (Im not that regimented!) ... for eg. even on that tiny 7 week sample there are questions which could be asked/answered for the short term. Simple things like after a large % move the next week is generally a lot smaller range even if in the same direction, and the large range up move (top) was followed by an equally large range retracement. Not rocket science of course but if the Instrument being traded has a history, it could be useful knowledge perhaps? (That knowledge might be more useful in keeping you out of bad trading decisions maybe)

Anyway, just babbling on at the moment .... Spec trading has been good to me recently .... for a start I'd be happy to trade Index futs and just break even! lol

 

[fiftyeight]

Dax started Friday drinks early today

 

[barney]

my feel is the more natural you are at this and the better you are at managing risk/emotion the more you can afford to play the hand as it comes,

whereas those earlier in the beginner cycle should know how they are going to play the hand before it's dealt, even if most of the time that means folding.

Great post Kid and really interesting last paragraph.

To paraphrase your whole post into a nut shell ..... "experience" is the key!

You may be a part time Buddhist you realize ...... Two of the keys to enlightenment ..... Wisdom and Simplification

 

[Trembling Hand]

Geez very bullish start to the week in DAX land..... must be the top

 

[barney]

Geez very bullish start to the week in DAX land..... must be the top

Novice boy here ... but short both the SPI and the DOW ..... Scaling in with a swing trade on both ... if wrong will wear it on the chin!!

 

[barney]

Novice boy here ... but short both the SPI and the DOW ..... Scaling in with a swing trade on both ... if wrong will wear it on the chin!!

Closed all that at break "evenish" ..... looking for more shorts on next high if it looks sensible lol ...

 

[skc]

Closed all that at break "evenish" ..... looking for more shorts on next high if it looks sensible lol ...

Why not just long to the next high?!?!

 

[barney]

Why not just long to the next high?!?!

Recent tops on the DOW just haven't felt natural SKC and breakouts into higher highs make me suspicious at the best of times .....

Only scaling into shorts so just having an each way punt at the moment and shorting higher highs is where I seem to lose the least from past experience

 

[Trembling Hand]

Gee Barn hope you weren't short the DAX

...

Good old fashion stop sweep..... welcome back..... !!

 

[barney]

Gee Barn hope you weren't short the
Good old fashion stop sweep..... welcome back..... !!

LOL .... Nah mate .... I ducked at the right time tonight ..... its still going too!!