The beginning...

[ThingyMajiggy]

Hey readers,

This is my first post to my blog, I don't know if anyone will follow it or not, or even whether I care of not if anyone follows it, I'm just using it as somewhere to jot down my progress and thoughts as I go.

I am currently studying VSA, I have the Tradeguider EOD software, and the educational material that it comes with is fantastic.

I have been studying charts non stop, its addictive once you learn what to look for!

For those that don't know, VSA is Volume Spread Analysis, we are looking for what the 'smart money' is doing, by paying close attention to the spread of the bar, the volume and the close, watching this can reveal what the smart money is doing.

I have noticed some weakness in the FTSE100, what I think is weakness anyway, we can see that the latest bar, is an up bar on less volume than the last 2 days, with a narrow spread and close in the middle, I would expect it to drop to the support line in the trend channel, I would be looking for wide spread down bars with high volume to break it, I will start paying attention when we get close to the bottom channel line.

In the background, I noticed the huge wide spread up on relatively low volume then 2 narrow spread bars that both close in the middle or lower half, surely if the smart money wanted this to go up, it wouldn't have closed in the middle or lower half of the bar.

The only thing is that in the background we have strength, in the up move, in the big picture the main trend is obviously down, so will be interested to see what the next few days/weeks bring. I don't think I would be taking a trade until it was at the demand or supply line of the trend channel.

I am not trading a real account at this stage, I have no interest to until I am confident in applying and a identifying the principles of VSA with sound money and risk management.

So am I more than likely going to be wrong, not that it is about being wrong or right, but this is purely to try and get my skills up in VSA, and to use as something to check back on once I am confident in my abilities.

My aim once I am trading live, is to trade the DAX, S&P500 Emini, mini Dow, SPI200, FTSE etc. Maybe some crude, I am not interested in stocks, especially ASX. This is not to say I won't be checking them out, I will most definitely be paying attention to a few, but mainly for sharpening my skills.

Good trading to all

 

[Sean K]

Good luck Sam, look forward to seeing your progress.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Thanks ken

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Have noticed 2 cases of no demand on ALS and WSA.

On ALS, its an up bar on extremely low volume, with negativity in the background, it seems to be trying to respect the low it made on 14th of May, I would think from here it would drop back down, this is probably a good place to short, if a break below the May low does indeed happen, it is likely to test the April lows around 2.50-2.70ish. Weekly chart shows it in a long downtrend, if it breaks the 2.50-2.70 area, it could possibly drop down to 0.60.


WSA is more of the same, looks a bit similar to ALS, negative background, trying to go up, but there seems to be another no demand bar, I would possibly expect a drop to the bottom of the channel, possibly to around 4.00 to retest the low on 29th of April. Weekly chart also shows super negativity, a heap of VSA symbols have popped up to the left.

Time will tell, have to wait to see what unfolds!

P.S- Please don't take this as advice and base any decisions of yours on this whatsoever.

Good trading to all

 

[traderkenny]

okie..thanks for your share!

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Ta kenny.

Both are up today, go figure haha. I am still expecting them to drop, WSA is in a daily uptrend, but the weekly on both looks weak, have to wait and see how the rest of the week pans out.

Possibly would have got stopped out today if I was live, so I should move onto the next trade, plenty more opportunities.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

I'm going to start tracking my trading on the HSI, its not going to be pretty, but hopefully it will get better. I have decided to use a plain naked 1m chart with Volume & Bar Timer, so its bound to be a huge.....failure, as I have no idea what I should be looking for, I'm just staring at the price as it unfolds. I calculated the average daily range, which is around 270 points if I have done it correctly, using this to my benefit though, I have no idea. I guess if its moved 270 points straight down, its not wise to go short?

I will be trading it on my Sim101 account in NinjaTrader. I may do some video of my trading as well, I find it can be better for me to watch back my trading rather than looking through a journal/diary/trade log, I tend to learn better from visual assistance rather than reading something.

It was the same with my musical instrument skills, I can play nearly anything by ear, hear a song on the radio, few minutes later I can play it, but put sheet music in front of me and I stumble, but if I watch someone else play it, I can play it straight away. Not trying to gloat about what I can do, just noticed that I often learn better once I see how its supposed to be done, it's interesting to pick up on our differences between each other.

But anyway, will see how things go, time to get totally slaughtered

I will attach a screenshot of my trades, I don't have this mornings session though as I didn't trade it like this, I was using AmiBroker for that, but if you really don't believe me I can show you the IB trade window but for now I won't worry about posting that up as well.


Todays efforts

Morning session: +25 points
Afternoon session: -40 points
Overall: -15 points

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Woeful.

Was down 79 points at one stage, tried doing really small scalps.....didn't work. Held for longer, added to a trade that was going in my favour, which is what brought me back. Added to a runner, got the nice down move. Rest was a failure.

Will edit this post and add afternoon session once its done.

Morning Session

Trades: 54
Winners: 17
Losers: 37

Largest Winner: 45 points
Largest Loser: 10 points

End Result: +5 points

Much better in afternoon session, used a larger timeframe and did it with my IB paper account too, happy with the afternoon session.

Afternoon Session

Trades: 2
Winners: 2
Losers: 0

Largest Winner: 20 points
Largest Loser: 0 points

Total for day: +29 Points

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Only traded the afternoon session today, had to go out in the morning.

Only made 1 trade, I decided to trade off the longer term charts, longer term being 5-10m charts.

Afternoon session

Trades: 1
Winners: 1
Losers: 0

Total: +17 Points

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Good day today, actually lucky day today

2 trades in the morning session, first was a +17 points, 2nd trade I held onto till the afternoon session, really dangerous thing to do and something that I probably shouldn't do any more of, but this time it worked, all of them using IB TWS, so I'm happy with the results. Remember screenshot results are in HKD, so they weren't quite that good!


Morning session

Trades: 1
Winners: 1
Losers: 0

Afternoon Session

Trades: 1
Winners: 1
Losers: 0

Total: +143 Points

 

[marknz88]

Will be following your progress with interest as the HSI is something I'ld love to be able to build up to over the next couple of years.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

cheers mark, not sure how I'll go but hopefully I can get things sorted.

good luck with your efforts

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Some big selling today, I started off terrible, I thought it was going to sell off earlier than it did, had an initial spike up on the open but couldn't hold it, I was short on the open, so was immediately nearly 60 points down, then the sell off came, so had 2 good trades from the down move, got back to just above break even, then came the BIG sell off, I was thinking just before it happened that I should go short, nearly did. But missed it I'll just point out that I've added the previous days open, high, low and close, just saves me zooming out to see where we are relative to the week etc. So thats what the lines on my chart are. Would be something good to do stats on if I could figure out how, how often it touches previous days OHLC etc.

Will update later after afternoon session, not 100% sure if I'll be able to trade the afternoon session tonight, but we'll see, I'll do the Total now, just in case I don't trade the afternoon session.

Morning Session

Trades: 4
Winners: 3
Losers: 1

Biggest winner: 35
Biggest Loser: 57

Afternoon Session

Trades: 3
Winners: 2
Losers: 1

Biggest Winner: 13
Biggest Loser: 9

Total: +18 points

*updated screenshot

 

[marknz88]

Its hard to read just pure price action isn't it haha

When I was back trading 1 contract on the SPI end of last year/start of this year I got my self into quiet a lot of trouble trying to decide which way it was actually going to go. so I feel your frustration. In the end I wiped out to much of my account to continue so its back to simulator for me once I reopen my IB account.

Im to scared to trade the opening 20 mins, unless its literally a scalp, as I always got burnt holding the initial trend after the first 20-30 minutes if it wasn't a trend day.

So from the looks of things your mainly scalping the HSI and looking for runners?

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

Yeah it can be, but its still better than 98% of the indicators that are out there imo.

Biggest thing that makes a difference for me is knowing what all the other markets are doing, or have done, then you have an idea of what to expect from whatever you're trading, plus finding useable patterns that your market shows is another key thing, actually trading them successfully is another key thing.

SPI is OK, but I'm getting to like it less and less, its too quiet and dead for me, sometimes it can be ok, but usually its just the open and closing 30 minutes or so.

Aren't we all looking for runners? : It all depends, usually I look for around 20 points, but I'll take whatever I can, sometimes its only a small amount, other times it can be a big amount, I have a problem with getting out way too soon, but as I said, I'm no expert, I'm just logging my results here to see if I actually improve and to see what I need to concentrate on more in my trading.

 

[marknz88]

Thanks for that Sam

Yes SPI does seem rather boring after you watch/trade something like the HSI haha.

I think whats most important, as TremblingHands states is just screen time. After a few years of naked charts/orderflow etc your'e bound to pick up (as long as you have the skills) the distinct features of your preferred markets.

I also definitely agree that trading naked is best if you have the time and ability to learn it.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

For those that might be interested, got the channels pretty much all good now. Can set them to whatever you like, its not a set 5-Day channel or anything, can have a 30 second channel if you wanted to.

You will need NinjaTrader 7 though, which is in Beta stages at the moment, but its pretty stable now, been using it for a while, its getting better, channels seem fine with it anyway. Has to be NT7 because NT7 can support multiple timeframe charts/indicators, whereas NT6.5 can't.

All Ords and Crude Oil 1m chart from tonight, best market ever to trade

If you're interested, just PM me.
Enjoy.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

worked well in the afternoon session for HSI yesterday.

 

[ThingyMajiggy]

SPI vs HSI.


lol.