The transition to Futures trading

[captain black]

Ok I've gotta do that! Thanks mate. I'm not up to speed with this sort of stuff!

Here's the tutorial on setting up IB with Amibroker.

http://www.amibroker.com/guide/h_ib.html

The symbols can be difficult to get right at times. Make sure you get the spaces or the dashes in the right place and they should work.

 

[Trembling Hand]

If learning is what you really want to do. Here would be my steps to learning futs if I was to do it again.

Spend some time learning basic NT (5 -10 hours)

Spend some money getting data from IB for SPI, Kospi, STW, Nikkei, ES, YM, CL, GC, DAX, FTSE and a few FX crosses. ($150 per month)

Set up NT each day to record depth and every tick for playback. (daily connect setup 5 min per day)

When you have some spare time each week spend it on the sim PLAYING on everyone of the above markets. Doing anything, putting on size, scalping, hanging on for a few hours, being in the market ALL the time etc etc(5 hours per week)

Then after a few months when you have had a good look at all markets and see how they are when they get wild and when they are boring as bat Sh!+ pick a few where you have some interest.

Then pick a few patterns that you think repeat in those markets and print them out and put them in a folder in sections, breakouts, wild starts, ranging, fake breaks, low range days, large range trending days etc...... What you want to do now is every day add to the folder whenever you see the same pattern in your markets.

With those two or three Markets and your growing collection of repeating patterns on the weekend and 1 or 2 day through the week put aside a few 2 hour blocks. Now here is the bit that will save you years and worthless side trips down the discipline road. Turn on NTs playback function. Set it to 10x speed and hit with all you have. Trade it seriously with 2 lots and don't kid yourself. Keep stats (which NT is good at) and really work on them. Win rate, R:R hold time etc. You will do 20 hours of intense trading and training in two hours. After a few months you will literately have years of examples played out in your head.

 

[waza1960]

If

learning is what you really want to do. Here would be my steps to learning futs if I was to do it again.

+1

Why would you use Amibroker to study/trade futures? Like racing a Cadillac at Nurumbring against F1 cars

Consider using one of the US brokers for testing/sim. I use AMP futures with NT or MC they have CQG data which
is top notch +if you have a live account with a few hundred dollars in it data and exchange fees are free.
They also have data for SFE.

 

[pavilion103]

Why are you convinced that you should be using a 3 min chart?

Why just the FTSE?

Never try and take a trade as a hedge..................... EVER!

I am not at all convinced on the 3 min chart TH. I have no idea which one to use to be honest. I'm assuming I'll probably be using at least two timeframes. I need to investigate this further.

Just using the FTSE as an example here. The truth is that I have no idea what's out there. I need to explore.

 

[pavilion103]

Here's the tutorial on setting up IB with Amibroker.

http://www.amibroker.com/guide/h_ib.html

The symbols can be difficult to get right at times. Make sure you get the spaces or the dashes in the right place and they should work.

Thanks. Much appreciated!

 

[pavilion103]

If learning is what you really want to do. Here would be my steps to learning futs if I was to do it again.

Spend some time learning basic NT (5 -10 hours)

Spend some money getting data from IB for SPI, Kospi, STW, Nikkei, ES, YM, CL, GC, DAX, FTSE and a few FX crosses. ($150 per month)

Set up NT each day to record depth and every tick for playback. (daily connect setup 5 min per day)

When you have some spare time each week spend it on the sim PLAYING on everyone of the above markets. Doing anything, putting on size, scalping, hanging on for a few hours, being in the market ALL the time etc etc(5 hours per week)

Then after a few months when you have had a good look at all markets and see how they are when they get wild and when they are boring as bat Sh!+ pick a few where you have some interest.

Then pick a few patterns that you think repeat in those markets and print them out and put them in a folder in sections, breakouts, wild starts, ranging, fake breaks, low range days, large range trending days etc...... What you want to do now is every day add to the folder whenever you see the same pattern in your markets.

With those two or three Markets and your growing collection of repeating patterns on the weekend and 1 or 2 day through the week put aside a few 2 hour blocks. Now here is the bit that will save you years and worthless side trips down the discipline road. Turn on NTs playback function. Set it to 10x speed and hit with all you have. Trade it seriously with 2 lots and don't kid yourself. Keep stats (which NT is good at) and really work on them. Win rate, R:R hold time etc. You will do 20 hours of intense trading and training in two hours. After a few months you will literately have years of examples played out in your head.

Thanks for your help. You're a good man TH. This is EXACTLY the type of thing I was looking for.

At the risk of sounding like a complete donk, what is NT?

 

[Trembling Hand]

At the risk of sounding like a complete donk, what is NT?

http://www.ninjatrader.com/

 

[baby_swallow]

Also, be very aware of high impact economic news of the day.
Here's the website that I watch before entering a trade.

http://www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php

For shorter timeframe, high impact news will give you either a windfall or a big dent
in your account. Better not to have positions before the news, unless you have a crystal ball.
In the old days, before Bernanke's QE, the ES can move 10pts and back again in a matter of seconds.

 

[waza1960]

Better not to have positions before the news, unless you have a crystal ball.

Actually I find the hours before the news are actually quite good to trade just don't hold any positions over the news period

 

[Trembling Hand]

Also, be very aware of high impact economic news of the day.

Actually I find the hours before the news are actually quite good to trade just don't hold any positions over the news period

Man up dudes. Got an idea -- trade it!!

 

[peter2]

If learning is what you really want to do. Here would be my steps to learning futs if I was to do it again. . . .

A seriously good post TH.

 

[CanOz]

Agree, we should make it 'sticky'

 

[tech/a]

A seriously good post TH.

Agree +1 for those that want to trade like that.
I don't think its necessary. You can but --- you don't have to
Well that's been my experience.

T/H

You don't suggest longer time frame?
A position trade for an hr to a month?
Does everything have to be done in micro seconds?

Set at 10x playback speed.

 

[Trembling Hand]

Agree +1 for those that want to trade like that.
I don't think its necessary. You can but --- you don't have to
Well that's been my experience.

T/H

You don't suggest longer time frame?
A position trade for an hr to a month?
Does everything have to be done in micro seconds?

I said try everything.

By the way your experience has been 20 years of trading. I'm answering to someone who would like to see some progress within this decade!

 

[Trembling Hand]

Does everything have to be done in micro seconds?

Because some are a little slow I'll add to this.

My recommendation about doing it at x10 speed has nothing to do with becoming the worlds best scalper. My suggestion is try everything - find a pattern & market that makes sense - then trade it over and over.

If you want to be a discretionary trader all you need to get going is a few patterns to trade. Doing it at a faster pace is like looking at 100s of static after the fact charts but it enables you to do 100s of real live runs in a short time, check the stats and then adjust your "system" similar to forward testing after a parameter change. You super charge your trading skills, you test the pattern and learn.

Or

You could be bored silly looking at the live screen for the next 3 years trying to forward test your ideas.

 

[tech/a]

You could be bored silly looking at the live screen for the next 3 years trying to forward test your ideas.

Why weren't you around 20 yrs ago!

 

[waza1960]

Why weren't you around 20 yrs ago!

The tools weren't either lol

 

[tech/a]

The tools weren't either lol

Yeh plenty of " tools " around then.

 

[pavilion103]

Well I decided to put up the FTSE tonight while watching the footy (what a game ). I won't get in a habit of posting these charts but interesting to see that this one afforded some opportunities breaking from consolidation patterns (with declining volume). I got in at (on the simulator) the highlighted green area which for me was the break of the channel at around 10:40. This was a consolidation right at the high volume area from the start of the trading day.

This is the FTSE and 3 min chart (no real reason why I chose this index and timeframe). Hopefully with a lot of screen time I will be able to identify the common behaviours on this and other futures indexes.

That's around $400 ($600AU) in around an hour and a half (for 1 contract). I'm glad I'm not the type of person that just jumps in because with a nice win like this pretty much first up, I could have blown a lot in subsequent trades thinking that I could just go on and do this every night.

 

[baby_swallow]

Better not to have positions before the news, unless you have a crystal ball.

Ooops!..my mistake!... I should say:

"Better not to have positions before the news, unless your name is TH"