2009.09.10 DRAIN THE BANKS - LIKE A RAT

[Patch]

snscott

Now that you mention it, you do look kinda sleepy in your icon picture. I can't sleep either. I am not drawing though, but writing a trade strategy and can't sleep. What do you think of "The Rat Pack Pirates"? That font for Pirates is the best of all.

I had to laugh when I went to copy you neat screen I realized it is big, so I now call it "The BIG Screen". Now I am going to have to go out and buy a new big screen for my trading computer. Could you tell me how you use this multi-meter? When you get in, and does it give you clews when to exit?

Patch
Sleepless in VA

[snscott]

Dear Sleepless in VA,

I like to think of it as the "bridge", or "command center", of my pirate ship.

The way I have been using that screen is simply as a quick way to see "what is going on (through RAT COLORED GLASSES)" across multiple timeframes for multiple currencies.

But in terms of actual trading, since I am very much a noob (to forex, I have been writing computer programs since 1981) I follow TRO's sage advice in that I stick to trading ONE currency pair. (for the time being, anyway )

I went with EURUSD simply because it usually has the narrowest Bid/Ask "spread" at any given time of day. I have a micro account with FXCM, and a demo MT4 account with them as well. I use MT4 for the "analysis" and then FXCM's Trade Station to actually execute - so I am dealing with the emotions of gaining and/or losing REAL money. Sure, not a lot, but it still generates the same emotional responses exactly the way a demo account doesn't.

When they say trading is largely "psychological", it is emotions they are talking about - so while I am learning "to see", as TRO & MO say here, I am also learning to control how I "feel", especially when I have angered the Pip Gods and They Doth Taketh Them Away - and that is another golden piece-o-eight from the FX Jedi Masters here that is easy to "poo poo" and ignore by arrogant FX Padawans (like me), but it really is serious and important. As TRO put it; he "protects me from me" by strictly adhering to his system and not succumbing to his emotions.

So, in particular...

I wait for one of two things - either a YELLOW-flagged "EURUSD" in one of the RAT TRADER indi's along the top, OR for a "pointing finger" flag to pop on the EURUSD line of the RAT CO-HC-CL monitor in the middle (a knock from what Master TRO would call an "OPPORTUNITY").

THEN I go look at the corresponding currency chart/tab that I already have set up, basically, with my own slightly tweaked version of TRO's "Got Cheese?" template.

There, I look to see what the price is actually doing and follow the RAT rules regarding the alignment of the bar colors and price action to decide whether or not to pull the trigger.

To "pull the trigger", I have a couple of simple BUY and SELL scripts bound to the ctrl-B and ctrl-S keys that place orders with default 10-pip SL and TP.
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Then, I pull another chicken from the box here and say a little prayer to TRO as I chop off it's little head and let it's body run around the room. Or maybe I'm the one who runs around the room like that.
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Two-Percenters

One bit of advice that TRO has given on here that has REALLY helped me is his "2% per day THEN STOP" rule. Following that rule alone has helped me a lot - but damn it is hard to follow after a couple of "wins".

[snscott]

When you get in, and does it give you clews when to exit?

Patch, I just realized I dd not address this portion of your post.

I just fell off the proverbial Forex Turnip Truck, so I personally can't give any advice, because from me, such advice would be (approximately) worth a 50 million mark banknote from the Weimar Republic.

Here, have a Weimar 50 million Mark on me.



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BUT, I can repeat what Master TRODA told me earlier in this thread:

[font=Lucida Console]"What I do is protect ME from ME.

AT +5 pips, I will be ready to bail at +3 if price pulls back.

At +10 pips, I will enter a trailing stop of 4 or 5 pips.

At +15, I will cancel the trailing stop and enter a hard stop at +10.

Then I will move the hard stop up if price moves up.

At +25, I may move the hard stop up to +25 or to a price ending in 0 or 9.

Sometimes, I may exit 1/2 of my position at +20 to lock in a 1% gain.

The idea is to be CONSISTENT. You'll miss out sometimes, but you only need ONE big run and you are done for the day."
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[MightyOne]

Here is my wishlist for future TRO indicators

Not sure if it is possible to have one indicator look to another for information, but it would sexy

[snscott]

Not sure if it is possible to have one indicator look to another for information, but it would sexy

You can use the iCustom() function in MT4 to call any installed indicator by name, passing in values for each exposed/external property of that indicator.

As long as that indicator puts the values you want to "read" into one of the 8 available "buffers", you can then access those values (by bar index), to do something in your indicator or EA.

I assume this is what you are talking about?

[MightyOne]

Not sure if it is possible to have one indicator look to another for information, but it would sexy

You can use the iCustom() function in MT4 to call any installed indicator by name, passing in values for each exposed/external property of that indicator.

As long as that indicator puts the values you want to "read" into one of the 8 available "buffers", you can then access those values (by bar index), to do something in your indicator or EA.

I assume this is what you are talking about?

I would just like to see more start & end date options in the indicators or start building TRO indicators off the Blubbb_CustomCandle.

The base indicator would have a color ON/OFF option and then any new TRO indicators could be attached as is the case when Blubbb attached the Buy Zone to Blubbb_CustomCandle.

This would give us unlimited time frames to trade TRO's methods.

(To attach multiple TRO indicators the 2 lines in BCC would need to be changed to start + end date)

[blubbb]

I'll see if I can add buffers for open, high, low, close in the CC indi. The only thing is that there would have to be bars "in between" where the buffers would be 0. The other indi would need to ignore those.
But no promises...

BTW: There were even bigger banknotes.



(5 billion)

And look at this *LOL*

[Patch]

The one race I don't want to win is to have the biggest currency bank note.

Notes on what maybe coming our way.

We are already bankrupt.

We are no longer the world's reserve currency.

No worry, The markets are happy as drunks (I won't insult sailors)

Next: Inflation. Wild debt in our society at all levels, is our leveler once again.

Blubbb, where did you get that hundred trillion dollar note, I need 10 of them right now.

Patch

[TheRumpledOne]

The key point is WE ALWAYS TRADE IN ONE DIRECTION. WE ARE EITHER RED RATS (SHORT) OR GREEN RATS (LONG). WE NEVER SWITCH.

"Since your mind is your most valuable asset and your most valuable lever, you need to be careful what you put in it. Sometimes it is even more difficult to get rid of thoughts and ideas that are already in your mind than it is to learn something new." - Pg 119 WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH

[snscott]

A question I don't recall being asked/answered is:

How do you choose which color of Rat you want to be?

For example, do you declare your allegiance once, right now, and stick with that "team" for the rest of your trading career?

"My father was a Green Rat, and his father was too, and his father before him - we're a Green Rat Family, damn it - so take your Red Rat heresies and shove them up sideways, buddy." (No one likes to talk about that cousin who ran off to San Francisco claiming he was a Red Rat trapped in a Green body.)

Or, do you adjust and switch your "Gang Colors" from time to time?

If you are fickle in your "team" loyalty (much like Dallas Cowboy Fans), then the obvious question becomes "When do you make the decision to switch?".

Do you start out each DAY by looking at the longer timeframe trends, like the trend from the past few days, or week, or month, and then, based on the way the wind appears to be blowing (what TRO calls "BIAS" - although he has also stated that "trends" only exist in your mind - there is no spoon, or something like that) you choose which Rat's guidance you will follow for that day's trading? Or, do you pick a Rat at the beginning of the week and stick to it all week long? Personally, I've been reading animal entrails to decide.

Or, do you remain flexible and pick a side but if, after while, you see that the trend really is strongly in the other direction, do you then make the decision to switch (but if so, I'd say maybe limit yourself to allowing such a "reality adjustment" to change your Rat Color only once a day).

I could see maybe using something like the [Asian-Session-Start-of-Week-Box-Breakout] signal (which I have written a very cool indicator for, by the way) as a potential "statistically reliable suggestion" for which way to go for the remainder of the week, especially with JPY pairs.




Anyway - thoughts from the resident FX JEDI MASTERS, especially Master TRODA?