I didn’t trade much today… took a long lunch. I did try out an idea I had, and I’m not sure if it was contract rollover, or what, but we’ll just say it didn’t work! :-) I lost $200. One day I will stop experimenting and stick with one of the setups I know works!

Anyway, I also demonstrated Bill’s Arrows for TS today, so I might as well post a screenshot from that:

People just love arrows… and are asking for an arrow-ized version of my scalping method. Maybe soon…

This will teach me to wake up late…

The first signal was pre-market, and even if I’d have taken it, I would have waited for it to bounce off Alla’s Avg before getting in. The second signal was around 8:40 (Central time) and I wasn’t awake yet. Oh, well…

Note this is an example of an oversized move that crosses several math lines. So, even if I had taken it, I would have scaled out of my contracts too early. I’m thinking that if I trade with 3 or more contracts, I’ll try to hold the last one until Bonnie’s Bars reverse on me. That might be a good balance between conservative profit taking and riding my winners. And, it’s still mostly mechanical, which is cool.

I know it’s my day off, but I couldn’t resist trying out this trade:

Entry is at the vertical line. I was playing with my charts, and sped up Shelly’s Volume VR4 (the red/green oscillator on top of price) a bit by applying less smoothing than the standard amount. It turns a little quicker now, which I like. I also applied my divergence and hidden divergence indicators to a REALLY unsmoothed version of SV VR4. That version was too ugly to look at, but my platform doesn’t mind checking it for divergences. The two divergence indicators are in the bottom subgraph.

So, at the time of my trade, I had price acting very well, making a base right on top of Alla’s Avg. The SV4 on my chart exhibited bullish hidden divergence (it dipped really low as price meandered upward, recharging for a strong push up). The two divergence indicators also both showed bullish divergence against the super-fast SV VR4. So, I got in when bonnie’s bars turned green. There was no Patty B signal, but I thought lots of evidence was in my favor. :-)

Ok, now my day off starts…

I’ve changed my charts slightly, to include a version of Shelly’s Volume VR4 on my chart. I’ve removed the rolling pivot. And, I took two subgraphs out of my chart. So, it’s much cleaner, I think.

Check out the short and long trade signals at the end of the day… a small win followed by a bigger win. Cool!

Will I ever make videos again??? perhaps. I’m still angry that I’ll have to find a new way to do the recordings to make youtube happy. So, I’m taking a break from that. I’ll be buying a new laptop soon, so that will probably trigger a new try at it.

Here’s the one and only signal I’ll be seeing today. Taking the rest of the day off:

There was a pretty scary pullback, initially! Luckily, bonnie’s bar color never turned green, which would have prompted an early exit. As always, the vertical line is the entry point, and the ellipses mark places where the math lines indicate profits should be taken. Easy as pie.

The chart wouldn’t look interesting, but I also wanted to mention I took a silly 1-tick scalp trade against the trend. I just had a feeling about it… but it didn’t pan out, and I exited for 1 tick of profit. Hey, better than 1 tick loss! :-)

Finally, here’s the latest Barb’s Reversal example. It’s on the chart I seem to like it best, a 10946 share bar chart of ES. Something in the 10k contract range really lets them shine, but there are also not that many signals.

Last night, with a little Global Variables hackery, I got eotpro moderator Bill’s entry criteria into a simple arrow. We’ve had this on multicharts for a while, but TS doesn’t like to combine various data series on anything but minute charts. It’s frustrating! But, this workaround is pretty cool.

Here’s the screenshot/advertisement I made for it today, based on this morning’s signals:

Of course, you need to have a viable stop methodology and profit-taking methodology, and find the right chart for you. But if you don’t know what else to do, you can apply it to a 3382 share-bar ES chart, since that’s what Bill used to trade before switching to range bars on Multicharts. Then maybe take stops against plot cycles, and trail your stops. That would be a decent starting point, anyway.

I talk about some of the latest stuff in the eotpro elite series, which I developed.

Here is the link for the video:
http://eotpro.acrobat.com/p74111176/

Even though volume and the range were abysmal, I used my latest scalping method to make 7 trades this morning, for 6 wins and 1 loss.

I don’t remember if this is one of the ones I made or not (the bars go by really quickly on a 233 share bar chart!), but this is a good example of the setup. We tap the rolling vwap, then come down with red bonnie’s bars and red market sync. Then I take profits at the math line, skipping the line I’m right on top of on entry.

Yeah, it’s kinda fun to scalp… but also much more strenuous than what I’ve been doing… and the money you make is not proportional to the extra effort needed. I hope I don’t feel inclined to do this all summer! But, you gotta adapt, and if the market wants to chop, you gotta either have a method that works, or step aside.

Anyway, I’m done for the week. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you next week.

I’ve been playing with a simple scalping method, based on the eotpro elite series indicators (which I authored, and so I obviously think they are the bee’s knees).

What I like about this chart, is that it’s all price action. No subgraphs. It is deceptively simple-looking, though… I would never take every trade that sets up this way. I use my other charts to decide when good scalping times are. Still, as an easy in-and-out method, I like it. In this morning’s trendless, oscillating market, I was able to find some little trades to make this way.

Basically, the entry is always just after price comes down and tags the rolling VWAP (that blue line). Then, for longs, entry when the paintbars (bonnie’s bars) turn green. Then exit at the math lines, and bail on any remaining contracts if bonnie’s bars turn against the trade.

Very easy to follow, but like I said, you still have to know when the right times to believe in this kind of setup are. That takes a bit more finesse and experience.

Here’s the one that got away….

Every day, there will be trades that don’t quite meet your criteria, that would make you a ton of money. You can’t dwell on that, or you will end up forming bad habits that drain your account. This was the only signal I had this morning, and as you can see, price was not really trending against Alla’s Average. So, I skipped it. It was the right thing to do.

Before I quit for the day, I made two small scalps on my faster chart. None of my main signals looked good enough to me today. Summer markets… getting slower and slower…

I still haven’t been able to make a video that youtube won’t mangle… so today we’ll go with a screenshot.

Three signals, two viable. This leads to two trades for two nice wins. A nice way to end the week! The entry points are at the vertical lines, and the profit taking areas are at the ellipses.

Why isn’t the middle one viable? As you know, my only criteria once I get a signal dot is “are we trending against Alla’s Average?” (the yellow line over price action). In that middle signal, you can see we were nowhere near Alla’s Average. I tell people that in a trend, we will pull away from Alla’s Average, then chop back towards it, then pull away again. That’s exactly what happened, and as you can see, it’s very stress-free to grab the two big pushes down if you are patient enough to wait for them.

Even if your judgment faltered, and you took the middle signal, note that bonnie’s bar color (in the first subgraph) turned green almost right away, which would be your signal to bail on the short trade with a tiny loss. Yeah, my charts are like a well-oiled machine! :-)

Have a good long weekend, everyone… I’ll see you Wednesday (even on long weekend weeks, I take Tuesdays off!).

I get a lot of questions about volume bars, and how to set them up. A long time ago I made myself a cheat sheet for how to set up volume bars, based on the average volume of the stock. It goes like this:

With these settings, the trading chart will produce a bar about every 2 minutes or so, give or take. Obviously bars will happen faster in the morning and the afternoon. If that’s two fast or too slow for you, then shift the whole table up or down some, and start from there.

My style is typically to have a trading screen, and then a slightly higher-level reference chart. So, that’s what the two values are for. Depending on my mood, I either go for the settings for my volume range, or I go one step faster to be more aggressive, or I go one step slower to try to stay above chop.

Today was ok but not great. 3 trades for 2 wins and one loss. But, the second win was only 2 ticks, and only because an experimental eotpro.com indicator scared me out just in the nick of time.

My last few videos have been mangled by youtube. They must have “upgraded” their transcoding process. I hope this one plays correctly… I used a different codec this time. If it doesn’t work, then I apologize and I’ll try yet another codec tomorrow!

I quit around noon central time, ahead of the FOMC minutes chop and eventual madness. Good luck, if you continue to trade in it!

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I took the day off, as usual… but I glanced at my charts and they looked pretty good today, so I made a quick video about it.

I got a note in the mail from TD Ameritrade. Like most traders, I have left a trail of brokerage accounts in my wake. Anyway, this was snail mail, not e-mail. And, the mail says: “We are unable to reach you by mail.” I’m not kidding. So, they can’t reach me by mail, and apparently they decided to send me mail about it. But… the only way I would get the mail is if they are wrong. And, the only reason to send the mail is for me to get it. But, if they think they are wrong, why would they bother saying so? It was a truly zen USPS moment.

[edit: I see now that youtube has screwed up this video... this time by running the video part way faster than the audio part, and cutting the video off.... This is extremely frustrating. I will try using a different codec tomorrow, and see if that helps. I have been making videos for many months now, and am just now starting to have these problems. How strange.]

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I had to wait a long time, but eventually a signal got through all my filters, for nice profit!

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