re: charting program ... arthur Am pushing the boundaries now with copyright,
This type of backfeed that has not been seen on this site for a long long time,
This is what a newbie needs more so than sitting in front of Metastock 8 and a hard to comprehend manual
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Im a bit unclear over what duration you want to trade - is it short term or long term?
Why my uncertainty?
Well, you got two slow oscillators and some short term moving average crossovers that you want to base your trade on.
And you are concerned about "whiplash trades"
If you are looking at long term trades - you also need a longer MA to establish the trend and setup your buy.
With your slow stochastics you're not going to get much in the way of "whiplash trades" and really, if you trade with the trend in accordance with the rules for the indicators (Colin has then set out beautifully on this site) I can't see you would get into too much trouble.
The strength of the price action and volume of any move would be your additional confirmation to enter a trade.
Now, if you are talking about short-term trades, it's a different kettle of fish - I'd be using faster indicators and you interpret them and act on them differently.
So, your first priority is to decide what sort of trades you want to do.
Bear in mind too - that day trades and short term trades ae not without a certain degree of stress - especially if you also leverage with options.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Mate,
Your post just wake me up! My desired duration is a week or so, but I am using 30 week WMA and 15 week WMA, also used MACD and RSI, sometimes Willaims%R, but all on default settings of IC chart. Could you please give me a rough idea on how to fine tune them to suit my weekly holding (long or short) style?
Many thanks for your help.
Other commends and opinions welcome.
Posted on Tuesday, 04 March, 2003 -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, Ton, I'm a short term options trader and use a number of indicators - but place less emphasis on them than the actual price movement on the day - that's my signal.
My basic setup is a daily chart with a 65 day EMA to tel me the trend and then a 9 day and 3 day EMA.
Ok, my bread and butter trade - although not necessarily the most profitable - is to trade when the 3 day EMA crosses the 9 day EMA and is moving in the same direction as the 65 day EMA.
Nothing hard about that system at all.
Then I look at my indicators - not so much to confirm that what I am doing is ok - but to check that they are not giving me any warning signals to stay out.
All the indicators are short term - Stochastics are 5 day, RSI 9 day, DMI 9 day.....
But trading short term, you don't necessarily interpret the indicators the same way as a long term trader.
For example, conventional wisdom says you don't enter a trade when, for example, the Stochastics are oversold. But the indicator is great for telling you that it is oversold, but pretty useless in terms of timing - so it doesn't keep me out out of a short-term trade - especially a day trade.
In fact - depending on the setup - I actually use Stochastic crossovers as a signal to enter or exit a trade.
So, you have to adapt your setup to suite your trading style - there is no one formula suites all.
Shorten up your indicators and do some backtesting on them - and then tweak them.
On this subject - I gotta give a plug to Amibroker.
It's a charting package - nowhere in the league of IC. But it is great for backtesting - has a simple scripting language that lets you backtest any combination of setups. And the price is great - not the exorbitant price of Metastock - and a free trial and great support through a mailing list - heartily recommend it!
