Hey guys. I guess you've all noticed the lack of care and feeding of the board here. I've just had some bumps in the road lately and haven't been able to devote the time needed to keep it maintained. There is a small group of people at favstocks.com discussing Strategy Desk. I hope the information that we shared here at least helped some of you. I know it helped me!

Thanks all,
Happy Trading

Yes it is. And that's definitely something that could be done in SD. Have you used the oscillator before?

Probably... LOL... what's the awesome oscillator? If you can describe it I can probably build it.

I like that indicator... and you could even do an indicator that shows how it's changing... if it goes from 10% to 90% in a day that's either a really tight set of bands or a monster move, iykwim.

QT, that's a big wide-open topic you have there. I mean it's just so dependent upon the trader, their risk tolerance, market conditions, etc. I don't know where to start.

Here's a tidbit I'll throw out, however. I have this code in a color column.

Bar[Volume,10] / ((MovingAverage[MA,Volume,10,0,D,2] / 390) * 10)

It basically is an indicator of how the 10 min volume compares to the average 10 minute volume. I have my columns (5 of them) color coded at values of 1, 2, 4, etc thru 10. So if the column shows me the color associated with the value of 2, I know the volume for this 10 min bar is twice what it normally is.

Now this code is most def imperfect because if it's a fresh 10 min bar you have to consider that, or if it's market open, etc. So it needs some finessing... but I posted it to give you some more ideas. But it can still be good for using on a long list to bring volume pops to the top.

The beauty of a color column is that you only have to write the code once, and SD will calculate the past iterations of it, however many you request. If you haven't played around with them, I'd highly recommend it.

Hope at least some of that made sense.

Hey QT, not sure where you are with this, but if you want WORST case test results, you can buy on the high and sell on the low. Can you even use bid/ask in a backtest? Not sure how to accomplish that.

Wow, you guys have been busy!!!

klynn55, you would need to compare today's value to each of the 4 previous days' values. The scan should return only those stocks that are at their highest resistance in 5 days.

So if your formula represents today's resistance, the scan would go something like this...

(2 * ((Bar[High,D,1] + Bar[Low,D,1] + Bar[Close,D,1]) / 3) - Bar[Low,D,1])
>=
(2 * ((Bar[High,D,2] + Bar[Low,D,2] + Bar[Close,D,2]) / 3) - Bar[Low,D,2])

AND

(2 * ((Bar[High,D,2] + Bar[Low,D,2] + Bar[Close,D,2]) / 3) - Bar[Low,D,2])
>=
(2 * ((Bar[High,D,3] + Bar[Low,D,3] + Bar[Close,D,3]) / 3) - Bar[Low,D,3])

etc.... for however many days you want to scan.

TIP OF THE WEEK.... counting candles...

When viewing a chart, you can click on any bar/candle and use the "# Bars" in the Tracking Window to count candles between that point and any point to the right or left.

For example, if you want to see how long a typical cycle is on a stock, you can click on the low candle of the cycle, scroll to the candle that marks the top, and it will count the candles between where you clicked and where your cursor is.

Maybe I'm the only one that didn't know that, but I just found it today... always something new with SD!

Howdy everybody. I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday. Looks like I have some catchin' up to do... LOL.

Hi folks. I'm taking next week off. I'll be back... maybe.... LOL.

I wish everyone a safe and happy Independence Day.

QT, my understanding of it is that you select the lowest interval that is referenced in your code. So if you use the 60 min and day, you would set interval to 60. If you click override, however, it will set all your logic to reference the 60 min interval.

I know for sure that the best way to emulate actual results in your backtests, is to select "detect intrabar, 1 min"

There are some prior posts here, from JohnP I think, that explains this in more detail. He also has good approach... lets his live strategies run without executing the orders. Instead he chooses the "save" option. Then at the end of the day, he does a backtest and compares it to the saved orders from the day. That exercise would be helpful only to let you know that your backtests and live execution would be at least somewhat equal. If your saved triggered trades don't match the end of day backtest, then you aren't in synch yet.

Hope that makes sense.

What do you mean by "relative volume"?

Yes, unfortunately.

You can use the Notes field in a Level 1.

Yeah, let me know when you find one!!! If I could find two days to work on it I think I could. I'm close... I think.

Hello there. I'm still around... LOL. Just preoccupied.

Hey, stockauthorata.... if you're going to use the code that you posted, you should make sure you have some parenthesis in place else it might not work like you think it will. But it's good code. Also, I think you have to use a capital D to indicate the day bar in your sto phrase. Like this...

(MovingAverage[MA,Volume,65,0,D] > 400000 AND
Bar[Close,D] > 1 AND Bar[Close,D] < 6 AND
Stochastic[StocK,8,3,3,D] < 85 AND Stochastic[StocK,8,3,3,D,1] >= 85)

OR

(MovingAverage[MA,Volume,65,0,D] > 400000 AND
Bar[Close,D] > 1 AND Bar[Close,D] < 6 AND
Stochastic[StocK,8,3,3,D] < 80 AND Stochastic[StocK,8,3,3,D,1] >= 80)

I don't recall where this code came from, but I wouldn't know where to begin to modify it. The increased volume would be easy enough, but how do you suggest to measure "increased volatility".

It can be confusing to convert from stockcharts to SD, but the best way to figure it out is just to play around with the different settings to see what works best.

QT, I have to see it on a chart before I can assess what it's doing, but it might take me a few days... just alot going on personally right now. I'm sure it will be worth what you paid for it... LOL.

QT, I will look at and backtest it, but it won't be for a few days. Maybe you'll all have it figured out by then!

My MA lines end at the same point no matter whether I'm looking at a bar chart or a candle chart. Sounds like a question for SD support.

Well, it's the same issue no matter the timeframe, unless I'm just not understanding what you're saying. My point is, what you see happening on the 10 min candle really doesn't all happen at the same tick.

I look at % Change.

I'll look into that. I trade in two different places, so I can use that for sure in one of them.

Thank you Bruce!

And another note... in theory, the candle-sub-one (or examining the prior closed candle) should work as it does in backtesting with intrabar = 1 min, but looking at yesterday's day candle is too stale. It might work for smaller timeframes however.

That field is actually calculated correctly. It tells you the profit/loss for just today. The Profit/Loss field gives you the p/l from the base price to now.

But regardless, you can create any kind of field that you want using Custom Fields and add it to your position window.

The issue with all this is that what we see on the charts and what the math actually picks up are two different things when viewed tick by tick. So, for example when I look at a day chart, I might see that when the sto crosses 20 from below and the MACDh crosses 0 from below it can be a good entry point. But what that candle represents is that they crossed sometime that day... most doubtful that both of those conditions happened on the same tick.

Until SD allows us to run our live strategies on stale data, the challenge remains how to state criteria in a more general way so that all conditions are picked up at once... like maybe sto going up and below 50 and macdh going up. It seems to me that more conditions of a general nature is the better combo than just one or two very specific conditions. Does that make sense?

TIP of the week 2 (I shorted you last week): Drag and Drop Symbols


Yet another thing I just found out this past week... you can drag and drop symbols from one Level 1 to another, and that includes Position Level 1s windows. That's a nice function. I know at least a couple of you are probably saying "duh"... LOL.

I found it in the User Manual...
http://www.tdameritrade.com/forms/TDA9241.pdf

TIP of the week: Customize the Chart Snapshot Window

You can add all kinds of fields to the chart Snapshot Window. Things like % Change and Bid-Ask Spread are most helpful. Right-Click on the window to change it's contents.

NOTE: If you don't have the snapshot window, you can get it by selecting View from the main menu.

I just found this last week. Maybe I'm slow, LOL, but just when I think I've about learned it all, I find something else.

I'm looking for a new laptop for trading. It must drive 4 monitors... the potential for another one or two would be nice as well. I also need 4 monitors. Has to run windows. I'm big into lots of numbers and pictures... fairly complex setup in terms of trading platform.

Anybody have any opinions on either or a good places for me to start my research?

tia!

QT, do you always use the Watchlist function to keep lists of stocks you're watching? It's much easier to keep them in a Level 1 window. The Watchlist function is more suited for keeping track of actual positions, not just those that you're contemplating.

If you're speaking of a Level 1, you can drag and drop one at a time from one window (your L1 with the screener) into another (the L1 that contains the list of stocks you're watching). Also, if you want to grab all the symbols at once and copy them to a L1, simply do a Ctrl-C in the window you're copying from and then click on the window you want to copy to and use the Insert Symbols option.

Hope that helps.

That's kinda what I do...

I load my symbols into an L1, and apply a screener. I let the screener run all day long, as long as it's not too complex... that way my list is always freshly scanned. The list will only contain candidates that meet the criteria in your scan, others won't appear at all.

I also have another L1, without a screener, where I kinda "park" the ones that have popped up as a result of my screener so that I can track them for a longer period of time.

Hey klynn. That is an interesting page. I might email him and see if he wants to join us!

FB, I'd say you're onto something there! You might try using Sto with an 8,3,3 setting... it's more accurate for predicting entries and exits, imo.

I'm going to report you to the authorities... if I can ever figure out who that is... LOL.

Well thank you, klynn...

If you're comfortable with the support and resistance levels within SD, you could not trade if the price of the index is within x% of those levels. I've never been satisfied with the support and resistance calcs as they are. To me they add little value, though I'd like to have calcs that do.

I don't know if that's new or not.