bgtrader

Hi, a few options:

a) Thinkorswim.com ; a brokerage & charting platform all in one, runs natively on a Mac

b) Linnsoft.com ; their charting package Investor RT runs on mac, a bit complicated, very good for market profile & volume analysis

c) Firetip; is a program some US futures brokers offer their clients for trading futures on a Mac

d) Parallels; apparently lots of traders run Windows XP or Windows 7 inside of Parallels as a virtual pc within Apple's OS, very good software

-best of luck in life and trading always,

Bg

Re: I have a dilemma :)

hi everyone,

very good points already mentioned. I find that what most people call technical analysis does not include a thorough understanding of how the big players move the markets. The market game is very similar to a food web with a predator hierarchy. Like the lion-one of the elite predators in it's environment-a player like Goldman Sachs has superior attributes and ridiculous techological advantages which enable Goldman to get the fresh kill and the best animal parts to eat-which would translate to best fills and best exits in trading or in simpler terms best positions and advantageous knowledge/perspectives in the markets. Then after the lions are done with their fill of the best parts, the 2nd tier predators like wild dogs enter-in the markets these would be smaller & well financed trading firms who make it their job to track what players like Goldman and Renaissance Technologies are up to. These smaller less powerful but still very formidable groups then step in and snatch up the next best animal parts, prices, fills, positions, exits, etc...then come the birds, insects, and fungi-that would be us :). On an intraday basis the sequence I just mentioned can sometimes be as fast as a few seconds, on a swing trading timeframe a few days and/or weeks. I believe this sequence which is represented practically the same on different timeframes is why people say the markets are fractal or self-similar in nature. My point is that if you keep studying the true technical analysis of the professionals, you will start to see the chart as a map of the fundamental activity. This fundamental activity has timing and scheduling factors as well as seasonality factors, and these details will then be anticipated in the charts by knowing the significant date/time details of fundamental schedules. Most people with PhDs and so called market instructors & news correspondents endlessly complicate the fundamentals of the markets so they can have jobs in my opinion. For if they really distilled the down to earth reality of the markets in words, they might say the same thing every day. "Today the brightest and most aggressive trading firms snatched up the best prices and then took the market up, those that were alert enough to see what happened followed behind, and those that didn't see the hunt coming may have been eaten or left in the dust." With a little common sense, a passion for seeking out & studying the true professionals, a basic understanding of market mechanics & schedule structures, and an evolving ability to read the chart data of price, time, and volume....Technical Analysis becomes the art of reading fundamental analysis in it's purest form imho

Re: How to trade using support & resistance line ?

Hi everyone,

I had some ideas to share about support and resistance:

a) volume is one of the magic data points that really brings the probabilities further in our favor when analyzing support & resistance. probably most of you all know that 'tick' volume is available from most forex data feeds (Esignal has a really good one aggregating 200+ bank's forex ticks). while it's not true lot volume traded, the amount of ticks per given time period can be seen as 'activity', when there's more activity professionals are interested. when there's less activity, most professionals are not very interested in those prices. there's an art to interpreting these degrees of professional interest in prices via volume & using that to triangulate with support & resistance. some of the basic ideas are:

1. if prices are 'cheap' in the eyes of the big players that move the markets, often when prices are continuing to head down at this 'cheap' level of support one might see tick volume less as the bars go down,indicating that professionals are not interested in lower prices

1a. however, very often professionals, sensing that other market participants are interested in lower prices, will move the bids lower to buy at cheaper prices, in a way sucking the public in to sell. the turning points of these situations often see ultra high tick volume and can occur around bad news numbers.

Support and resistance, prior levels, etc....can give us a forecasted zone to be looking for this kind of volume activity

2. often in the sequence of support becoming the spring board for higher prices, we'll see ultra high climactic tick volume as price touches & sometimes breaches support by a little, but closes in the middle to high end of the range; next very often when the professionals truly want to take the market up, we'll see price attempt to go down again to support-in a sense testing whether the sellers have lost interest-often this test will be on lower tick volume, indicating that the professionals are not interested in taking the market lower...this will all be happening right around support.

3. then, if we really are in a rise from support sequence, often we'll see a sudden push upward away from support in price on decent tick volume, as if many professional groups all at once realized that there was a 75% off sale on socks. often the volume & support/resistance trader will miss that entry and enter on a retest of the rising slope trend line that could be respected in this hypothetical move up

4. then at resistance, we might see price approaching resistance, maybe ready to stop and turn around, maybe ready to just pause and congest for a while. but often as prices become 'expensive' near resistance, tick volume might dry up a little.

4a. another common scenario is the opposite of the climactic ultra high volume at support. we'll sometimes see very positive news/numbers coming out, prices will surge toward resistance on ultra high tick volume, and prices will close in the middle to lower end of range on a fairly wide range (same at bottom climactic at support,often with fairly wide range), indicating perhaps that professionals knew they wanted to take the market down, but were using the euphoria of the public's buying on good news to enter the market short at much better prices

---alot of this material comes from the pdfs of Richard D. Wyckoff, Hank Pruden, Tom Williams, and Todd Krueger....

----sorry, if this was boring and you guys already know all this stuff. -live long and prosper \\//, :)>-

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share that I've been researching US Futures brokers now for about 1 year. I came up with the following 3 that are the best in my opinion and the opinions of many of my trading friends:

-Mirus Futures & Amp Futures --excellent service, competitive commissions (4.40ish), and best brokers for Ninjatrader+Zen Fire combination, backed by Dorman Trading and RCG-both out of Chicago

-Infinity Futures--excellent service, competetive commissions (4.40), promotes the use of the Transact AT trading platform which is very streamlined, stable and runs the Transact super fast unfiltered data feed-the only well known retail competitor super fast data/execution feed/service next to Zen-Fire, backed by Transact Futures out of Chicago---EXCELLENT firm

____

--The above brokers & their software packages are great. One of the limitations you run into with these GREAT brokers out of Chicago is they don't give you historical data. You get anywhere from 7 to 20 days of data. If you'd like historical data + charting that can power that, IQ Feed is my current favorite for futures trading & Investor RT is my favorite software to power IQ Feed (by Linnsoft). However, both access to premium historical data like IQ Feed and software like Investor RT-both require monthly payments totaling to around 225-250 USD. While I require those tools for my trading, if I were to recommend a solution for free historical+realtime data and charting software for free also, I'd recommend opening an account with Thinkorswim with their account minimum and then withdrawing most of your capitol, leaving around 100USD to keep the account + software access active. Thinkorswim's platform has lots of bells and whistles that you all might like and best of all, no fees, no monthly payments...only normal commissions if you trade, but no penalty or fees for not trading. :shand:

Re: Al Brooks price action articles

Hi everyone,

I agree that Al's work can be cumbersome in its language at times. I feel that his work is very valuable. Essentially, he's found a zen way of simplicity to focus only usually 1 chart, the 5 minute candlestick chart. I prefer range bar charts, specifically for the ES-the .75 point renko bars with wicks in the charting program Investor RT (by Linnsoft, the makers of Market Delta). For most of my trading I prefer range bars over time based bars, as, in a sense, time based bars contaminate price with time, so for precise volume analysis bars with equal range allows you to break down volume very well. I mention my preferences here to say that Al's book and philosophy can be ported and blended with other ways of charting and trading, and I feel the most important feature of his book & lectures is the philosophy of precision through simplicity. -best wishes to everyone, B

Re: Why Not to Trade MA Crossovers..

Hi everyone,

This may have already been mentioned. Moving averages that most of us know of, me included, just scratch the surface of what institutional traders are doing with them. For example, many trading firms will use either a neural net, a genetic algorithim, or a swarm algorithim program to find and adapt moving average values to find trade signals and often to forecast price by a few bars.

-live long and prosper,

B