Rather then give a boring commentary of the events that have occurred in the past year I will post some stock and index charts that will tell the story for me. The charts are daily charts that I have taken from my eSignal screens. I know that technically there are still 2 trading days before christmas and the year is not over yet but I am not opening my trading platform again until 2012 so Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of my readers. Each chart will open larger in a new window.

VIX (Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index) Daily Chart 2011 Candlestick

30 Year T-Bond Interest Rates Daily Chart 2011 Candlestick

NASDAQ Composite Index 2011 Daily Chart Candlestick

Dow Jones Industrial Average 2011 Daily Chart

HANG SENG INDEX Daily 2011 Chart Candlestick

NIKKEI 225 Index Daily 2011 Chart Candlestick

S&P ASX 200 Index 2011 Daily Chart Candlestick

EUR/USD Daily Spot Price 2011 Candlestick

Gold Futures (GC #F) Daily Chart 2011 Candlestick

NYME Light Crude Oil (CL #F) Daily Chart 2011 Candlestick

]]> http://www.traineetrader.com/2011-market-recap-in-charts/feed/ 0 http://www.traineetrader.com/world-time-clock-for-forex-traders/ http://www.traineetrader.com/world-time-clock-for-forex-traders/#comments Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:06:29 +0000 Mark http://www.traineetrader.com/?p=1524

In the currency market timing really is everything. I have tried a number of different options to ensure I get my timing right regarding market moving news announcements. I tried some MetaTrader 4 indicators and on-line time clocks but none of these have came close to Anuko World Clock.

Download Free 30 day trial.

Anuko World Clock

Anuko World Clock allows for up to 10 time clocks to be displayed in the Windows task-bar. This allows for multiple time zones to be viewed from any application. You can see the taskbar setup I am using in the image below:

Anuko World Clock Features

• Simultaneous display of several clocks right in your task-bar. Varied digital and analog skins.
• On-line time synchronization over NTP with accurate atomic time servers.
• The ability to set any amount of one-time and recurring alarms and toggle specified action when alarms fire.
• A calendar and a time converter for easy time calculations across time zones.
• A prefix and tool-tip for every clock that you can edit to display, for example, the name of your overseas contact, or business partner.
• The ability to hide the clocks in your system tray in a menu.
• A URL or program link of your choosing, on double-click (eg: display world/local weather, or show a news page).
• Fully configurable timers and stopwatches that track time anywhere from seconds to many weeks.
• Interactive 3D world map that shows time and photos of cities around the globe.

Download Free 30 day trial.

]]>

eSignal 11 the Main Screen

The Top Menu Bar

eSMenu

The eS menu bar as shown above is pretty much just like the File menu in most other applications. From this menu bar you can create New Pages, Open Pages, Save Page Create new Layouts, arrange windows and modify application properties.

New Menu

Tools Menu

Watch List

Trade

The Trade menu handles most of the eSignal trade integration functions. From this menu you can handle orders, mange connections to brokers and Money Management planner.

Support

Detailed Quote Window

Charting

• Unlimited Overlays
• Sub-Charts
• View other symbols in sub-chart
• Selectable Studies, Lines
• Drag-and-Drop Studies
• Translucency
• Bars Aligned with Sessions
• Technical Indicators
• Add-On Studies
• EFS
• Back Testing
• Area Chart
• Bar Chart
• Candlestick Chart
• Line Chart
• Drawing Tools
• Tick Intervals
• Percentage Scale

Bottom Line

October/December FX Trader Magazine is out for free download with the following articles:

• Women in Forex
• Interview with Kathy Lien and Valeria Bednarik
  FED’s internal fights versus USD performance
• Elevated Forex Trading
• Volume Analysis
• Ichimoku Kinko Hyo The Art of The Chart
• Why Invest in Asian Currencies?
• Strategy: Dicing with the Devil
• Risk Me, Risk Me Not?
• Adaptive Trading Systems
• Discipline: Why you don’t
• have it, and How to get it
• Find your trading style
• High Frequency Trading
• Interview FX Manager Interview
• Technical Analysis:USD/JPY, EUR/CHF, USD/ILS

Some quite interesting articles. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

I also wanted to be able to display the current spread, so it is easily viewable from the chart window.

I have made the following varibles modifible when attaching the indicator to the chart:
fontColor – This is the colour of the price display if bidAsk=”False”.
spreadColor- This is the colour of the spread display.
fontSize – This is the size of the bid and spread prices.
corner- This controls which corner you want your price and spread detail displayed in.
bidAskColor- This is set to true by default, if you wish to display solid colour only set to false.

Below is a screenshot of SpreadPriceInd.mq4 in action:

The source code for the indicator is shown below:

//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//|                                               SpreadPriceInd.mq4 |
//|                                  Copyright © 2010, TraineeTrader |
//|                                     http://www.traineetrader.com |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
#property copyright "Copyright © 2010, TraineeTrader"
#property link      "http://www.traineetrader.com"

#property indicator_chart_window
   // usr mod vars
   extern color     fontColor = Yellow;
   extern color     spreadColor = Blue;
   extern int       fontSize=24;
   extern string    font="Arial";
   extern int       corner=1;
   extern int       diffDig = 10;
   extern bool      bidAskColor = True;

   double           prevPrice; // easier if global

int init()
  {
   return(0);
  }

int deinit()
  {
   //kill chart objects
   ObjectDelete("nonFracPrice");
   ObjectDelete("fracPrice");
   ObjectDelete("marketSpread");
   return(0);
  }

int start()
  {
   int xOffset = fontSize - 8; // for fractional pip offset
   string priceBase; 

   if (bidAskColor == True)
   // shown movements in price by color change
   {
    if (Bid > prevPrice){ fontColor = LawnGreen; }
    else{ fontColor = Red; }
    prevPrice = Bid;
   }

   // Usually 5 or 3
   priceBase = DoubleToStr(Bid, Digits);
   int SLength = StringLen(priceBase);

   // Create chart objects
   ObjectCreate("nonFracPrice", OBJ_LABEL, 0, 0, 0);
   ObjectSetText("nonFracPrice", StringSubstr(priceBase, 0, SLength-1),
fontSize, font, fontColor);
   ObjectSet("nonFracPrice", OBJPROP_CORNER, corner);
   ObjectSet("nonFracPrice", OBJPROP_XDISTANCE, xOffset);
   ObjectSet("nonFracPrice", OBJPROP_YDISTANCE, 1);

   ObjectCreate("fracPrice", OBJ_LABEL, 0, 0, 0);
   ObjectSetText("fracPrice", StringSubstr(priceBase, SLength-1, 1),
 fontSize-diffDig, font, fontColor);
   ObjectSet("fracPrice", OBJPROP_CORNER, corner);
   ObjectSet("fracPrice", OBJPROP_XDISTANCE, 1);
   ObjectSet("fracPrice", OBJPROP_YDISTANCE, 1);

   ObjectCreate("marketSpread", OBJ_LABEL, 0, 0, 0);
   ObjectSetText("marketSpread", DoubleToStr(MarketInfo(Symbol(),
MODE_SPREAD)/10,2),fontSize, font, spreadColor);
   ObjectSet("marketSpread", OBJPROP_CORNER, corner);
   ObjectSet("marketSpread", OBJPROP_XDISTANCE, 1);
   ObjectSet("marketSpread", OBJPROP_YDISTANCE, 40);
   return(0);
  }

As a child I always had a dream of one day working and living in your great country. As the years have passed my desire to relocate has decreased. I always thought that the United States was the land of the free, however your government seems intent on controlling the lives or your residents. Are American’s really that stupid they need the government to intervene in their every day life?

Digital Millennium Copyright Act – DMCA

Taking grandmas to court and suing college students for sharing music and movies. Has it really come to this? Does the presumption of innocence not exist anymore? What has happened to fair use?

USA PATRIOT Act

Who cares if parts of it are unconstitutional this is the new America after all. Listen to your citizens phone calls, read their emails and listen to their voicemails. If all else fails just use National Security Letter to search telephone, email, financial records, employment or maybe even health records without a court order.

Unlawful Internet Gambling Act -UIEGA

If I want to throw my money away gambling that is my decision is it not? If I were an American citizen I would not be able to transfer my funds from my bank to an online gambling site. If you do somehow manage to get your money online be careful taking out your winnings. The DoJ may try and take your money away.

CFTC Regulations and the SEC

There are a lot of dodgy operators in the OTC market no question about that; however it looks like lobbying groups are trying to kill the retail spot market for currencies and metals. The CFTC thinks Americans cannot handle leverage, they are too stupid to trade Contracts for Difference and unless they are planning to take delivery in 28 days no spot metal. Don’t even get me started on the pattern day trading rule.
Why would I want to live and work in a country whose government treats their citizens in this fashion? I have come to the conclusion that America is no longer the land of the free.

I hold onto the hope that someday things may be different.

TT

Display Info MT4 Indicator

This is an excellent indicator that can be configured and modified as desired. Hanover has done an excellent job as he does with all his indicators he has released. This indicator will display the following info, for all currency pairs offered by your broker:

• Symbol (A=AUD, C=CAD, E=EUR, F=CHF, G=GBP, J=JPY, N=NZD, U=USD)
• Current bid price
• Daily range to date:ave daily range (DR as a % of ADR) (note: Sunday candles not included in ADR)
• Spread (spread as a % of ADR)
• Dollars per pip (per full lot traded)
• Swap paid(+) or charged(-) by broker on long and short positions

The screenshot below shows the Display Info indicator in action.

Download Display Info MT4 Indicator

Plot News MT4 Indicator

The Plot News Indicator is one of the most useful indicators I have come across.  This indicator can be configured to alert you of up coming news events, it also allows you to see the market impact of every news announcement. Once again this indicator is written by hanover. The screenshot below shows the Plot News indicator in action.

Download Plot News MT4 Indicator

Auto-Session v1.5 MT4 Indicator

This indicator graphically displays the overlap between different trading sessions. The indicator also displays the pip range from the given session. The screenshot below shows the Auto-Session v1.5 indicator in action.

Download Auto-Session v1.5 MT4 Indicator

TimeZone Indicator

The TimeZone indicator displays time zones of the different currencies in a separate window. The screenshot below shows the Auto-Session v1.5 indicator in action.

Download TimeZone MT4 Indicator 

p4Clock MT4 Indicator

The p4clock indicator has been around for quite sometime and displays different time zones in your preferred corners. It also displays your brokers time and how long is left in the current bar. The screenshot below shows the p4Clock indicator in action.

Download p4Clock MT4 Indicator 

Forex Market Hours MT4 Indicator

Forex Market Hours Indicator graphically displays the market overlap and the time in GMT that markets open. The screenshot below shows the Forex Market Hours indicator in action.

Download Market Hours MT4 Indicator

Sample Pages

Download the eBook now FREE, just enter your details below and we will send you a FREE copy. A full table of contents is shown below.

Table Of Contents

1. What’s All This Talk about Money?

1.1. Introduction to Money

1.2. Characteristics of Money

1.3. Vodka as Money

1.4. Paying the Man

2. The Forex Market, Exchange Rate & Bid Ask Spreads

2.1. Introduction to the Forex Market

2.2. Over the Counter Markets

2.3. Example: Travel & the Exchange Rate

2.4. Exchange Rates: Indirect Quotes

2.5. Exchange Rates: Direct Quote

2.6. Base Currency or Commodity Currency

2.7. Exchange Rates: The Bid Price

2.8. Exchange Rates: The Ask Price

2.9. Why is the Ask price always more than the Bid price?

3. Pips, lots and a little bit of math

3.1. Introduction

3.2 What is a Pip?

3.3. How Much is a Pip worth?

3.4. What is a Lot?

3.4. Pip Calculation: Indirect Currency

3.5. Pip Calculation: Direct Currency

3.5. Pip Calculation Summary

4. Understanding the lingo

4.1. Introduction & Key Forex Terms

4.2. The Spot Market

4.3. The Long and Short of it

4.4. A Closer Look at Currency Symbols

4.5. Liquidity

5. The Big Three in Forex: Leverage, Margin & Equity

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Leverage

5.3. Margin

5.4. Equity

5.5. Final Word on Margin

6. The Best Trading Times in the 24 Hour Market 22

6.1. Introduction

6.2. When Can I Trade Forex?

6.3. Best Times to Trade Forex

6.4. Simple Time Zone Conversion

7. Putting it Into Practice

7.1. Setting up a Demo Account

7.2. MetaTrader Client Terminal

7.3. Creating a Chart in MetaTrader

7.4. Chart Time Frames

7.5. Charts Toolbar

7.6. Line Drawing Tools

7.7. Placing an Order

7.8. Modifying or Closing an Order

7.9. Moving Forward

Writing Pseudo Code in MeataEditor

For simplicity reasons we will write our trend following system pseudo code in MetaEditor. Open MetaEditor from “[drive]:/Program Files/MetaTrader4/” folder. Alternatively you can open MetaTrader and press F4 or Tools –> Meta Quotes Language Editor.

Step One

Create a New File of type Expert Advisor. File –> New or CTRL +N.

Step Two

Click Next an enter appropriate details for the system. Call your Expert Advisor Turtle System.

Finally, you should see a code window similar to the one below:

We will be following the pseudo code convention outlined in the pseudo standard presented in the previous article. We will enter the pseudo code as comments in MetaEditor, for simplicity we will use the quote modifier. Below is sample pseudo code I have written to implement most parts of the Turtle Trading system. This is the first iteration and there are errors present in the code. Can you find the errors in the pseudo code?

// Calculate True Range
FUNCTION trueRange WITH todaysHigh AND todaysLow AND pDayClose
    RETURN CALL findMax((todaysHigh - todaysLow), abs(todaysHigh - pDayClose), abs(pDayClose - todaysLow))
END FUNCTION       

// Calculate N
FUNCTION calcN WITH prevN and trueRange
    RETURN (19 * prevN + trueRange) / 20
END FUNCTION

// Detrmine the dollar value of a pip
// 1 lot = 100,000 base currency
// PPV = Per Pip Value
FUNCTION PPV WITH lotSize, currentPrice, accCurrency, pipVal
    inCurr = pipVal / currentPrice
    RETURN accCurrency * inCurr * (lotSize *100000)
END FUNCTION

// Calculate the dollar volatility of a currency pair
FUNCTION dollarVol WITH n AND ppv
    RETURN n * ppv
END FUNCTION

// Calculate unit value for given account
FUNCTION calcUnit WITH dollarVol, accBalance
    return (0.01 * accBalance) / dollarVol
END FUNCTION

// Misc rules
// max 12 units in one direction
// if account drops 10% reduce available equity by 20%

////////////////////// Entries ///////////////////
// System One A shorter term 20 period breakout
// buy or sell 20 period breakout
// buy or sell 1 unit
// if previous breakout winner skip trade
// losing if previous breakout 2N loss
// stops set at 2n below entry

IF currentPrice > 20periodHigh AND prevLongTradeLoser THEN
    CALL buyCurr
ELSE IF currentPrice < 20periodLow AND prevShortTradeLoser THEN
    CALL sellCurr
END

// System Two 55 period breakout entry
IF currentPrice > 55periodHigh AND THEN
    CALL buyCurr
ELSE IF currentPrice < 55periodLow THEN
    CALL sellCurr
END

// Adding units
// Additional units added stops raised by half n
// add a unit every 1n move
IF tradeLong AND currentPrice > (lngEntPrice + n) THEN
    CALL buyCurr
    CALL adjStop
ELSE IF tradeShort AND currentPrice < (lngEntPrice - n) THEN
    CALL sellCurr
    CALL adjStop
END

///////////////////Exits ///////////////////////
// System one
// 10 period low for long posn
// 10 period high for short posn 

IF s1tradeLong AND currentPrice < 10periodLow THEN
    CALL sellCurr
ELSE IF s1tradeShort AND currentPrice > 10periodHigh THEN
    CALL buyCurr
END

// System two exit
// 20 period low for long posn
// 20 period high for short posn

IF s2tradeLong AND currentPrice < 20periodLow THEN
    CALL sellCurr
ELSE IF s2tradeShort AND currentPrice > 20periodHigh THEN
    CALL buyCurr
END

As you can see this code gives us an excellent starting point for the development of our Turtle Trading system. In the next article we will go through the specifics of coding in MQL. I have provided a basic implementation of the code for this trading system but you will derive most benefit from creating your own implementations of this system.

Related Articles

• Building an Automated FOREX System: Designing a Simple Strategy and Introduction to Pseudo Code.
• Building an Automated FOREX System: Expert Advisors & Indicators
• Building an automated currency trading system from scratch.

Today I will be looking at the TIMFundamentals DVD package. This package consists of TIMFundamentals a 4 DVDs in total and a thick workbook. TIMFundamentals is aimed at new traders and traders who want to learn Timothy Sykes strategy.

Timothy Sykes: TIMFundamentals DVD One approximate runtime 1 hour 3 minutes 

The first DVD is a recorded coaching session of Tim doing some 1-1 coaching and is split into four chapters. As usual the first 26 pages of the workbook detail Tim’s other products. This may be useful to some people, but most people will derive little value from this advertising. This DVD pretty much consists of Tim going through the basics of how he undertakes his research. This DVD covers some important topics and is helpful for people wanting to learn how to trade Tim’s strategy. This DVD shows how Tim goes about identifying potential trades and the websites he uses. It would have been helpful if we could actually see what Tim and his student were actually looking at on the screen.   

Topics covered include:

• The benefits of using free sites.
• Ticker gathering process.
• Typical moves.
• Identifying the usual suspects.
• Self fulfilling prophecies.
• Some example trades.
• Stock promoters.

Timothy Sykes: TIMFundamentals DVD Two approximate runtime 1 hour 30 minutes

In DVD two we resume with Tim and his coaching student going through the watch list building process.  In this DVD we gain some excellent insight into Tim’s research process. Once again some very interesting concepts are introduced. You will need to make sure you take notes when watching this DVD as some excellent topics points are made that are not written in the workbook.

Topics covered include:

• Specific forums and message boards for research.
• More research sites revealed.
• Press releases and there usefulness.
• Some detailed variables.
• Some basic fundamental indicators.

Timothy Sykes: TIMFundamentals DVD Three approximate runtime 1 hour 50 minutes

DVD three is split into ten chapters and is in screencast format. This is the practical part of the Tim Fundamentals DVD, we get to see Tim create his actual watch lists.  This DVD is highly practical and reinforces the concepts presented in the first DVD. Tim spends quite sometime going through how he uses Clearstation in his research process. Tim also shows us Covestor and his ranking and briefly talks about auto trading. In short this DVD gives excellent practical advice for researching and building of watch lists.

Timothy Sykes: TIMFundamentals DVD Four approximate runtime 1 hour 34 minutes

In the final DVD Tim continues his research and watch list building. In this DVD we also get to see a behind the scenes look at his TimAlerts program. In this DVD Tim continues to filter his watch list. This DVD as the previous is very practical in nature and has some valuable information. It is good that Tim is going through his actual techniques he uses and goes into a lot of detail. In some parts of this DVD there is blurring and the image is un-viewable, Tim needs to get Camtasia and make sure he does the screen capture on a computer with decent RAM and a fast CPU. Finally the DVD goes over actually trading the stocks that were researched the previous day. In his conclusion Tim makes some very good points about the research process. 

Bottom Line

TIMFundamentals is for new traders or people who have little experience in the stock market. The concepts presented are simple, practical and easy to understand. The first two DVD’s moved slowly however they had useful content. The final DVD’s were highly practical and showed the tools that Tim uses on a daily basis. If you are interested in seeing how Tim trades and what he does on a daily basis then TIMFundamentals is for you. This is an excellent introduction to the research process. The one thing that surprised me is that Tim has not automated his processes. TIMFundamentals delivers on its promises and provides you with a look behind the scenes on the Timothy Sykes research process. 

Pros

• Excellent for beginners.
• Research process explained in detail.
• Both theory and practical concepts covered.
• The best free research websites revealed.

Cons

• First two DVD’s slow.
• Screen cast quality not the best.

Related Reviews

• Timothy Sykes DVD Review: PennyStocking.
• Timothy Sykes DVD Review: PennyStocking Part Deux.
• Timothy Sykes DVD Review: ShortStocking
• Timothy Sykes DVD Review: Tim Raw.