Jeff Quinto skype

Skype meeting with Jeff Quinto:

Well, Jeff's a really affable character, it was an interesting hour   talking trading with him.  Even though my futures trading has only   produced small profits he thought I was doing well since I'm new to   trading futures and the markets have been, and are in, a difficult phase   to trade well. 

He explained that trading is really business of ensuring the balance is   right between winning and losing trades and making sure that the gains   clearly outweigh the losses.  The focus is not, and should not, be on   increasing the accuracy of winners (high win rate) but ensuring that the   strategy maximises the profits from the winning trades and minimises   losses from losing trades.  We talked about how my signals are typically   50% winners, 50% losers and that I need to create more of an advantage   by getting rid of trades that aren't working more quickly, by reducing   my initial stop size.  He advised that a trade should work  "immediately  and profoundly" otherwise it's a waste of time to wait  around while the  market does nothing, and in that time, another  opportunity could be  missed.  We talked about some of the statistics of  my performance.  One I  mentioned was that I kept records of the amount  of points the market  went against winning trades before they went the  my way, and that the  average stop required for the winning trades was  1.29 Nasdaq points. I  had reduced my stop from 4 points to 3.25 and  will now look at reducing  this down to 2.5 or 2.

In discussing my trailing stop he advised that it makes sense to take   this approach since you shouldn't restrict the amount the market is   willing to pay you.  You want to be available for those times the market   is willing to reward you and by using a runner you can do that.    However what he did say was that I should add more value to my trading   by moving my trailing stop manually, rather than let a platform do it,   and it's size should be adjusted to account for current market   conditions / volatility.  Trailing stops need to be dynamic depending on   the type of market conditions present, it's not a one size fits all   scenario.  I'll need to do some research on that aspect of my strategy.

My strategy is in some ways at odds to his Theory of Trading (being that   positions should only be taken in the direction of the inertia), since  I  am counter trend trading, and really do not consider the current  bias  of the market in my trading decisions, I just take all the buy or  sell  signals, so I could look at - only taking set-ups that are in line  with  some form of defined trend (?).   His theory is to enter in the   direction of the trend on retracements.   What I could do is incorporate   that in my strategy by adding a position to a winning position, on   retracements.   That would dovetail with his advice that you should   press your advantage.

We also spoke of indicators and he agreed with me that too many people   focus on that aspect of trading rather than the more important aspects   such as setting and sticking to a strict rules based method of trading.

Overall it was a useful hour, I liked his approach which is very much   encouragement to look at certain areas and think about what fits into   your own trading style, whilst keeping in mind the basic principles of   profitable trading.  Once I've slept on it I may have more to add.

In finishing he advised he was looking forward to getting an email from  me in the future, telling him about my successful trading.

I'm looking forward to that too.

I've been spending some time on Multicharts trying to find or create an indicator that I can layer on top of my DBDT indicator that will automatically highlight double tops and double bottoms.  The one on the following chart of my indicator working on E-Mini NASDAQ futures is one I drew in manually.  The ideal scenario would be to automate that part of the process;



It's not as simple as it sounds however, I found an indicator that can highlight these points but it can only do so on a chart of data for an underlying (eg S&P500 or NASDAQ futures) not an indicator plot such as mine above.  If I were able to do this it would be the first step to be able to systematically analyse trade set-ups using my indicator, rather than doing it manually.  If I could do that I'm sure it could provide some interesting insights into where I should be directing my energy however it's beyond my ability to do at the moment since I'm not conversant with Easy Language  (the programming language you can use to create indicators/strategies on Multicharts).


My indicator in black with the E-Mini NASDAQ in grey

"The Money Shot"

Back on 5th October I posted a buy signal I had on GDX, I ended up buying gold that day, and more some days later.  Well yesterday I re-bought the positions I had to sell in GDX and GDXJ before ThinkorSwim closed my account with them.

The buy signal I had on GDX on 5th October was also matched by a buy signal on GDXJ, although I didn't check that at the time.

DBDT indicator working on GDXJ;


So on the 5th October a double bottom formed on my indicator working on GDXJ, a huge one with no lower points on the chart.  It will be interesting to see in the future if this turns out to be a significant low in the Gold complex.

I also bought some UXG (United States Gold), there was also a buy signal on that back on 5th October;

DBDT indicator working on UXG;


Here's the same two points on a standard chart of UXG;



I plan to keep these positions for a very long time.

Where I'm at

This is a currency divergence chart showing E-Mini NASDAQ, AUD/JPY, AUD/USD, EUR/USD taken before the close on October 17th;


It betrayed further downside, and that's exactly what happened.

E-Mini NASDAQ with October 17th marked;






I've been looking back to my trading results from March 1st until August 8th when I had to stop as ThinkorSwim ceased operations in the UK.


Some charts follow showing different aspects of my trading, and the system I use;



This shows the the potential amount of points available to gain/lose for each signal on my system from 1st March to August 8th. An even spread with an upswing towards the end, potentially as a result of switching my indicator to futures based data.



This next one shows, from those signals generated, the actual trades I took;


I missed some of the good ones during times when I was unavailable to trade, and sometimes as a result of taking breaks from the screen.



This next one shows all of the actual signals generated, but in the context of the time in the trading day when they were generated, and the potential gain available per signal;




Clearly the best times to trade are the first two hours of the trading session and the meat of the afternoon session, prior to the close. Fewer signals during the quieter lunchtime period.

Although signals generated in the first two hours of trade generally led to potentially higher gains than the later session, signals were more likely to be stopped out, so signals in the latter half of the trading day had a higher probability of success and a lower probability of a large gain.

Next is the actual trades taken by time of day initiated and points gained;


There is a cluster of trades stopped out in the first hour. Trades initiated after the first hour were, relatively speaking, more likely to succeed.



This next one shows length of time in trades, put together as a result of a suggestion from a Jeff Quinto video. The longest was 4 hours 48 minutes;




Next is time in trades by points gained;


Clearly if a trade isn't working after a lengthy period, it's better to close it, rather than leave it running.


I'm still ongoing with my analysis of my indicator performance with Multicharts. I had thought that an ideal scenario would be one where I have some code written (or purchased) that will auto detect the type of chart patterns I like to trade. That said, it's unlikely to be as good as the brain at detection. There's some clear evidence of this in a project Miss PositiveDeviant is taking part in called PlanetHunters http://www.planethunters.org/. Essentially what NASA have done is provide a lot of potential planet transit data online, for "community scientists" to search through in order to look for patterns that are typical of a planet transit in front of a star. The reason they did this is because they recognise that the human mind is better at pattern detection than computers are. Miss Positive Deviant actually found a new planet and this was confirmed by the project team, she was then interviewed by some of the people involved in the project at MIT, Yale and Oxford and her name is actually listed in the scientific journal and some other articles online. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't get to name it.



The next chart is, on the left, my performance, and on the right, the performance of the system, that is the results had all of the signals been traded;


This really shows exactly what happens if you take a system and only trade some of the signals. The performance is dramatically different. Although I made a profit over the period, it's nothing compared to the potential that is there. I guess X% of new futures traders are down at the six month point, not up as I am. But I take little comfort in that since I want to be much closer to the right, than the left. It is somewhat curious that some of the trades I missed were big ones, and since the system takes most of the profits from a few big trades, that really hurts the profitability.

An analogy of futures trading is a Formula 1 racing team;

The car has to be well designed
The car has to be well set up for the track
The car has to be reliable
The car has to be consistent
The mechanics need to be experts in their field
The team needs strong leadership for motivation
The driver needs to be fit
The driver needs to be motivated
The driver needs to know the track well
The driver needs to be very competitive

If any one of these aspects falters then it strongly impacts the result.

What systems you are using, and which books have influenced your style?

Someone on another forum asked me;

[quote name='Capitalist Pig' timestamp='1318622947' post='229229']
Hi PosDev.

I will be interested to know how you first fell into trend following, what systems you are using, and which books have influenced your style?

Warm regards
[/quote]


My repsonse;

Hi there, I'm interested to know why you think I'm into trend following?

In terms of systems, I've just started using Multicharts.

In terms of style of approach, the main one has been The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. Chapter 3 page 74; he starts explaining how he created a model to try and understand currency movements. He took variables eg

nominal exchange rate = e
nominal interest rate = i
Trade balance = T

and then used those (and others) to build a model.

Something interesting he said was;

"Two general observations can be made. One is that relationships tend to be circular; that is, variables can serve as both cause and effect in relation to other variables".

What I took that to mean was, in any system where you have interacting variables how much can you learn by say, only selecting two of them, and looking at how they relate to each other?

Or, how much can you learn by selecting one variable and then taking a derivative of that and using it as an indicator?

That seems to me to be an approach only using one 1 dimension.

An analogy is, if you take a patient who is showing symptoms typical of a brain tumor, and put them through a CAT scan where you can see only 1 2D "slice" of the brain at a time, and you choose to look at only one of perhaps 300 slices, what sort of conclusion could you reach by only looking at 1 slice? Probably not a very sound one.

So to enable me to look at relationships of groups of variables (stocks, currencies, bonds and commodities - since they all influence each other), I created my own model, and then charted it. It's my DBDT indicator. Essentially I use many variables in it but include the stock, ETF or future that I want to analyse, before I chart it. When I first did this, I spotted that double tops on it made good sell points, and double bottoms were good for buy signals. So that has influenced my style of trading turning points.

This is it working on GDX. GDX is in blue, my indicator in black;


I've shown points 1 to 6, each of which are signals, either a double bottom for a buy signal or a double top for a sell signal;

Points 1 - 6

1) Buy 28th April 2010
2) Buy 30th July 2010
3) Sell 3rd January 2011
4) Buy 26th January 2011
5) Buy 12th July 2011
6) Sell 19th July 2011

Points 1 - 6 on a more standard type of chart;





Also, the first chart zoomed out to show a longer timeframe;

GDX is in blue, my indicator in black - May 2008 to present;


What's interesting on this one is a significant buy signal on 5th October this year. It's significant because where the double bottom has formed over a much larger timeframe, it has previously meant a more accurate signal. Since GDX moves largely similar to Gold, and therefore signals on my DBDT indicator working on GDX can be translated into being a signal for gold, I bought gold that day.

It will be interesting to see in the future if that signal marks a significant low in gold and GDX.


Going back to looking at relationships between groups of variables, I've been thinking about a new way to chart these, and will try to do that at some point, to see if anything interesting results from that.


Regards books Victor Niederhoffer's, Education of a Speculator and Practical Speculation are great. I took something away from those also.


-------------------------------------------------

Regards my Skype meeting with Jeff Quinto, our availability doesn't match up for next week, so has been set for 26th October.

An opportunity to talk with a futures trading veteran

I just took part in a webinar organised by my broker, Mirus Futures - "How to Design Your Own Unique Theory of Trading", by Jeff Quinto.  During the webinar he held a competition for a free hour's mentoring with the fastest to answer three questions winning the prize.

I won.



From the CME website;

"Jeff Quinto is a 37-year veteran futures trader and a world-class  trading coach. He has trained hundreds of electronic traders, including  traders from Hong Kong, France, Slovenia, England, Australia, the US and  Canada.

Jeff’s entire career has been spent in the futures business, first as a  commodity specialist with Shearson and, later, as a trader on the Kansas  City Board of Trade floor where he traded wheat and stock index  futures. His company, Jeffrey S. Quinto and Company was a clearing  member of the Kansas City Board of Trade and a member of the Chicago  Board of Trade. In the nineties, Jeff served as President of Rand  Financial Services, a large Chicago-based futures clearing firm.

From 2000 to 2005, Jeff was responsible for training traders at an  all-electronic proprietary trading firm located in Chicago and Vienna,  Austria in which he was a partner.

Today, Jeff coaches electronic futures traders from around the world in his Electronic Trader Mentoring Program and in his Upgrading Your Trading Course. "

Some notes from the webinar;

Jeff Quinto's Theory of Trading

"Jeff Quinto has been called "America's Preeminent Futures Trading  Mentor".  Jeff is a 37-year veteran futures trader, former CME member  and a world-class trading coach.  He has coached hundreds of futures  traders, including traders from Hong Kong, France, Slovenia, England,  Australia, the US and Canada.

Jeff strongly believes that professional traders are world-class  competitors, comparable to professional golfers, top tennis players, and  Olympic athletes.  None of these competitors could have achieved their  top-ranked status without first having a world-class coach.

Jeff is that world-class coach for futures traders."


He was talking about a time earlier in his career when he was working at the Kansas City Board of Trade; it was 1982 when they introduced Value Line Futures, making Kansas City Board of Trade the first exchange to offer a stock index futures contract.   Average trade size was 10 to 20 contracts and he took an order from Paul Tudor Jones for 1000 contracts at 50 points higher than the market. At the time the order was equal to 50% of the daily volume in the market and he had to try and fill it.  The market rallied sharply, passing the order price before he could get it all on.  That must have been a trade pretty early on in Paul Tudor Jones' career.


He's looking to get something set up for next week. It'll be real interesting getting some guidance from a futures trading veteran.


There was a discussion about him over at the Trade2Win website, one of the comments was;

"I am head  trader for a hedge fund and have been using Jeff Quinto's   coaching for  over 3 years.  He saved my career once when I got into a   hole and I  intend to continue using his service.  Its certainly not   cheap, but you  get what you pay for in this business and 99% of the   people who offer  such services aren't worth paying a single cent for.   Take him seriously  is my advice."

More Multicharts

I'm very impressed with the Multicharts platform so far, it seems very stable, each time I chart my indicator it's the same every time. That certainly wasn't the case with ThinkorSwim. In theory it's possible to program Multicharts so that it recognises a trade set up and initiates a trade based on your pre-set parameters, so your strategy can be fully automated. Realistically, this isn't an option for me since I don't have a programming background and it would probably take an inordinate amount of time to learn how to program it, and then test it to make sure it was working as directed.

I picked out some signals today on ES (E-Mini S&P) whilst getting my new workstation set-up.

DBDT indicator chart


For anyone new to my journal, previously I've taken signals on my indicator working on various indices as trade signals for the E-Mini NASDAQ

Equivalent points on NQ (E-Mini NASDAQ) today;

Green = buy signal time/price
Red = sell signal time/price

Some directionally good signals there.

Steve Jobs talks about life and death

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA[/youtube]

Multicharts

A two hour meeting at work progressed in such a manner that even the colours in the room were seeping from the walls trying to escape, the dye in the carpet was doing it's best to reach the door, not wishing to be associated with the grey and desolate reality of the dis-jointed letters uttered by the mouth that we were supposed to be listening to but could only see open and close as my mind drifted to somewhere much, much more interesting.

I received Windows 7 yesterday, I'm sure it's a fake copy actually, even though I installed it, the authorisation key worked and the online validation worked - such is paranoi after having been ripped off previously.
(Also see - Pavlov)

It's taken me 5 hours to become aquainted with, and figure out how to program my indicator into, Multicharts.  I'm making progress, not as fast as I'd like but since I thought Multicharts would be quite daunting, with it's 905 page manual, I realise it's not so bad and so far we appear to have hit it off, although I'm not prepared to propose just yet.
Google Multicharts if you want to know more. I'd heard of it before via www.bigmiketrading.com but knew nothing of it and paid no attention to it until I was forced from my laptop into the lap of Bill Gates after ThinkorSwim rudely interrupted my trading back in August. I will admit I am pleasantly surprised with Windows 7, it doesn't seem as intuitive as Max OS X, but that may be since I've become too accustomed to using the Mac over the years.


My DBDT indicator working on NASDAQ (on ThinkorSwim);


My DBDT indicator working on NASDAQ (on Multicharts);



Similar but different, for some reason the end number is not the same, perhaps I'll figure it out tomorrow...

Have we seen the low in Gold?

This is gold futures covering 12 months shown within a linear regression trend channel, it's not drawn by me, it's calculated automatically.  I've set the regression channel to show the median line, the outermost lines of the channel represent 3 standard deviations from the mean, and the ones inside are 2 standard deviations from the mean.  Money Flow Index (MFI) is beneath the chart in dark grey.  MFI recently formed a low on 29th September.

The first and second time this indicator bottomed, it marked some form of low in gold.  (Blue vertical dashed lines)

Interestingly, you can also see that the price level gold was at, when MFI was at a low, also marked a key support level in gold, with gold trading back down to the same price level later on, then rallying further.  (Horizontal blue lines). 

What I also find quite interesting is that, on the 2nd and 3rd occasions when the MFI was at a low, the lower 3rd standard deviation line was at the exact price level where MFI made a low previously.  (Grey dots show the intersection between the 3rd standard deviation line and previous MFI low gold price)

That may just be a co-incidence and/or confirmation of the strength of the trend.


It seems unlikely but if that relationship were to continue, then gold would rally somewhat from here, before trading down to $1575 by 8th December 2011.


I bought gold earlier today, without having looked at any of this previously.


This next chart is a proprietary indicator I developed, working on GDX (Gold Miners ETF).



It may look slightly cryptic but it has generated a buy signal for GDX today, previously my indicator signals on GDX have worked well.

Waiting to trade...

Well it's all too barren here on my trading journey blog, I seem to have been the victim of some sort of fraudster on Amazon selling Windows 7.   Nothing arrived, it's been over 2 weeks since it was supposedly sent.  Never mind, the card people at the bank will sort that out.  Meantime I bought another Windows 7 online - let's hope this one turns up.

I've not been looking at what my indicators have been doing since I can't trade just yet, until I get Windows 7 running with Ninjatrader and Investor RT, but I had a look today to see whether it picked anything out of of the action;

Sell signal on YM (E-Mini Dow Jones futures) triggered at 17:05 today;



Equivalent short point on E-Mini NASDAQ;


Entry point based on the indicator sell signal at 17:05 was 2129 on the NASDAQ, my standard trailing stop of 8 points would have been taken out following a bounce, at 2101.75.  That's 27.25 points - a reasonable move. Before I start trading again I'll need to review my 8 point trailing stop, based on the volatility right now it looks like a 10 or perhaps 12 point trailing stop would be more appropriate.

I really hope we are moving into a long term bear market since my system has typically netted more points on the downside, and I want to take advantage of that.

Into gold

I just reinvested 25% of my silver profits into Gold bullion, a  no-brainer for me really.  I have a lot of dollars in a trading account  so it's a nice hedge for that, I am not convinced of the view that there  will be hyperinflation at some point, nor that gold will ever be part  of a monetary unit.  However, I realise I could easily be wrong and want  to hedge against that.  If there is one thing you can count on, it's  for politicians to repeatedly make bad decisions.  I am quite sure that  if gold were to be considered as part of a monetary unit, it will be the  very last option available on the table, and by that time things could  be a real mess.  I've done very well indeed with silver, but it's far  less well rounded as a hedge than gold is.

I may put another 25%  of profits in over the next few days.  I'm keeping the rest since if the  precious metals story turns out to be complete bolshoi longer term, I  still have the gains to show for it.


I'm a fan of Moses Kim  from expectedreturnsblog.com, he seems quite shrewd and reckons there's  more to come on the downside.  His latest post;


Gold's Collapse Continues

"As  I write this, gold is trading at  $1591 in the overnight markets, after  trading as low as $1531.  Surprised? You shouldn't be. Gold was  overstretched and needed a  breather. I am actually starting to think we  will see gold in the $1400  range.

Gold has monster  corrections  all the time, yet people are surprised when they come.  Every time gold  rallies, gold bugs say the world is ending and  hyperinflation is  imminent. This doesn't make sense to me. Treasuries  are hitting high  after high, which means the interest payments on our  debt are holding  stable, and somehow gold is supposed to skyrocket?  Let's be objective  here.

True believers in gold should  take a  one month vacation and not even look at the price of gold. When  your  vacation is over, buy gold at whatever price it's trading at.  I  honestly believe this is a better strategy for most people than  the  alternative, which is to constantly monitor gold prices and buy and  sell  in an emotional frenzy. Let gold bounce off the 200-day moving  average,  then let's start talking about a rally."



As an aside William Patalon III, Executive Editor, Money Morning posted a story on 20th September, the headline -

Why We Know Gold Prices Are Headed Higher

You gotta love it, gold now $200 lower.  I'll be paying close attention to this guy in the future!



-------------------

As regards futures trading, I still haven't received my copy of Windows 7 that I ordered that I need so I can run the PC software provided by my broker.  I ordered it from Amazon, delivery date states between 22nd September and 4th October...

I can't complain since it's still within the "delivery window", I'll just need to be patient. 

Post date 23rd September (forgot to post this at the time...)

I think this may be the end of the cyclical bull market in silver. As a result of yesterday's drop my NAV dropped by 2.6%.

Previously in April, I bought puts on SLV, and sold half of my physical right at the top, I then cashed in the puts between $33.75 and $35, and bought back my physical position at $37. At the time people were rubbishing the idea of it being a top (apart from Bubb). My thinking was that the bull market would continue, but that the price would have to reach and exceed $50 for this to be confirmed to be the case in my mind. Selling after a drop is not typically what you do in markets, however, the meaning of yesterday's price action and the price action in the markets from a macro perspective could be very significant in my opinion.

After much vacillating, late yesterday I sold my entire physical silver position for US Dollars, I got out at $36.4. I am now entirely in cash.

Today I see silver down a further 10%, so at the moment it looks like the correct decision, but it's too early to say.

Only time will tell.

NASDAQ diverging from other indices

I've not really been checking my indicators of late since I can't trade right now but thought I'd I'd post this, a sell signal on the NASDAQ that triggered on the close yesterday;

DBDT sell signal E-Mini NASDAQ - 1 year chart



E-Mini NASDAQ - 1 year chart;




This is NYSE composite with Dow Jones Transporation Index and SPX;

Divergence between the NASDAQ and these the indices.



And divergence between the E-Mini NASDAQ and AUD/JPY, EUR/USD and AUD/USD - 6 week chart;

A review of www.sentimenTrader.com

   19th September 2011

www.sentimenTrader.com

There  are  a seemingly  endless supply of technical indicators a trader  or  investor can choose  from, and since many are derived solely from  one  data series - the  price of a security, it's important to  complement  these by including  sentiment indicators as part of any  market  analysis.  

SentimenTrader began in 2001 and  is operated by Jason Goepfert, a trader of 15 years, the founder and president of Sundial Capital Research, Inc.

Sundial's focus is on "the research and practical application of mass psychology to the financial markets".  Their work has been mentioned in prominent   media  such as Barron's, CNN, CNBC, SFO Magazine, The  Economist,   Reuters,  The Wall Street Journal, Active Trader, Futures,   TheStreet.com  and  TradingMarkets.
SentimenTrader  is  a  subcription access website, they offer a 14 day trial with  no   obligation, along with options to subscribe on a monthly  ($25),   quarterly ($70) or yearly ($250) basis.


Once you're  logged in  you find a well organized page with a bar along  the top with  drop down  menus available under most headings, aside from  the  "Intraday" heading.

 

The  "Stocks"   "Bonds" and "More" headings have further sub-menus allowing  you to get   the information you are looking for quickly.   To start out, I  found   it was useful to head for the "Complete List" sections, you can  then   scroll down the list of available confidence indexes, models  and   indicators to get an idea of what is available.  There is a lot  of   information on SentimenTrader and it seems quite comprehensive.  Eg  For   stocks there are: proprietary models, numerous Volatilty,  Put/Call   ratio, Breadth and Sector indicators along with many  economic  surveys.   There are also many indicators for each of COT,  Shorts, Cash  levels  (eg Mutual fund cash) and Rydex.   On the complete  list page data  is  in the following format;

The  data  is  available to download in Excel format for those that wish to,  the  last  column is a Bullish - Bearish scale that allows a quick  glance   showing how bullish or bearish the reading is.  You can also  bring up  charts depicting the data;

Example chart;

For   Bonds,  there are indicators for Rydex fund flows, Put/Call ratios,   Trader  Commitments and Surveys.  What caught my eye was the Treasury   Bond  Indicator Score, this a form of composite indicator proprietary   to  SentimentTrader where they weighted and combined data from   sentiment  indicators for the bond market, together with put/call   ratios, Rydex  mutual fund flows, sentiment surveys and Commitments of   Traders  data.  The result is an overbought/oversold indicator that   looks very  useful;

For Commodities, there are indicators for Trader Commitments, Public Opinion, Rydex Fund Flow   and Individual Contracts.    For the Individual Contracts, all major   Currencies, Energy, Metals,  Grains, Softs and Meat contracts  are   covered, although it should be  noted that Platinum and Palladium are   not featured.   Seasonality charts  are also available for each contract   listed within the Individual  Contracts section.
The "Public Opinion" charts are of notable interest, an excerpt from an explanation on the website;

"To  calculate  this gauge of public              opinion, we have  created an  index  based on many of the established              surveys  currently  in  existence, some of which are noted below.                We have  looked  at the history of the surveys to determine how                accurately  they have measured extremes in the past, and weighted                 their influence in our indicator appropriately based off   that               analysis."

The following is SentimenTrader's Public Opinion chart for silver as it was towards the end of April 2011;

This  chart  played an important role in my analysis of the silver  market  back  then, I was not a subscriber back then, but I found this  chart and  it  led me to their website.   The analysis was posted  on  Green Energy Investors  (GEI), with others contributing  theirs  also, in a collaborative  effort that led to a very accurate and  profitable  top call in silver.   Even some of the non-traders took  action, such as  swapping silver for  gold.

The initial thread on GEI that started that  process, can be found at: "$50-ish Peak in Silver Coming? Hunting the Top "

 



Moving on to the Models section, these are also proprietary to SentimenTrader;

In  a  similar vein to the Treasury Bond Indicator Score these  are  weighted  composites of sentiment indicators, also depicted  as  oscillators,  suggesting overbought/oversold conditions.  These  are  offered over a  variety of timeframes, from intraday to a few  days,  weeks or months.    Since I mainly trade E-Mini NASDAQ futures  the  STEM.MR NASDAQ is of  potential interest (although I haven't  properly  studied it yet) and  could be useful as a filter for trading  signals  from other indicators,  as it suggests points where rallies may  be  overdone, and where  sell-off's may be nearing an end.


The  charts on the Intraday  section show two week periods for the  S&P  500 and NASDAQ 100, and  are updated every 15 minutes, charts  showing  the STEM.MR model are shown  beneath each, along with cumulative  tick, a  price oscillator, breadth  charts, VIX and Put/Call ratios.   This  isn't part of the site I  generally use since I prefer to have my  own  charts set up through my  trading platform with my own settings  applied  however for those not at  their normal workstation it's helpful  to  have on the site, rather than  you having to look elsewhere.


Finally,  under the More section  you can find seasonality charts for  each month  of the year for the  S&P 500 with data covering 1950  -  2006.    You can also check  seasonal performance of the S&P  500  around  various holidays eg  Labor Day, New Year's Day etc.  This  is an  interesting feature I haven't  come across before and allows you  to  quickly gain an understanding of  market activity around  various  seasonal dates.


Other features  I like from this  website are the Sentiment Summary on  the main page  that gives a brief  run down for the day and some  commentary, both on a 1  to 5 day and 1  to 3 month basis.  As a  subscriber you also get a daily  email with  interesting commentary and  analysis including general equity  market  indicators, and also details  and analysis of the top  sentiment  stories, the most recent being about a  Wall Street research  report  highlighting a  long-term sell signal from  the Coppock  Curve  indicator.  You can also create a list of your  favorite charts,  saving  you time when you want to refer back to your  preferred charts.



Overall  I  think sentimenTrader is well worth the subscription.  The  fact  that  all of the information is well organized and formatted makes  it  very  user friendly and they've covered a lot of bases with the  range  of  content, making it appealing to both the trading and  investing   community.   I'm also a big fan of their proprietary  indicators.

Recommended.

Back in the UK

I'm baaaaack, and boy is it freezing back home.  It's no wonder so many  brits head mediterranean bound each year, (and in the twilight of their  years).





              


                



It  looks as though my call for a potential "Silver style" correction in  gold hasn't borne out, although the next few days should be interesting  since gold may be forming a double top;

Gold futures;






I made a very good call on GDX (Gold miners) back on 10th August on the gold thread on www.GlobalEdgeInvestors.com

"


Gold topped on 20th Feb 2009, 2 weeks before the stock market bottomed.


I  just  checked my proprietary DBDT indicator and it gave a buy signal on  GDX  by the close of trade on 10th August.  That's quite interesting for  me  since historically my indicator has been reasonably accurate with  GDX.

GDX buy signal 10th August;



GDX 1 year;


Also a buy signal on XAU (Gold/Silver index)

If  gold  remains at elevated levels and crude remains suppressed then I  would  certainly think there is a strong chance of a very large  upward  breakout for the gold miners."

GDX today with 10th August marked;




I also made a good call on EUR/USD before my trip abroad;

"
And how about the ugly sister?;

EUR/USD


The  first  word that came to mind here is - Precarious.  If I could  still  trade  through ThinkorSwim right now I would be minded to buy some  FXE  puts  here."

EUR/USD today;



I  would have lost buying puts on GLD but made decent gains on the other  two had I not been without a broker.  ThinkorSwim no longer offer  brokerage services outside the US and Canada, before my holiday I'd  instructed a new broker Mirus Futures to organise the account  transfer from TOS to them.  Nothing has happened.  I'm  having second thoughts about Mirus, I spoke to them on the phone before  my break and they told me not to worry, everything will be sorted blah blah blah. 

I'm now going to review my options regarding a new broker - Mirus have not inspired me with confidence.  They might have at least emailed me if  there was a problem, but there hasn't been any email or phone message  left from them.  On the plus side TOS advised me that my account would  be closed and I still have login access, including to  the Prophet charts I use to calculate my indicator charts, so that is very useful.  I can't count on it lasting though.