dmedin

That chart ... Did someone's five year old kid doodle all over it? I've no idea how any human being can find all those squiggles useful ... in the heat of the moment won't they just be a confused tangle?

The bottoming out and retracement of DJIA is clear as day - on the day chart (excuse the pun)

The parabolic SAR is mentioned as a 'strategy'. Here is the PSAR in all its pristine glory (on daily charts it isn't much better).

Brent oil seems to have bottomed out, see below, with an outside candle forming but I would want to wait until tomorrow morning to confirm it. Typically you get a 33 - 50% pullback, so my strategy would be to put a stop at about 5900 and go for 50% retracement. I've got a strategy but not for 5 minute time frames. I was under the impression that you are supposed to respond 'in real time' and use things like candlestick patterns (hammers, dojis) in order to give you signals to enter or exit. I know about the strategy of waiting till there's a clear trend and then getting in when the price is above the MA, but that strategy is incredibly difficult to judge and only becomes obvious after it has happened. Put it this way, if I have £2000 of savings and I want a better return than 2% from a savings account I can easily get a yearly return of 10% from occasional spread betting. But I am not going to be able to day trade £2000 on a daily basis to earn enough to live off. That is just insane.

Look at the daily chart with Fibonaccis drawn from 26951 high and 23554 low for DJIA. Look at the oscillator constantly dipping below 80, teetering; price drop beneath 50 MA; high volume on downside, then the turning up again on high volume. How can this not be more meaningful than massive swings up and down on small time frames? I despair ... this is obviously not for me. No wonder 80% of punters lose all their cash. This is a mug's game!

For me, trading in five minute charts just doesn't work. It's just noise; cannot make sense of anything until AFTER it has happened.

I think I'm just too stupid. Just lost money off the recent spike after 13:15, everything came back > 50%. I'm just losing money all around the board. Being eaten alive. Time for me to get out I think....

5 minutes is going in at the deep end don't you think? No wonder so many people lose so much money so quickly. This really isn't a viable/reliable way to make money is it?

Thank you for very quick response.

Hey I'm probably eligible for RTP but the HTML5 platform has mostly everything I need for now, but few things would be great: 1) I'd like to be able to use a different background colour on my charts besides binary black or white 2) The ability to colour code/fill specific areas e.g. support/resistance zones 3) On balance volume indicator, which I think you can get with MT4

I still plan to keep doing some 'traditional' stuff (daily, weekly, stochs, triangles) 'on the side' though.

Thanks guys some good advice there. Yes ... 15 mins with a 100 SMA seems to be good ... the 20 and 50 seem useful too. Will experiment.

The problem is that, with TA in general, everything fits into place on a chart 'after the fact'. In the heat of the moment, with the best of intentions looking at one's MAs, oscillators and candlestick patterns, the price can easily and abruptly change course and stop you out without warning. It's hell on earth. I need to get a job.

Yesterday was big loss day. I feel as if looking at short time lines is a bit like examining a single tree with a microscope while the rest of the wood is burning around you. I am jealous of people who can work with short time frames, I just can't. And it makes me feel like ****.

I'm lost with that one ... Fascinating to see so many different analyses. The ones on here totally different from Josh Mahoney's today. Don't blame anyone for being confused. I am starting to really despise short-term trading, even hourly charts just seem to be 'noise'.

I love the colour scheme on your charts.

If you're confident of your stops then you just need to bet less per point till you get into a rhythm - minimum for FTSE is just 0.50

In my experience (for what that is worth lol!) the easiest and surest way to lose all your money is to have tight stops and high per-point bets, trading in very short time frames. I wouldn't recommend that approach to anyone ... zoom out to the weekly, daily, and have looser stops with the minimum £ per point ...

Apologies I meant to edit my post but couldn't ... Sorry to hear that Caseynotes is right, use much smaller per-point sizes ... use the absolute minimum and establish whether you can consistently make a profit or not, doesn't matter if you make only small profit, the point is not to jump in at the deep end and to test your method using smallest possible sizes to begin with and keeping losses down.

Hmm that is very strange...

Exactly ... If a seasoned manager of a multibillion hedge fund can't hack it, how can some 'day trader' sitting on their laptop at home have a hope in hell?

Uh-oh ...😱

RealVision brings [hard] to access names directly into IG’s professional and premium clients globally So not for the retail losers ... I don't care for celeb worship anyway. Just good technical analysis.

All of this is intended to spur more trading on the part of IG’s clients, although hopefully, those trades would be better informed and hence more profitable Fantastic news

Yes, I think you were right. Glad I closed out on Friday