Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sierra Charts "Alan Box" files
Thanks to Trevor, who alerted me to changed links at sierracharts.com. I've updated the
da Manual Sierra Charts Alan Box page with the corrected links, including a link to the ZIP file of dll codes directly on my site should sierracharts.com links change again.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sunspots, War Cycles, and 2012
In November 2006, I published an article on the
relationship of War Cycles to the Sunspot cycle, a theory proposed by Alexander Chizhevsky in the early 1900s. It's a fascinating idea you might enjoy reading about if it is a new concept to you.
I recently discovered that the 2012 doomsday scenario is as well known among gamers as it is among traders. The April 2007 sunspot chart predicts a local high in
2012.
Wierd, eh?
"They flung mud at me," he [Chizhevsky] later wrote, "I was nicknamed not only 'sun-worshipper'—which I took for granted but also 'obscurantist' "
Labels: cycles, seasonals, sentiment
Bonnie Hill's Trading Pages
Delta and
PVAC users long ago discovered the treasure trove over at Bonnie Hill's cycle pages.
If you haven't visited
Bonnie Hill's site, mozy on over there and check out the vast resources she's collected, and keeps updated! She has recently added Ensign pages as well as a collection of general charting packages.
Have fun!
Labels: cycles, ensign, templates
Friday, February 01, 2008
sputnik's VWAPing blog
My friend sputnik, who trades from Germany, is posting his VWAP adventures over at
sputnik.to. Visit his blog for a link to the details about VWAP. Don't ask me about what the acronym means or the "how"-- isn't that useful. What matters is its behavior on the price chart. In the time I traded alongside sputnik, I can't tell you how many times VWAP behaved as a magnet, or "electric wire". He has an ensign template pack for the obsessed among you.
Labels: ensign, market-buzz-gurus, trading-method
Friday, December 14, 2007
Attention, Users of VolSum, EVRAA, and VolShift
I have coded a
number of unique volume indicators over the years and a kind user just today emailed me to tell me that as of the December 2007 release of Ensign Software, the templates for VolSum, EVRAA, and VolShift are no longer working as intended. Unfortunately, I cannot at this time update the templates, but will let you know when new properly functional templates are uploaded. My very sincere regrets!
Labels: ensign, indicators, templates, volume
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
LBR is Blogging
I've not been in the trading arena for a while now, but a bug bit me today and I wandered around in one of my favorite pursuits: things Richard Wyckoff. If you don't know who that is, it's understandable. He was active in the early 1900s, but his influence continues to resonate, especially his ideas of "smart money" and the idea that volume reveals their tracks, information which is tradable! However, this is not a digression on Wyckoff In the wonderful way of meanders, that search lead me to fresh, but related nugget.
Linda Bradford Raschke (a.k.a. LBR)has a blog, in fact, since July of this year.
Her trading website is full of tradable information and the blog is a pleasant, but related, diversion.
Labels: market-buzz-gurus, volume
Monday, November 12, 2007
here's a cool chart
dave, a long-time trading aquaintance, has thoughtfully sent along a new kind of animated GIF: a trading chart! It was posted over at
dacharts by "av" and created using the
free Microsoft GIF Animator software. Thanks, dave!
Labels: chart-analysis, market-fun, trading-method
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Somewhere over the rainbow...
amg flits! Yes, amg is doing a
flit from the trading turret. After a decade of serious fun and frolic, the desk is tidied up and the notes and books shelved on the low tiers.
Of course, I'm not leaving the earth nor will be forever gone from trading, but this much is true, I won't be actively trading in the Ensign world, which has been a wealth of creativity and camaraderie. The
trading articles, and of course
da $1,000,000 Alan Box manual, remain in perpetuity and I hope useful to traders looking to learn and expand their knowledge.
My very best wishes to all, especially
wombats, and the many dear people who have called me friend and fellow trader.
"All experience is an arch, wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world,
whose margin fades, forever and forever when I move." --Tennyson
Seattle from high above, by amg
Labels: Journaling
Saturday, April 21, 2007
following up: Chick Goslin's Method
Thanks to a recent comment from morganp to a
post from March 2005 on Chick Goslin's method, I now can say there is a template available to Ensign users for Chick Goslin's method. Ensign users can download directly from within Ensign the
Q&A Template 1296-Concurrence (click only if you have Ensign).
There is some meaty discussion regarding the technical aspects of the implementation, which you can read at Howard Arrington's Q&A Knowledge base
article on the topic by clicking on #1296, which will open a new page in IE.
I have created a
Chick Goslin page in my Ensign collection that collects all this for reference and easy access.
Thanks morganp! You're a champ!
Labels: ensign, indicators, templates, trading-method
Friday, December 22, 2006
Merry Christmas & a Prosperous New Year!
Labels: calendar-holidays, ensign, market-fun
Monday, December 11, 2006
RSI for Trend Reversal and Chop Indication
Chop days rarely put me to sleep. Rather, they inevitably lead me to experimentation. And today, it is this simple minded approach to "how do you know you are in chop". I hate those angels-on-a-pin arguments about just what is a trend, just what is chop, do they even exist... blah blah blah. This post presumes you just want a quick glance approach to this great existential question.
I've looked at just about every indicator known to the free world (ie, I haven't bought any of Jurik's stuff :) )
including ADX, and, aside from simple Supt/Resist and price action, I still like RSI for chop/trend indication as it is just so simple. This example is with RSI, but you could do a similar thing with a stochastic, using pretty much the same settings.
When price chops, indicators will "center". RSI will mash around 50. A typical mash range is 45 to 55. Once RSI pushes through the upper or lower range, you can use an MA to confirm the break and place your trade in the direction of the break.
I use a Fisher RSI, which in effect exaggerates RSI and makes it more Stochastic like. Through experimentation, I typically Fisherize with a .1 factor on the standard RSI-14.
OK, that's the indicator. Now for how I use it.
For day trading, I have concluded that I ignore indicator panes. That's me, that's my quirk. However, I do find that what indicators can do to be useful, so I put the most relevant information on the chart itself.
RSI is, of course, useful for divergence, but as I mentioned, my daytrading quirk means I probably won't see or use it. So, when day trading with RSI I am interested only in two things: chop and extremes.
When the Fisherized RSI is between 45 and 55, I put orange highlights (or orange bars) on the chart. When RSI is at extremes, I put a Yellow ribbon on the chart and/or I'll color the bars purple for over-bought and green for over sold.
Here are two examples. You can see chop areas are highlighted and that breaks of the chop in the direction of "the trend" can be well set-up.
By the way, yes, of course "indicators lag". Duh. However, if one is at the point in their trading where identifying chop areas is necessary, lag is not the most important criteria. To "speed" things up, you could use a stoRSI if you want "faster" indications. The core idea is to use the centering quality of the indicators to your advantage.
Ensign Template: RSI_OB-OS_Jammy.datVol Chart example
15m Chart example
.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
interesting correlation
I look at various daily charts at the end of each day, and this one just leapt out today. The upper chart is the Japan/Nikkei ETF (EWJ) and the lower chart is Walmart (WMT).
Labels: ETFs, Nikkei-Japan
Friday, November 10, 2006
Email address change, Remembrance Day, "War Cycles"
Email Address ChangeHello, all ye faithful readers! Due to some sort of hideous take-over of my email by some spambot, I've had to change my email (see sidebar). Just a heads up in the event that you don't receive a reply from me, or if your email to me is bounced.
Remembrance DayRemember the fallen soldiers this weekend, along with all that have fallen during any war, as all life is precious and each individual deserves remembrance. Peace to all beings
War CyclesThere are countless
theories as to the "why" of war, and a consensus is probably as elusive as to the "why" of life itself.
One thing is clear, humanity has enjoyed only brief intermittent spells of peace since historians thought to keep track of such a thing. Of all the theories, one stands out, that of
Alexander Chizhevsky, whose work proposes an 11-year sunspot cycle as the trigger for "major synchronic universal military and political events", ie, wars, revolutions, insurrections, and migrations. Chiz-who, you ask? No doubt you are more familiar with the name
Kondratieff when it comes to war cycles. The
K-wave is, however, 45 to 60 years in length, far longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle studied by Chizhevsky.
Kondratieff and Chizhevsky do share a similar tragic fate: imprisonment. Kondratieff's concept that there is an an inherent self-correcting mechanism that perpetuates capitalism lead to a long imprisonment and in 1938, after a second trial, execution at the young age of 46. At the core of Chizhevsky's sunspot research was the idea that the 1917 revolution was triggered not by a liberating communist ideology, but rather, the sun. Chizhevsky spent eight years in a GULAG but did escape with his life and was "rehabilitated" in 1958. Here is a
link to a short biography of Chizhevsky.
Sunspots have been observed as far back as 800 BC by Chinese astronomers. The first drawing of sunspots was by the monk John of Worcester in 1128. With the advent of the telescope in 1600, the skies opened themselves to even more disciplined record keeping in search of further knowledge of the sun. Leave it to the amateur German astronomer Samuel Schwabe, however, in 1843 to discover the rise and fall of yearly sunspot counts now called the sunspot cycle, which he estimated to be ten years. Pretty good work, Sam.
Chizhevsky's original work published in 1922 juxtaposed early sunspot records, from 500 BCE to 1914, with battles, revolutions, riots, and wars in Russia and 71 other countries during the same time. His published paper presented detailed tables of all the events, summarized in this chart.
from reprint of "Physical Factors of the Historical Process" in Cycles magazine, Jan 1971, a condensed abstract of Chizhevsky's work by Vladimir P. de Smitt
Chizhevsky writes, "Each cycle according to its historical psychological signs is divided into four parts (periods):
- I: ~3 years of minimum sunspot activity & minimum populace excitability.
[5% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- II: ~2 years, increasing sunspot activity & growth of populace excitability.
[20% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- III: ~3 years, maximum sunspot activity & peak of populace excitability.
[60% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- IV: ~3 years, decreasing sunspot activity & decline of populace excitability.
[15% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
Where are we now in
the sunspot cycle?
Using Chizhevsky's model and the sunspot chart above, we have been in a declining period wherein,
there is lack of unity in human masses and indifference to political and military questions. [...] The results of these characteristics are Lack of any desire to struggle for the right or idea, easy capitulation, desertion, etc. Historical facts illustrating this period are peace treaties, capitulations, occupations, decrease or parlimentarianism, strength of autocracies, and the ruling of minorities
Interesting, isn't it?
Being now in the trough, of course, leads to an expanding period, one of theoretical growth of excitability. This period is fascinating, giving the current landscape. Its characteristics:
New leaders appear...new programs are worked out...political and military questions arise and begin to predominate the masses. The end of this period can prove stormy, producing impatient and nervous masses. The length of the period varies greatly, depending on the length and range of the sunspot [and local factors]. One of the most important properties...is the tendency of different nations to unite for common defense or aggression and the fusion of different political groups to oppose other groups. The three phases of this period are (1) originating of new ideas in the masses; (2) grouping of these ideas (3) crystallization of one predominant idea.
The paper is fascinating on many levels and well worth a read.
From a trader's perspective, we say that it isn't the news itself so much as the
reaction to the news that should get our trading attention. Similarly, an important distinction is that Chizhevsky considered solar activity a
triggering mechanism that excited existing grievances and complaints rather than the
causal agent of the human behavior itself, ie, it is the human reaction that matters.
If past is prologue,
fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
Labels: calendar-holidays, cycles, Journaling
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Follow-up: INDU & RSI
Following up on
prior post. The early action pushed the INDU hard into a mid-day reversal. (See inset on image) During that flush, "classic" RSI pushed thru the first (Oct 17th) trendline, into the next one down, and almost tagged the "Bump" line.
The midday reversal canceled all that and the close was on the second (Oct 20th) trendline. Notice that the fisherized RSI didn't make a perceptible budge.
So...still in strength, reaction down is still positively divergent (ie, pullback not full blown reversal).
Labels: chart-analysis, indicators, RSI
Saturday, October 14, 2006
VIX is High, VIX is Low...
the old adage is...
"VIX is high, time to buy
VIX is low, time to go"
But like many things, it is relative, to prior hi/lo to some extent, and to recent behavior. The later is why so many people have given up on VIX...having nearly flatlined into a relatively low range, they toss it out as if it's no good. However, using rsi as a helper to gauge the relativeness has still snagged the wee pullbacks on this Daily chart. It also works pretty cool intraday.
Labels: chart-analysis, sentiment
INDU Daily, an RSI study
Hey, how 'bout one of my own charts? :) Here's a study with "Fisherized" rsi and a classic, but fast (7-period) rsi.
There is already a negative divergence of the rsi related to the current high with respect to the rsi from the prior high (5/10/2006). It could resolve itself two ways:
(1) bust thru the prior resistance line
(2) reverse
The inflection window for either would be 10/17 - 10/20.
The Fisherized rsi is useful for hot trends, where it will stay pinned (OB or OS). It is a "do not fade til you see the whites of their eyes" type of thing. Even a "dip" below 98 could be just that, a dip. Full disclosure: I'm still only day-trading and using Daily charts for "big picture". I gotta say, though, I kinda miss swing trading sometimes.
PS-- not going to go into the rest of the chart voodoo, except to say you'll recognize the
Alan Box (Yellow is an annual),
rabbit's xSwing "big bollie" of 180, showing big time hot trend as price is riding high above it, and VolSum extremes, the Green/Red little arrows.
Labels: chart-analysis, Dow-INDU, indicators
