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General Trading Forum General Trading Questions
1

I’ve been with Apex for almost a year now, in hope to make a living day trading or at least profit. I’ve tried many trading programs and most of them turned out to be scams. When I came across Apex investing, I knew they were different from every other programs out there. So I stuck around and learned as much as I could. But even with all the countless hours learning and demoing, I still couldn’t manage to profit in the long run.

I’ve stuck with Apex as long as I can, but you can only stick with something for so long if it doesn’t produce the results you want. I’m at a point in my life where I need to cut my losses and part with Apex and move on. I have nothing against Apex investing or any of its members, its a great community of traders. Its just not working out for me.

Thanks for the Experience. -Josh

2

It sounds like you are looking for the holy grail of trading, and I’m sorry to say it’s not out there but I think you have to really look inward to find out why you are not satisfied with your trading.

I’ve read this, and Darrell has recommended it in one of his posts somewhere, but I would suggest you pick up the book “Trading in the Zone” by Mark Douglas. It dives deep into trading psychology and how your mental attitude and environment account for the majority of your successes and failures, not just in trading, but in life as well.

It’s a great read and I suggest you really take it in and if you do and are willing to make trading work, you will be amazed at the results. Whatever you decide to do, good luck!

3

Josh, I am so sorry to hear that. I have been with APEX for 2 years and quite honestly have not made any decent money as yet myself, but I am not giving up just yet. I was having some great results with trend catcher in the beginning with scalping and then either lost my “mojo” or my confidence and had a brutal week. I went back to trading demo this past week and have done well by incorporating APEX entries, MPV reversals, diagnostic deviation levels and TC, and not taking a trade unless it looks as good as possible. When I trade demo, I trade it exactly as I would if live, it’s hard for me to do, (I even catch myself biting my nails) but with discipline it’s doable. I guess what I am trying to say is I’ve seen you in the chat rooms and here in the forum, you seem like a very smart guy, and hate to see you give up. Are you trading strictly NADEX or are you trading futures, or both? Should you wait for the new scalp catcher and improvements to TC and APEX entries that are coming in the near future? Maybe you can reach out to Darrell and get some help there. If you do end up giving up I wish you the best going forward. Myself, I have to make this work somehow but believe me I know where you are coming from. Doug

4

Josh, Hate to hear that. Know you’ve been putting some time in. If you don’t mind, briefly tell me what instruments you’ve been trading and what strategy. I’ll do my best to help. Hell, fill me in and get a plan together and I may pay your membership for another month.

And Doug I know you’ve been putting some time in too. Been some great trading lately whether NADEX or Futures. I can try to help if ya fill me in a lil more on instruments traded and strategy. You have the right attitude and are in the right place with APEX. Let’s get it profitable for ya!!

5

I’ve been moving around from system to system, and when Trend catcher came out I thought I found a system that I liked and was comfortable trading. In the begining I wasn’t doing very well. So I messed with the trend catcher settings until I found something that I liked. I came up with these SCALP settings for trading NQ 12 tick:

{"TrendCatcherEngineSettings":{"TrendicatorDirectionSettings":{"TrendicatorSettings":{"Period":2},"SmoothDirectionDeltaTicks":2},"VolatileTrendLineSamplingPeriod":4,"VolatileTrendLineMultiplierConstant":2.0,"EntryOffsetTicks":1,"MaxEntryBars":1},"UseConfirmation":true,"ConfirmationTrendCatcherEngineSettings":{"TrendicatorDirectionSettings":{"TrendicatorSettings":{"Period":2},"SmoothDirectionDeltaTicks":3},"VolatileTrendLineSamplingPeriod":3,"VolatileTrendLineMultiplierConstant":2.0,"EntryOffsetTicks":1,"MaxEntryBars":1},"ConfirmationBarsPeriod":18,"ConfirmationBarsType":1,"TradingSchedule":{"Items":[{"StartEntering":2040,"StopEntering":2070,"FlattenPositions":2415},{"StartEntering":3480,"StopEntering":3510,"FlattenPositions":3855},{"StartEntering":4920,"StopEntering":4950,"FlattenPositions":5295},{"StartEntering":6360,"StopEntering":6390,"FlattenPositions":6735},{"StartEntering":7800,"StopEntering":7830,"FlattenPositions":8175}],"DisplayName":"Custom unsaved schedule"},"StopOffsetTicks":1,"EntryOffsetTicks":1,"TargetTicks":5,"MaxEntryBars":1,"WorstFill":false,"ShowStats":true}

Going back through the stats I noticed there were very good results with the schedule I have set. I looked even closer and found that the second confirmed trade after the scheduled start time has a very good win rate. So I started taking only the second confirmed trade. The only downside is the profit target is 5 ticks and stop loss is 20 ticks and only taking 1 trade a day. I had some success with this, but it ended up being a loss over a months worth of trading.

I’ve pretty much lost all confidence in trading. I’m pretty much at a point where I need to be held by the hand through everything.

6

Josh and Doug -

First, I am sorry that you are going through this, and hope you realize most of us have gone through something similar at some point. We are here for you.

Two, you have put quite a bit of time into APEX, If you leave and go do something else, you will be starting out at something close to square 1. At least here you are at say square 3, for instance, and you only need to get to square 4 to be profitable. There are plenty of people here who will help get you across the line.

Third, you aren’t going to find a community like this anywhere. Everyone from Darrell, to the programmers, to customer support, to room leaders, to traders, is here to help. Let them help you.

Good luck to you both, Brad

7

I’m not sure how I came across as giving up, I was trying to tell Josh not to give up. The last thing on my mind is giving up and quitting APEX, I am bound and determined to make it work for me, at least until the money I have allotted runs out. I did lose half of my account scalping TC with blind faith in the stats, but went back to demo trading with another plan that seems to be working. I haven’t quite decided to go back to live trading next week, or waiting until the new improved version of TC comes out, but regardless, I am still in the game. Doug

8

Sorry Doug, my bad, Thanks for trying to help. Brad

9

OK, so I had trouble getting into a forum until now and sent a personal message to someone asking for assistance. The response was less than I expected so now that I have access to the forums, I am going to present it here in hope of getting a more intelligent response.

First off know that even though I am a newb at this, I am diligently and persistently plodding through all of the videos, read here I am not just winging it after watching a single vid or two. For someone new, it is information overload but refreshing just the same. I have found the info shared in the videos to be very enlightening although it has yet to be profitable for me. I remain VERY optimistic.

I have been trading Forex both demo and live accounts for some 6 months now. I have an account at Nadex (where I learned of APEX) and an account at FXCM on TradING Station (NOT TradeStation as mistaken by the reader in the previous email). I hold my own in Trading Station but Nadex has continued to elude me. In fact, I have used the APEX methods in Trading Station to identify opportunities for my Forex account there and have found them helpful.

I don’t believe that trading only on Trading Station is going to meet my expectations and I need that edge at Nadex before committing more funds to that account. Trading Station is Forex ONLY and I want to move into Futures but the symbols that I see on Ninja do not even remotely match up to what is displayed on Nadex. What am I missing here? I have attached a picture of what assets are in my Ninja list.

When I start Ninja, I connect to CQG first, then FXCM. I have no other connections. Am I missing a feed somehow? I hear in the videos all the time “we like to trade the Russell”. When connected to APEX and I open up the Nadex binary scanner I see the following as show in my second picture. Which one of those is the Russell??? I realize this is pure ignorance on my part but it is also that small connection that I am not making that will make the difference.

One last question… The black box that shows the stats for the Trend Catcher, please explain to me what the “Expectancy” number is and how it is calculated and, what does “total draw down” mean to my my account and the time frame that was tested?

Thanks in advance for any help and/or direction.

Best regards,

Dolfan

10

Dolfan - sorry you are in overload, happens to most of us. The fact is that there are a lot of systems here, and they all work. It means you need to find out which one works best for you (risk profile, times you can trade, etc.) I have traded all of them with some degree of success or another. By far the easiest is the new Trend Catcher with Chop Filter.

As far as Russell, it is the Russell Index, goes by symbol TF, and is called the Small Cap 2000 on NADEX.

I will let someone else handle your connection issues, I am horrible and no help even to myself on that stuff. I just hope mine never goes down!!!

As far as the black stats box, it isn’t hooked into the new chop filter yet. So, not sure if it will look the same on the new system. Expectancy is essentially how much you “expect” to get per dollar invested. So, if the expectancy is 8, then you should “expect” to make $8 for every $1 invested. MDD is Max Drawdown, which is the maximum loss you should expect at one time. Again, I say expect, because past stats don’t necessarily translate going forward.

Hope this helps, Brad

11

Brad,

Thank you so much for your timely and accurate response. The TF acronym was very helpful. What are the other acronyms for? I am attaching a pic from my Nadex page of the assets available. Is it possible that I do not have futures turned on at Nadex and therefore not available for me to trade? If that is so, I will call them in the AM.

I don’t see that the chop filter is available to me. Is that an extra cost? Also, the “A.P.E.X. Diagnostic Day Trading Plan” is also disabled. Why is that? And, more importantly, what is that? Perhaps that is a something that I have yet to come across in the many many videos to watch. :slight_smile: Honestly am getting a lot out of them and I need to hone in on what works best for me right now, then evolve.

So the MDD is the max loss in tick on one particular trade, not the total ticks lost over a test period? Where do we normally find the best “Expectancy” percentages? i.e. any particular assets???

One final note on the forum messages here. I would open up my scanner in one tab, then go to another tab and open the forum. The forum would recognize this as a 2nd entry with the same profile and not allow me to comment. This seems contrary to one of the previous videos I watched where the narrator said that you could have a desktop and a laptop logged in at the same time as long as it came from the same IP address. This seems contrary to what I experienced. If I misunderstand, please enlighten me. Otherwise, please pass this on to the tech team as I entered a ticket for this earlier.

Best regards and happy trading!

Dolfan

12

So Brad, I guess what I was missing about the futures was the need to import them in the “Instruments” tab in Ninja. I didn’t realize that is what I was missing. I am in the process of converting my FX account from FXCM to Ninja so I can benefit from all the info shared in the charts here. So far I have not been successful with the strategies because I am not truly using Ninja. After that I guess futures will be limited to what Nadex provides, unless I opt for another data feed from someone else???

Also, I was watching the video earlier of “Momentum Scalping with Binaries” and I watched the narrator (is that Darrell?) use the simulation settings on the Nadex Binary Scanner. Is there a video that details how that works? I have been through sooooo many videos by now that my head is spinning. I am in serious information overload right now. I only hope that Ninja helps me get it going before I crash and burn. Until now I have tried to convey the teaches of the wise ones here to my charts in Trading Station. Just enough to keep me treading water but not able to swim.

One final observation, some videos show where you find links to things that are important but, it appears the website has evolved and the links have changed. I could be wrong here but worth looking into.

Best regards,

Dolfan

13

Dolfan, The Day Trading Plans are no longer offered and have been replaced with the Trend Catcher System. It sounds like you have watched many videos and have been all over the site learning and studying. I would suggest to NOT start that way. You will get into information overload. The best thing to do is to start with one system and stick to it until you have it down, practice it in demo, then go live. Once you are comfortable there then you can add on another one from there. If you choose a system and go through the step by step training course it walks you through everything you need from step one including setting up Ninja, data feeds, instruments and everything. If you hope around you will not have all the pieces come together without following all the steps and rules and using the proper tools. Let us know if we can help or submit a ticket tot he Help desk

14

Ooops! Too late. Already drowning in information overload.

Funny you should suggest starting that way because I asked for some divine guidance recently but was blown off. I have figured out on my own that I must use Ninja to properly execute any strategies. So I am in the process of converting my FX account over to Ninja. Probably will take a couple of days before the funds are confirmed so I may ask for an extension in my trial period to get this started right.

I have been trading FX exclusively and I would like to move into Futures as well. Can you recommend an FX pair(s) or Future to start with along with a template and/or strategy to get me used to the feel of success? Most recommendations I hear say to concentrate on the ‘majors’. I have been trying to load some charts and have found some templates simply paralyze the chart. Again, information overload. Not knowing what to use with what so using a scatter gun approach.

Being a Six Sigma Black Belt trained engineer, I like to try to understand every detail of how something works. While I am not there yet, I can see the value in most all of the videos that I have seen so far. I am looking forward to getting a full grasp of the APEX system.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Best regards,

Dolfan

15

If starting on futures start with nq and dx using trend catcher with chop filter. Keep it focused expand from their.

16

Am I getting Futures feed from CQG or do I need and additional feed or, am I doing them exclusively through Nadex? FXCM is Forex only, right?

I like the deviation levels too. Your comments about transactions pooling around significant deviation levels is on line with my studying institution level supply and demand. The deviation levels make for good target zones.

Did your range bars change recently? A few videos ago (for me anyhow) I was becoming fond of the range bars (vertical) at the bottom of the chart. Even cooler was when you opened a chart just for the bars and shrunk it down to be its own little indicator you could watch on the side. “If the arrow and the bar are the same color, take the trade.” Now the range bars seem to be growing and shrinking mountains at the bottom. Change, or am I looking at 2 different things?

Thanks again for your help!

Best regards,

Dolfan

17

Never mind, just started with a blank chart and included TC, TC with chop filter and deviation levels. The chop filter is the bars. :slight_smile:

Dolfan

18

Futures via ninjatrader brokerage providing cqg. This is also ised for futures fx volume when trading spot forexu so we use futures volume not tick volume. Make sure tc period and sertings and chop folter settings are using either the template or the settings in the new tc with chop filter post.

You dont need range bars with chop filter.

19

Dolfan, I am also a engineer. This will be a good read for you. Like everyone has mentioned, don’t “OD” on too much information. I know our mind set is not trained this way. Being a Six Sigma Black Belt, you will have to think differently when trading.

http://apexinvesting.net/forum/content/393-s-got-perfect-nadex-apex.html#.VS6G6PnF_T9

20

Egads! Give up my perfectionist mentality? The wife has given me a vote of confidence simply because I do so much due diligence in anything that I apply myself to. But then, she knows I am a leaper too. :slight_smile:

Anyone tell me why I have some charts that load like this one? Note that it shows the deviation levels all the way down to -2.0 near the PIVOT/STOP and ENTRY POINTS and, the ALERT and EXIT points are completely off the chart, well above the +3.0 deviation level that cannot be seen here. All this and the asset is actually ranging between Settlement and -0.5. I have seen other charts load like this and they take quite some time to load. There has to be some underlying cause.

Best regards,

Dolfan