The Nth Degree

[Merrygoround]

During these "lost" hours of low volumes, I decided to have another crack at automating this manual system. They have borrowed some of the strongest trading techniques from Bill Williams (i.e. zone trades). However I always felt that something is missing in this system, because it produces far too many fake-outs. So I tried to find complimentary, trend -confirming signals. I have found the Ichimoku a very powerful trend system with some unique features. Trying to combine the two has produced some interesting results. Initial backtests looking good.
In general Ichimoku is most reliable when trading on the higher timeframes. That means fewer trades, and holding on to a trade for several days, in some cases months. It would be ideal for doing add-ons (aka pyramiding). Continuing to experiment...

[Merrygoround]

I 've had just about enough of these commercial EA's. They all seem very promising, but in the end there always appears to be something very wrong with them. I am going to start manual demo trading on GoMarkets demo, based on what I have learned at Nth Degree. Once a day, after the NY session has ended, I will check the charts and look for nice set-ups. This should not take more than about 10 minutes each day. Next evening, rince and repeat. I have never done any serious manual trading, but let's see if I can do better than my EA's.

As stated before Nth degree is daytrading, not what I intend to do: trading on daily timeframe, which is something else altogether. The Nth Degree teachers claim that their pupils can make thousands of pips per week. I hope to catch a fragment of that.

[rsmereka]

Originally Posted by Merrygoround

I 've had just about enough of these commercial EA's. They all seem very promising, but in the end there always appears to be something very wrong with them. I am going to start manual demo trading on GoMarkets demo, based on what I have learned at Nth Degree. Once a day, after the NY session has ended, I will check the charts and look for nice set-ups. This should not take more than about 10 minutes each day. Next evening, rince and repeat. I have never done any serious manual trading, but let's see if I can do better than my EA's.

As stated before Nth degree is daytrading, not what I intend to do: trading on daily timeframe, which is something else altogether. The Nth Degree teachers claim that their pupils can make thousands of pips per week. I hope to catch a fragment of that.

You got my attention,

Very interested. I also need to go manual before my Forex Hacked blow's up

Let me know how to turn this high-attention manual system into a low-attention system.

When I first looked at this system, I thought the strategy was interesting but there was/is no way I would do day trading even if I had the time (which I do not).

Rick

[rsmereka]

There is something funny going on with forexstrategysecrets.com who markets the Nth Degree.

If you enter their site using http://www.forexstrategysecrets.com/...ree-sales-page or http://www.forexstrategysecrets.com/, you get an opportunity to use their Jump start method for free.

If however you enter using the address http://www.forexstrategysecrets.com/nthnew.php, there is no mention of any free access to anything and they want $297 right away.

Beware,
Rick

[Merrygoround]

You are right about the site forexstrategysecrets. I found it confusing too, to say the least. Messy would be more appropriate. They are in the process of moving to a new site called http://forexprofitclassroom.org. I hope that things will improve there. Although the old name had a better ring to it, if you ask me.

I am having some trouble trying to trade with Nth Degree on a daily TF. First this system does not provide a formula or even a rule of thumb for determining TP , since positions should be closed based on the indicators. Secondly it is mostly meant for daytrading. The teachers trade on the 4 hour chart. They hold on to a trade no more than a few days at most. This leaves me with some doubts. Should I try to trade from 4 hour chart or from daily chart? This is a huge difference. SL 's are much tighter on lower timeframes, the risks are less, so you can also increase the lotsize. However, if you trade on a daily TF, the SL can be several hundred pips away, as a trade needs room to "breathe" or mature. It is very possible to hold on to trades more than 2 months. The lotsize should therefore be very conservative (for DD's sake). I should have thought of this before. My preference is the daily TF, because it gives you peace of mind. Very important for longer term trading! But of course the profits will not come as fast as trading on lower TF's. Choices, choices,...

[Merrygoround]

I am getting doubts that Nth Degree is suitable for trading on dialy TF. It was not designed for it, and there must be trading systems out there more suitable for longer term trading. Sure it can be profitable, but I am getting too many mixed signals, and thus losing trades. I read somewhere that one of the most common beginning trader's mistakes is to abandon a winning strategy, and go from one system to another. But I feel that if you want to make this work, you should study each currencypair you want to trade in detail. It does not suffice to have a glance at it and know what to do. It requires comparing higher and lower timeframes, looking for a trend or convergence/divergence, etc. So a lot more than 10 minutes per day is required, if you want to trady say 15 currency pairs. That is not what I am looking for. I should have tried this first before making a big announcement. Sorry about that.

The search for a low maintenance and yet profitable enough system continues. I gonna try something different with a free indicator called "Float" I discovered. It has got nothing to do with Nth Degree, so I should not be posting in the future about it here. Taking the last 200 bars, Float is very good at indicating the beginning and end of a trend , and like many indicators is more reliable on higher timeframes. One disadvantage is that it "repaints" history. The indicator shows you that the old trend has ended and a new has formed, but after a while the indicator changes its mind and prolongs the old trend . So it is important not to get in too fast after a beginning, or you might get burnt.

I did some manual profit calculations. A lot of the new trends started around beginning of January. If one would have traded on 4H TF since first of January using this indicator with 0.03 lotsize (based on 5k equity) for 15 currency pairs, it would have yielded 2.1k profit. That is not bad for a low maintenance system. First at least a one month trial period.

[rsmereka]

Sorry to hear about your trouble with Nth Degree,

I rejected Nth Degree as unsuitable for me almost right off the bat and pegged it properly as a day trading strategy which I have no interest in.

I don't want to tell you what to do but I think you may have better success with a long-term strategy like one of the MA strategies that run on H4 or D1.

Stormy was talking recently about my EA RB51362 which is based on Rob Booker's 5/13/62 triple-cross EMA system. He recommends studying it using H1 or M30 to see lots of opportunities but the system can be traded on H4 or D1. This is where (IMHO), you can hunt the big-game. If you trade low risk-lot size, you can have the wide SL needed to bypass the daily market noise when you trade the higher timeframe's.

Just an idea I have. I think I'll do the same thing since my Forex Strategy CAD1 manual trade has not triggered for the second week in a row (the USDCAD pair is channeling). It will keep me out of trouble until I can save enough to take the theforextradingcoach.com course

As far as the Float indicator , I would not touch it. Do not get involved with indicators that re-paint. I learned that lesson a long time ago.

Rick

[Merrygoround]

Originally Posted by rsmereka

I don't want to tell you what to do but I think you may have better success with a long-term strategy like one of the MA strategies that run on H4 or D1.

Stormy was talking recently about my EA RB51362 which is based on Rob Booker's 5/13/62 triple-cross EMA system. He recommends studying it using H1 or M30 to see lots of opportunities but the system can be traded on H4 or D1. This is where (IMHO), you can hunt the big-game. If you trade low risk-lot size, you can have the wide SL needed to bypass the daily market noise when you trade the higher timeframe's.

As far as the Float indicator , I would not touch it. Do not get involved with indicators that re-paint. I learned that lesson a long time ago.

Rick

Thank you for your advice. I recently tried to design a similar 3 MA strategy, but as always way too many false signals. I will take a look at this 5/13/62 strategy. The Float indicator has mixed reviews, so I think that you are right about the repainting. Non repainting strategies are more reliable.

Theforextradingcoach.com course is a bit too steep for me at this moment. I am not desperate enough to fork over that kind of cash for a strategy. Maybe if a discount comes along...

I suppose that this concludes the thread about Nth Degree. A very profitable strategy (so they claim), but high maintenance and not for those with fulltime jobs.

[Merrygoround]

I seem to have an off-and-on relationship with Nth Degree. Since I am fed up with failing or risky Ea's, and the theforextradingcoach.com is a bit too pricy for me, I decided to give Nth Degree (yet) another try. This will involve a major commitment to trading, because this means daytrading. However, when trading on 4H TF, you can reduce the screentime significantly. In combination with the Norwood alerts that come with Nth Degree (monthly subscription), I hope that this will limit my trading time to a few minutes a day. I developed a few "common-or-garden" EA's based on Nth Degree that should take care of closing the trade, when the indicators say it is time to do so.
The decision to open a trade should be done manually, because an EA is often not capable of distinguishing good from bad set-ups. A trade can still be bad, although it is 100% compliant with the rules of a trading system.
This type of trading should be compatible with the line of work you are in. I will see how it interacts with my professional life. I discovered the revolutionary free app TeamViewer. You can run it on a mobile device, and remotely access a pc or VPS. This is exactly what I was looking for.
I have attended two free web seminars of their so called Gladiator Trading Room sessions, where experienced trades from all over the world come together to share their ideas. I noticed the difference on my trading. It showed immediate improvement. Trading can be a very lonely business. Trading in groups can help deliver you from some of the insecurities one faces when trading alone.

[rsmereka]

Good luck with it,

A manual system on a 4H chart is not that bad. I could live with it.

Please keep us up to date on your impressions and performance.

Rick