The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Library of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm Technical Analysis Using Multiple Time Frames
Guest Speaker: Brian Shannon
Brian Shannon of the popular blog site alphatrends.net will present remotely on his observations about technical analysis, including material from his book Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes.

From a recent Market Technicans Association review:

Many books on technical analysis rehash the same ideas that have been presented for more than seventy years. Shannon does something different. He presents a comprehensive explanation of market psychology and uses this as the basis to understand the reasons behind market action. From that starting point, he presents a complete methodology to profit from this knowledge.

Trading tactics and risk management make up the bulk of the book. As the title suggests, the importance of viewing the market from different time frames is emphasized and amply illustrated. Besides presenting the basics of technical analysis within a usable framework, Shannon offers valuable original insights into trading.

Overall, Shannon has authored a readable and valuable book. The novice technician can benefit from his step-by-step approach while the more experienced technician will gain insights from his perspectives that should allow for testing some new trading strategies.

Technical Analysis Using Multiple Time Frames is available at http://www.technicalanalysisbook.com/.

8:15pm – 8:30pm Break

8:30pm – Group Discussion

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm          Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm          RINA Systems – Portfolio Maestro
Guest Speaker: Oleg Zamansky
Oleg Zamansky, Project Manager with RINA Systems Inc. will do a remote presentation live for WTSUG on RINA’s new software product Portfolio Maestro.

From their website:
Portfolio Maestro is open flexible and customizable technology platform to backtest multiple strategies simultaneously on large volume of symbols across a range of strategy inputs. Users of Portfolio Maestro can build and test strategies using standard .NET languages, import strategies from other popular backtesting applications, such as TradeStation, use integrated ranking, money and risk management during testing and trading. Portfolio Maestro provides industry standard performance reporting metrics to better gauge the prospects for your portfolio and to enhance the presentation of your results, as well as data and broker independent platform for strategy research and implementation.

Portfolio Maestro is the result of more than a dozen years of experience designing and researching portfolio backtesting technology and years of focused development. We have designed Portfolio Maestro to meet the rigorous demands of hedge funds, commodity advisors, and proprietary traders with which we work. Our single objective is to provide traders with an open powerful flexible trading system research and trading environment that is data and broker independent. In addition, Portfolio Maestro can be customized to integrate with your existing technology infrastructure.

Portfolio Maestro is offered via two distinct versions. Portfolio Maestro – Open Platform – is the version to use for writting of trading strategies in multiple languages – VB, .NET, C#, EasyLanguage, etc. Also it is the version of choice if numerous data providers are utilized. Whereas, Portfolio Maestro – TradeStation only – is the version in which trading strategies can only be written in EasyLanguage and TradeStation is the only data provider.

8:15pm – 8:30pm          Break

8:30pm –                         Group Discussion
A group discussion will follow the break on strategy development topics of interest to those present, and plenty of time will be made available for questions as well as discussion of topics to be covered in upcoming meetings for 2009.

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, January 9, 2009 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm Developing a Strategy Trading Idea
Presenter: Ken T.
WTSUG member Ken T. will discuss the simplest strategy he can think of: smooth the price data, go long when prices are moving up, and go short when prices are moving down. He will discuss the smoothers he uses (without too much math!) and compare them to methods discussed in the forums (e.g. Hull MA). Finally, a few implementation details will be discussed and back-testing results will be shown on intraday time frames.

8:15pm – 8:30pm Break

8:30pm – Group Discussion
A group discussion will follow the break on strategy development topics of interest to those present, and plenty of time will be made available for questions as well as discussion of topics to be covered in upcoming meetings for 2009.

The WTSUG meeting on Monday, December 8, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm Ward Systems – Chaos Hunter
Guest Presenter: Steve Ward of Ward Systems
Steve Ward with Ward Systems will give a software demo of their new product, Chaos Hunter (www.chaoshunter.com) which automates rule exploration for trading systems.
From the website: ChaosHunter^TM is a software tool designed to produce readable formulas to help understand and model data. It creates a mathematical definition of numeric data that lack any apparent order. You don’t need a Ph.D. to model many types of systems, including multivariate, nonlinear, dynamical systems, even those that seem to demonstrate dynamical instability, or an inherent lack of predictability. Applications include sales, scientific, trading, and business data mining. ChaosHunter^TM formulas can be used in spreadsheets or other programs. ChaosHunter^TM is especially useful in finding chaos or chaotic relationships in market data, including historical data for stocks, forex, options and futures, where traditional methods of modeling have failed. The models thus obtained can be coded or inserted into many available trading platforms (ChaosHunter^TM is supplied with a pre-built run-time interface for NeuroShell® Trader Professional. We also have Easy Language® code available for our functions so you can assemble models with Easy Language in TradeStation®)

8:15pm – 8:30pm Break

8:30pm – Q & A on Strategy Automation
Presenter: Bob G.
Bob G. will follow up on his presentation from October on specific strategy automation techniques for TradeStation platform by answering questions from the audience on topics of interest. Be sure to bring your questions!

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, November 10, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – Round-table Discussion on System Development.
Group leaders will moderate a round-table / “ask the experts” discussion on topics related to trading system development. This session is intended to follow up on Bob’s excellent presentation last month on TradeStation specific automated trading techniques by discussing more general aspects of trading system development, including trend identification, entry filters, exit strategies, and more. Rather than a single presenter, we’ll be inviting group members (including several experts) to share their thoughts on topics of interest – please come prepared to talk about your experiences with system development and with questions for the group to discuss!

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm TradeStation Autotrading 101
Presenter: Bob G.
TradeStation expert and longtime WTSUG member Bob G. will discuss the basic considerations of building strategies to auto-trade on the TradeStation platform. This is one of the most requested subjects in each year’s topic survey, so be sure not to miss this one!

8:15pm – 8:30pm Break

8:30pm – Group Q & A on TradeStation
Presenter: Bob G.
Bob G. will talk with the group about the new release of TradeStation 8.4, and host an open TradeStation troubleshooting and question & answer session, so bring your EasyLanguage and TradeStation questions! Plenty of time will be made available to answer everyone’s questions about how to get the most from TradeStation, whether it’s through EasyLanguage programming, platform configuration, operating system, networking or hardware.

The WTSUG meeting on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 9:00pm Forex: Three Strategy Concepts
Presenter: Bruce D.
In September 2007 we provided a broad overview of TradeStation’s new features for Forex in 8.3. In this follow-up session a year after the introduction of TS Forex automation, we’ll example three types of Forex trading strategies as they apply to timeframes from long-term to split-second, and then look at a specific example for an intraday Forex strategy as implemented in EasyLanguage code. A short film clip may also help illustrate the concept of how interest rates drive long term Forex trading.

9:00pm – Open Discussion / Question & Answer Period
Ample time will be made available for group discussion of current issues with TradeStation or other platforms, and for new users to draw on the group’s extensive collective experience with how to solve practical problems.

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Potomac Libary of Montgomery County, 10101 Glenolden Drive, Potomac, MD 20854.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – Time/Tick/Volume Bar Relationships for Best Trading Time-Frames
Suri D.
Long-time WTSUG member Suri D. will discuss the usage of time, tick and volume bars to detect the best trading timeframes for intraday traders.

Intrabar Execution Tools
Suri D.
Suri will also discuss how to use specific intrabar execution tools (BarStrength and BarTime Plot) to enter into trades selectively and avoid Chop and Hesitation Trading Zones (from his article in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, July 2008).

A Favorite ABC Pattern Setup
Suri D.
In the final section of the day’s presentation, Suri will cover how he detects one of his favorite ABC pattern setups with potential reversal zones and target zones – including material from part of his interview with Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, September 2008.

Open Discussion / Question & Answer Period
Time will be made available for group discussion of current issues with TradeStation or other platforms, and for new users to draw on the group’s extensive collective experience with how to solve practical problems.

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Davis Libary, Montgomery County, Maryland.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 7:45pm Using Volume Principles in Intraday Trading
Suzanne H.
Suzanne H. will present her recent research on volume principles first discovered by Wyckoff and Ord. She will also show how she used two webinars plus the TradeStation forums to code a new volume indicator that she now uses as an integral part of all of her trade setups.

7:45pm – 8:00pm Break

8:00pm – 8:45pm Using Macros To Set A Catastrophic Stop Loss on TradeStation Servers
Bob G.
TradeStation expert Bob G. will discuss how to use macros to set a catastrophic stop loss for intraday trading strategies in order to meet TradeStation’s day trading margin requirements. Bob will also be glad to field any TradeStation platform related questions, and is an excellent resource, so bring your issues to discuss!

8:45pm – Open Discussion / Question & Answer Period
Ample time will be made available for group discussion of current issues with TradeStation or other platforms, and for new users to draw on the group’s extensive collective experience with how to solve practical problems.

The WTSUG meeting on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 was held from 7:00pm to 10:00pm at Davis Libary, Montgomery County, Maryland.

Agenda:

7:00pm – 7:15pm Introductions and Opening
The group will give brief introductions of the organizers for any new attendees. Time will be made available for dealing with membership dues and any other minor administration items, but not to exceed 15 minutes in total.

7:15pm – 8:15pm Upcoming TradeStation Developments
Bob G.
Bob G. (aka Goose) will brief the group on upcoming TradeStation platform developments, including exciting new features in TradeStation 8.4 which has just been released to Beta testers. Bob will also be glad to field any TradeStation platform related questions, and is an excellent resource, so bring your issues to discuss!

8:15pm – 8:30pm Break

8:30pm – Training for Traders
Group Discussion
Many group members have attended training seminars or training sessions over the years, with varying results. One question that comes up frequently is what are mentoring, training seminars, or classes really worth? Which ones helped the most, and how do they fit into a good plan for training as a trader?
In this part of the meeting, we’ll discuss what group members have gotten out of past training sessions, what’s helped, and suggestions for those new to trading regarding outside educational resources, including seminars, books, and websites.
Bring your questions or issues to discuss!