Congrats, Rich! Don't know about you, but I could quit my job on $2,400 a week - for starters, of course. :) Had a great myself, especially Thurs. & Fri. due to the strong trends. Hope it was a good one for evryone else reading this as well... and, if not, let's keep working, and keep getting better!

It indeed does sound like you're forming a system. Good for you! And it doesn't matter if it's "simple" - those are the ones which oftem work the best. The more I read and experiment, the more I'm realizing a personalized system is the best approach. Each trader has their own personality, and you need to make it work with yours... even people who sell canned systems, if you watch them trade their systems closely, there's little nuances they've worked out for themeselves (partly why Raghee's didn't work for us trying literally as written in the book... but PARTS of it are quite useful, like how you use Fibs to find your targets, for example). Plus, your system must adapt as market conditions change, and to do that, you must KNOW your system and how/why it works and where the short-comings are for adjustment. No, flipping from canned solution to canned solution is not the answer - but finding something that gives you a comfortable, grounded start and then sticking with it and building upon it is how most of the successful traders have gotten there.

Your looking for trend-line breaks in the CCI sounds a lot like Woodie's system - that's one of the patterns they look for. One I really like trading is the zero-line rejection in the CCI... easy to spot, and reliable (provided you've been on that side of the zero-line for 6 bars or more by the time it forms). Hooking from extremes (say +/- 200 CCI or more) also generally signals a trend-change, often also followed by sharp moves. After 2 weeks of trading his system verbatem (will post my results shortly, as promised) I've notcied a sharp increase in my win/loss ratio, but also shorter pip movements. ADAPTING his system the last couple days, now that I'm feeling comfortable with it, is what has really show an increase in the end dollar amount.

-=A

Andrei, I have been using CCI a lot since you mentioned it. I owe that to you. The 2400 profit last week was good but averaging my total profit over 5 weeks would gross me $36,000 a year. That is not going to cut it unless I move out of the New York City area.

Back to CCI, I haven't actually made a trade using anything but trend line breaks.

Let's put it this way... you're still learning (as am I), and it's going to take us a while to "get up to speed". We can't take our first, worst weeks and assume that's how it's going to be all year (nor, certainly, ane xceptionally great one either)... may I suggest - to coin a trading term - that we use an exponential moving average, as opposed to a simple one? :) Here's to a week 6 and 7 which will make week 5 look like the norm, and weeks 3 & 4 the exceptions. Good trading, Rich, and everyone...

-=A