Yesterday was quite insightful as I decided to tackle a different application of Up Down V9. Not only was I trading a major US index during its most volatile time of the trading day, but I was also trading during the ever-dreaded high-impact FOMC Meeting Minutes and the release of the NVIDIA numbers shortly afterwards.

• Broker: Coinexx
• Timeframe: 1 minute (candlestick) and 5-point Renko boxes (i.e. 30,000 -> 30,005 is one box)
• Instrument: Dow Jones 30 (US30USD)
• Trade size: 1 lot per trade, the lowest Coinexx allows me to go, translating to $1 per point (i.e. 30,000 -> 30,001 = $1 in profit on a buy trade)
• Commission: $0.20 per trade
• Account: Demo

Trades #1-2


So as you can see, I got double confirmation to buy into the US30 on both the Renko and candlestick charts at around 9:30am EST when the markets opened. Had to endure a minor drawdown before price went my way, but so far my entries proved to be as close to a local bottom as one could reasonably expect.

The only thing I'm not liking is how the Renko chart has an entire region of blue X's. it's difficult to know if I should enter at the first blue X or the last blue X in a consecutive series of blue X's. Easy for me to say looking back that entering as soon as I could was the right decision.

On the other hand, there ZERO lag during a live trading setting where I think I put the processed bars to 7000 on the Renkochart and 4000 on the candlestick chart. In fact, all of those open tabs had the Up Down V9 indicator attached to them.


Price is whipsawing around but continues to stay in profit. At this point I had to pay my attention elsewhere for a morning work meeting, but I hoped I would still be in the green by the time I came back an hour later.

In hindsight, creating a stop loss for both trades that would lead to just a bit above break-even on the trade where I entered at 38423 would have been a smart move on my part.


I come back an hour later and fortunately not much has changed. Price action is moving up and down but I'm still in a greater profit. This was around 12pm EST yesterday.


The Potential FOMC Disaster


This is what my charts looked like just before 2pm EST. I had a work meeting to attend from 2-3pm EST, so just like in the morning I closed my charts and hoped nothing bad would happen.

Surely price wouldn't fall like a brick and put me in the red, would it?

Lesson learned = NEVER keep my eyes off the charts while in a trade, especially not for long periods of time and definitely not during red folder news events that can significantly affect price volatility.



Sure enough, my own stupidity bites me in the ass. Had I kept focused on the charts for just five more minutes, I would have had a very nice exit at around 38550-38555 where the red X's formed.

So my first buy trade at 38423 could have netting me anywehre from 127-132 points in profit, while my second buy trade at 38414 could have won me 136-141 points. Combined, this could have been a massive ~259-273 point victory that would have made the day handsomely profitable and right in the nick of time before price really took off to the downside.

But then this begs the question of exactly when one should exit a buy trade using Up Down V9. Is it a pre-defined target you set yourself in advance? As soon as a streak of red X's appears and then ends? Or when you see only one red X followed by an orange line? These are definitely questions anybody using this indicator in a live setting should be seriously asking themselves.


Trade #3


I see another blue X form and I immediately stack on a third buy trade at 38431, thinking price will bottom out here and I can really start to take full advantage of Up Down V9's ability to accurately show bottoms in a real-time non-repainting fashion.

At this point I hope you're paying attention to the drastic difference in signals given off when you place Up Down V9 on a Renko chart versus a candlestick chart.

The question of whether one chart is better than the other for this indicator is one I hopefully can solve in the near future, but I would like to think I'm not the only person who had this same curiosity.


Trade #4


This is where I got really aggressive and placed a fourth buy trade at the second series of blue X's (see the Renko chart) at 38403.

I am cost averaging into this buy trade with the expectation price will eventually move up. Again, keep in mind this signal was exclusively on the Renko charts and nowhere near triggered on the candlestick chart.


The Danger Zone


You can start to see where my decision to add in two more buy trades led to a major drawdown in my account. The blue X's on the Renko chart just keep forming a longer and longer streak.

The only reason why I kept holding on was because of the lone blue X that formed on the candlestick chart. A very weak validation that later ended up saving me from incurring a very heavy loss on my demo account.

Given price went as low as 38355 before it eventually came back up, here's a rough estimate of the maximum drawdown I would have taken on across each individual trade and in total

Trade #1 (38423) = 68 point drawdown
Trade #2 (38414) = 59 point drawdown
Trade #3 (38431) = 76 point drawdown
Trade #4 (38403) = 48 point drawdown

TOTAL MAX DRAWDOWN = 251 points

Not a pretty sight to see.


Saved By NVIDIA?


The release of the NVIDIA numbers must have been what saved me from my drawdown disaster and eventually got me back into profit across all four of my buy trades.

The second I saw the red X's form on the Renko chart, I immediately exited all of my buy trades without a second of hesitation. As you can see, on the candlestick chart we were nowhere close to having a red X (sell signal) form but I didn't feel like taking my chances.

In case you can't see the numbers on the images, here is what I ended up walking away with:

Trade #1 (38423) = 125 point win from a 38548 exit
Trade #2 (38414) = 133 point win from a 38547 exit
Trade #3 (38431) = 115 point win from a 38546 exit
Trade #4 (38403) = 144 point win from a 38544 exit

GROSS WIN = 517 points (or $517)
NET WIN = $517 - $0.80 (total commission fees) = $516.20


Hindsight Is Truly 20-20


As you can see, looking back, I may have exited my four buy trades too prematurely. I don't have a picture of this on the Renko chart, but the very first red X you see had an orange line separation between it and the subsequent red X that consequently led to an endless barrage of red X's. I got out because I interpreted what I saw as the uptrend coming to an end.

But if we look at the candlestick chart, eventually a tiny red X pokes its way onto the Up Down V9 indicator to let me know that a potential top has been reached.

Had I held on to my trade on the basis of the long stream of red X's on the Renko chart and the singular red X formed on the candlestick chart, I could have exited as high as 38695.

So then my potential gross earnings could have been:

(38695 - 38423) + (38695 - 38414) + (38695 - 38431) - (38695 - 38403) = 272 + 281 + 264 + 292 = 1,109 points.

Again, hindsight is 20/20. Should I have held on and followed the candlestick chart signals only? Should I have persisted through the long stream of red X's and only exited once they stopped and I could clearly see the orange line?

Difficult to know for sure and ultimately I think it will depend on one's risk appetite and their decision to take on conservative or aggressive buying and selling signals given off by Up Down V9.


In Closing


This was a rollercoaster of a day, no pun intended. Betting the farm on the signals given to me by a signal indicator across two separate chart types and the smallest timeframes possible is not stress-free.

But I made it work. And while I think it speaks to the value generated by Up Down V9, there are some downsides as well that one must be aware of.

I'll talk about those in an upcoming post I will publish tonight or tomorrow.

If you took the time to read this from start to finish, you have my gratitude.