Calculating...

I've written a very simple simulator to try and do some vehicle optimizations.
Using a very simple drag model... I used the data from page 16 of
http://www.jmrconline.org/Drag_Coefficient_Prediction.pdf built a table of mach number and Cd and interpolated. (This is actual data from a 5" rocket, were building a 6" rocket so it seems reasonable)


One of the interesting results is this graph:

It shows peak altitude achieved (y axis in meters) piloted against the equivalent peak drag. The peak drag units here are equivalent velocity at sea level in m/sec. The peak is at 50500m and 303m/sec (165Kft and 677mph)

Another interesting result (from a slightly different run) I'm not using any real fancy integrator and the results vs time steps don't change much:

Time Step	Alt
1	47458
.1	49532
.01	49576
.001	49593

So this means for very crude integration steps you get reasonable results, thus allowing one to use the model for optimization seeking. Right now there are a number of limitations, the model assumes that the ISP does not change as the motor is throttled for peak drag limiting etc... so as I add more detail to the model it will be interesting to see what happens.

Pittsburgh's role model

Friday night gave us a stark reminder of the differences between Pittsburgh's two greatest athletes.

On one side, the star quarterback of the football team is practicing on the South Side about a month after following a wasted girl into a single commode bathroom. The unsavory details have already been exposed, so there's no need to expand upon them here.

A couple miles away at the Mellon Arena, you have the captain of our hockey team pulling off an usual hat trick: Scoring a goal, making an unbelievable save and passing the puck on his knees to a teammate for the game-winning goal.

Make no mistake about which player Pittsburghers most align themselves with today.

Football will probably always be king in this region, but Sidney Crosby has officially taken the mantle as this city's brightest star. Since arriving in Pittsburgh five years ago, he has been gracious to both the fans and media. And, oh by the way, he's the best player in hockey.

We used to identify ourselves by our football team, but it's becoming increasingly evident that we might want to reconsider. The Steelers players continue to get into legal trouble and their supposed leader, Ben Roethlisberger, disgraced his team and the city with his disgusting behavior in Georgia. Do you notice how that doesn't happen with Sid the Kid? That's a funny nickname, considering he acts like more of a man than Roethlisberger.

The past month has been an eye-opening experience for even the most ardent Pittsburgh fans, myself included. Both the Steelers and Penguins are winning championships. The difference between both teams are their leaders.

And Sidney Crosby showed once again Friday night why he's the face of Pittsburgh.

Honoring the dead

A 27-year-old Army veteran in full uniform lies dead with a twisted white sheet covering his body. The statue of a Civil War soldier stands over him, looking down as if to gaze at what had happened just a few feet away.

The deceased man apparently used an assault rifle to shoot himself on the steps of the Veterans Affairs medical center in Dayton, Ohio. The man, who I will not name, enlisted in the Army in 2003 shortly after the Iraq invasion before leaving the service in 2007. Details of the soldier's suicide are vague, but it seems to be another reminder of the devastation inflicted on our citizens when they are sent to fight an unjust war.

But political feelings aside, why did The Associated Press feel the need to publish the photo of this man? How does it serve the story in any way besides to sensationalize his death? The AP used the full shot from the Dayton Daily News, which cropped the photo for its website.

There were plenty of times when I was sent out following a fatal car accident -- many times the person was ejected from the vehicle -- and the photographer declined to capture the shot or would not agree to have it published.

Using difficult photos is one of the most troublesome decisions for an editor. Some elicit strong emotional responses that would be tamed with a censored photo. But the details of this soldier's death are clear. And any good reporter would have been able to describe the sad scene, while also preserving this man's dignity.

UPDATE: 4:26 p.m. - In the few minutes after writing this post, the Post-Gazette and Associated Press have taken the non-cropped photo down from their websites.

Photo by Ron Alvey/Dayton Daily News

Why this Stuff Works

In looking at a methodology, I need to understand the "why". There are so many ways of trading, time frames, "indicators", "Calculations" and so on, that a good understanding of the "why" makes it much easier to be disciplined and focused. It is fundamental for me to have confidence in my methodology because sometimes I go through a draw down period that is hard to sit through. Knowing the "why" makes it possible to trade through those periods.

What I do has three very simple components. Many of you have successfully duplicated what I do through the necessary work. I don't answer detailed questions about all the setups and things as I believe that unless you work them out by reverse engineering the trades shown in the blog, you will never "own" the methodology and have the confidence in it that is necessary to become CP.

The three legs to my stool are Support and Resistance, Order Flow and Money Management.

Support and Resistance can be a very subjective thing. Some work sometimes and some don't. Having a lot of them is only confusing and makes me lose confidence in them. For this reason, I only use the EMAs and the Market Profile for Support and Resistance.

When I am at such a Support and Resistance, I examine the Order Flow - it's direction and strength. Will it hold or break?

Finally, my money management strategy. I put a multi-contract position on. I have no idea how far the trade will go, so I begin taking profits at logical scale out points. If I see evidence that the order flow has run out of steam, I exit the trade in full.

This has proven to be the way that suits me as it provides a high win rate and the possibility to profit from larger moves.

Early post today and no chart because Mrs. EL and I are off to Amsterdam on a horticultural expedition................... to visit the Keukenhof Tulip Festival. The computers will be churning all weekend under Kiki's supervision ready for Monday's live real money test start, I hope.

A hectic week

The common misconception about breadliners is that we don't do anything. That couldn't be further from the truth, especially for me this week. On Monday morning, I ventured out with the Census and enumerated 18 people for a few hours. Then I wrote a story about a new apartment complex in Braddock for the Trib in the afternoon before covering the Mt. Lebanon School Board meeting in the evening. That's when I got a call from Dan Hirschhorn of Pa2010.com asking me to cover a union endorsement on Tuesday for Jack Wagner. Back from that, I had to write a couple political stories for his website before polishing off the Lebo school meeting for the Trib. Toss in a few extra bucks for yardwork and I'd say it was a very productive week.


Braddock housing complex a symbol of renewal

A sparkling new apartment complex for low-income seniors, situated in the shadow of the defunct UPMC Braddock hospital, is set to open Friday, a $13 million project that county and local officials hope will help revitalize the borough.

The Avenue Apartments complex, on Braddock Avenue in the borough's main drag, has 53 units. Pennrose Management Co. has finalized 10 leases since it began accepting residents last month.

The property manager and Mayor John Fetterman are concerned the lack of a hospital next to the apartment complex will waste an opportunity to serve the complex's residents.

Read more...

Wagner looks to showcase union support

Auditor General Jack Wagner rolled out a slew of union endorsements on Tuesday, seeking to demonstrate his support within the organized labor community even as the state’s largest umbrella labor group did not make an endorsement in the Democratic primary for governor.

About 35 members from six local unions stood behind Wagner in the lobby of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center here, where the AFL-CIO was holding its state convention. Neither Wagner nor Democratic rival Dan Onorato were able to garner the two-thirds vote needed for an endorsement from the AFL-CIO, but the Wagner campaign was clearly looking to downplay that by holding Tuesday morning’s news conference.

“I think it’s powerful,” Wagner said of the union endorsements. “I appreciated every one of them from the bottom of my heart. I always make sure my employees are treated the way I want to be treated. They are really about the middle class and providing quality jobs for Pennsylvania.”

Read more...

Mt. Lebanon renovation draws criticism, support

Residents packed the Mt. Lebanon School Board meeting Monday night, some to support and others to rail against the proposed high school renovation project.

The board was considering a motion to submit the renovation plans and public feedback to the state Department of Education for approval.

About 25 people spoke -- with opinions on the project's $113.3 million cost evenly divided -- before the board voted 7-2 to forward the documents to the state. School directors James Fraasch and Faith Ann Stipanovich voted against the motion.

The project has prompted a petition drive to lower the costs to $75 million. Mt. Lebanon resident Elaine Gillen brought a stack of papers to the meeting containing 3,333 signatures and laid them on the desk in front of the board.

Read more...

Easy Decision Making

I'm a visual person as you have no doubt realised reading this blog. A picture is worth a MILLION words. I want to react to events and take in the information as quickly as possible. A picture does it for me. Numbers are for analysis.

In this quest, I create visual aides that show me in a direct way things that I may need to pull together from other sources. The chart below is the ELmom on MarketDelta. Here the information is being really pushed at me. I can almost trade RED light, GREEN light.

Using little tricks to make it easy to react quickly and consistently can be a good idea for some of us, especially if you like systematic trading. You can build "either... or" scenarios into the indicator so that it gives you a big part of the picture as a conclusion. The computer can help a lot more than I thought. Developing Flo helped me find a lot of things I can use in discretionary trading.

Even if I get the context wrong and take every trade, the methodology is robust enough to leave me GREEN on most days. BTW, we have improved Flo's code and the chart below reflects that improvement. As Kiki is getting a better handle on RTL, she's making more headway. We are now looking to add some more stuff from inside the bar. If we could use the eSignal data for analysis and, at the same time, broker data for trading, we'd be live on Monday. As it is, we'll be using the MultiChart version until MarketDelta upgrades their software.  As soon as we finish the next phase of live testing, we'll set up the GoToWebinar.

The Computers are Smokin'

It was great that there was so much interest in auto trading and Flo. It looks like there are some of you, like bakrob99 who are already going down that road. By the way, bakrob99, are you fully auto or just to enter and then manage?

A couple of you commented about slippage and not getting orders filled. I have said that using limit orders I have taken care of slippage but where we are vulnerable is when the range bars don't overlap and we miss the trade. This will have an impact on profitability, as we catch all the losers but miss some winners. Our experience so far running live in demo mode is that we make about 66% of the theoretical profits. I know this as we are running the same logic over eSignal data and live broker SIM. Any of you care to share your experience?

This project has a number of challenges.

1. Getting historical data that is accurate. I am part of a private group that enabled me to get good data with volume attached in MultiCharts format. I can't provide data under my agreement with them.
2. Ending up with statistics that show every month profitable over at least a 12 month period. This comes about by selecting the right range bar, stops and targets. There is no change in logic for the different markets.
3. Achieving a reasonable maximum draw down. This is an important metric as it reveals whether there is a period when the model is losing money. When you eyeball the charts you get a handle on why the losses occurred.

Once we have Flo working in real time with real money, I'll provide a way for people to see it in action live. I'll also then start on the other markets we want to automate. So, as a portfolio, we 'll trade futures for Euro FX, Bund, ES, Dow Euro 50, mini Light Crude as a start.