How to Set-up Charts on ThinkOrSwim for Day Trading Futures

How's it going, it's Rocky. This has been  requested in the past and today I will show you   what's included in my chart setup. So this will  work mostly for the brokerage I'm using which is   ThinkOrSwim by TD Ameritrade. But I'm sure  you could do something similar with whichever   brokerage you are using. I am trading mostly  the Micro E-mini and the E-mini Futures. Lately,   I've been leaning towards more of the  E-mini Futures since I was able to scale up,   and I am able to afford the e-mini Futures.  But regardless of which one you are trading,   this chart setup should work. Again this is  just a suggestion it doesn't mean, you know,   a 100% guarantee and there's there's  no catch for it. It was just, you know,   something that you could use as a base if you do  like the strategy that I'm using. And if It's your   first time checking out my content, please do  check out the other checklist of some of the   live day trading that I've done initially, and  then lately I've been doing more of an account   statement review, as well as highlighting  some of the good trades and bad trades that   we have done recently. So as of  right now this is my current setup   on the left is a time based chart which is  uh five minutes uh utilizing um candles five   minute candles and on the right is a tick based  chart which is utilizing 512 ticks today we'll   um we'll show you exactly how to get started with  this so i like to trade from the the chart section   and from the chart section you would have to go  to the upper right here so as you can see i have a   bunch of saved ones that i've used in the past or  you know specifically when i'm trading a specific   micro uh micro feature index so what we'd like  to do is since i have two screens there is we   want to highlight two screens and that's what  we'll do first i'm going to reset everything to   the factory default and i'm going to do that by  going to the style and reset to factory default i'll do that for that chart and then the style  on the right side i will also reset that to   factory default and then i still have some of my   drawings there so on the bottom left i'm  just going to go back to default on that   and on the right i will also go to default  and then next on the studies itself i'm also gonna remove all all right so when you start the chart itself go  to the upper right and select the two windows   since that is what we're using and when you  do click on that this is what we'll get itself   i'm just going to hide the active trader portion  of it for now so that should be the chart that   you have if you do have a think or swim and  the next thing we're going to work on is the   the studies itself so we'll go  to the studies here it looks like   right there and basically what we'll do  is for me what i've done is you know i   could just load it because it was pre-saved but  we'll do this from scratch so what we'll do is   you could add the study based on you know  individually by doing this but i found that   the quicker way of doing this is just do a edit  studies and that way you know you'll be able to   add exactly which study you need for whichever  area you want and you can also mess around with   the the order of how you want to do this so with  my trading um i like to focus on the candles first   and that dictates what i need to do and  as a confirmation that's where i use   the macd indicator and the stochastic  rsi indicators so again those are just   indicators that i use for confirmation and they  are lagging so just you know that's one of the   main reasons why i use both a time base and  a thick base chart so for for the macd itself   just type in macd and then one that we use is  essentially just the standard macd that we have   so i'll include that in there  um i did not make any changes   to the parameters on it but you know if you were  curious and you wanted to do so just do go to this   cogwheel here and you can change the settings  to change the fast links though length and etc   and then the next one that we like to use is  the stochastic rsi so i'll type in rsi and then   the one that we are using is the stochastic rsi  again there's other rsis that you could play   around with just with my experience the stochastic  cars i work the best for what i'm doing and that's   the reason why i'm using that so all right  so we have the macd and the stochastic rsi   and i think i'm gonna change the order of that  because i prefer to see the macd in the bottom   and then stochastic rsi on the top so those  are the two that i like to use and then   some other things that you probably notice on  my chart are other indicators they're not really   something that i follow they're just they're  there because it's something i've used in the past   and i just didn't bother taking them out and  there's also some that i am testing out just   to see how it works so the one thing that i'm  testing out right now is the atr trailing stop   so i will include that and then some of  the things that you probably have seen   on my chart which again i don't use as a  as a confirmation it just helps more as a   as a visual when i'm looking at the chart  itself now we do have the view up in there   so i'll include that and then next we  have the ttm scalper alert and then   the next one that i had is the zigzag  hi-lo alert and that's what i'm using so those are just for visual ones and  then some that i do have i do have some   some moving average on there something i used  to use when i was day trading equities but i   couldn't really make sense of it from the  features but i still left it there anyway   because it's not something that's bothering me  too much i know a chart with too many things   could distract you but something that i did  with mine is just i made the colors really   light so it's not something i really noticed and  you know over time hopefully i'll notice something   where i could make a connection for the pattern  but if not you know it doesn't really hurt   having it in there so it's up to you if you want  to include this so i do have the moving average   on here so the moving average and the one that  we're using are exponential so there are two types   there are the x uh this simple moving average  and the moving i mean the exponential moving   average but we'll stick with the exponential  moving average for now and i'm gonna add   three of those because i am using three  and now let's also include the simple   moving average so i'll add that so this  one i had uh different settings on it   uh i may have watched another youtube where i  learned this from i don't recall where i got   this from but for the moving average i like to use  820 and 200 so we're gonna change that to eight   we'll change that second one to a 20. and  the third one we will change that to 200 and then for the third one and the simple  moving average that was also at 300 so you know   like what i mentioned it's not something i really  pay attention to but definitely something that   you could uh adapt or edit based on either  other studies you've looked at or based on your   experience so far and one thing i'd like to  add which i'll do it on the simple moving   average you know you are able to change the  colors and the thickness of all of those   um like for example for my view up i had that at  orange and i just wanted it to be really thick   something i used to use when i was trading  equities not so much now that i'm trading features   but you know uh it's very customizable it's  something that what i really like about the   the thinkorswim platform itself  so i'll click all that and then   for all these studies you know we could save this  as a set itself so you can use it again later   instead of doing it individually so we'll save  that as a set and let's call this just youtube oops okay so that is for the studies itself  and there you go so now you see what the   the studies look like um oh okay and then as you  can tell stochastic rsi and the moving average   and a bunch of other things are bundled in here  and it's really hard to see a lot of these things   um but and the volume is in the middle here  but that's just a preference you can change   however you want to do that and how we're  going to do this is first of all we will   for that volume i like it to be with the  chart itself so i'm going to go to settings and then for the settings on general i go to  overlap volume so when i click on that and apply   there you go so you see that the volume is now  there itself press ok and then for this one   the way that it's set up i don't really quite  like what's going on there so what we'll do is   we're going to go back to studies and we will  edit the studies itself and you notice that the   stochastic rsi and the macd are both on this lower  one you'd like to be able to separate that so you   can drag it so now they're separated so stochastic  rsi and the mac the macd there and you play apply   there you go now uh it's getting to that point  that you're probably used to from seeing from   my my previous charts there and then um now that  we've done that the next thing we'll do is the   candles itself if you zoom in again just personal  preference uh the green candles are hollow on this   one so that's something i changed so again to  settings you can then go to appearance and on   the appearance now we are using a candle i will  do a fill up on that apply there you go so again   that's just more of a preference thing so however  you want to be able to see your candles itself   and next we will go to the time chart that we have  here um i have a lot of customized ones here that   i use something i've been using a lot lately i  know in my description i say 20 days five minutes   but also mess around with longer time charts  uh five days five minutes and whatnot for now   i'll just do a five days five minutes for  the chart itself here and the reason i have   a higher time frame sometimes is i like to  be able to zoom out and get a bird's eye   bird's eyes view on what exactly is going on  so all right so it looks like that's all done   and um yep that's the chart that we have for the  the time based chart itself so again if you are   curious what each one is you can just double click  on it and then the one that we're looking at right   now here is the view up and uh we could change  that to any color we want so like what i said   change that to orange and there you go it  changed to orange itself for the view up and if we wanted to change the other things oh yeah i forgot um for the view up itself uh  most people just usually use   they get rid of the upper band and the  lower band itself so i will remove that   so unselect the show plot part and then the  lower band you can unselect that as well   and there you go so that's starting to be a  little cleaner itself and you may change the   the smas and the emas however you wanted to so  that's for the left side that's the five minute   time based charts now we will use we will  update the tick based chart on the right here so   the studies are the same so what's great here  is i can just load the study set and i'll select   the one that we made which was youtube  so there you go so it's already there   and then for the settings  it will do the same thing   i do want to overlap the volume apply there  you go so that volume is overlapped press ok   and then you see how there's an issue here again  so actually i need to go back to my studies   edit studies and basically how it is right  now i'm gonna save that i'm gonna over   there you go save it over the previous one we did   so it remembers it so we when we go back  to the right here and we go to studies   and we load the study set select it it should be  exactly the same so now they look exactly the same   almost the only other difference that we need to  change is the candles itself so go to settings   and then go to appearance and i want to fill up  on that and since this is the tick based chart   something that i did a little different is i am  using high kanashii for the tick based chart it's   just a preference again uh you it's up to you and  which one you want to use i just like the idea   that with that high kenashi it's just i don't know  the exact formula of it you'd have to look it up   but basically just you know it takes in the  data previously and on the current and next one   so some people like it some people don't it  really depends on you know how you're using   it and then with my high kanashii just so i  don't ever get confused i did change the colors   a little bit so going up i put i changed that to  white and going down is red so i'll do that there   and we'll apply i'll do a fill up on that there  you go so that's our high kanashii on the right   side itself now you have both the studies and  also for this one we do like to use uh 512 ticks   so let's just say and the maximum for this is  just five days and then there's a lot of tick   counts you can use for the dow jones industrial  average you know i found 512 ticks to work   for the es and the y uh the the nasdaq so s p  500 and nasdaq you might need a higher tech count   but that's something you'd have to figure it out  on your own since it's not something i've been   trading often lately okay so that's our five  days 512 ticks and now we have the charts that   i'm using and then one other advice that i would  do is you've noticed for example we'll look for   one here which is a confirmation of our strategy  and this is how really how how i backtest itself   you notice how this is when the vwop has a  crossover and it also corresponded right with this   uh stochastic rsi being on the overbought area  and something i like to do is i draw a vertical   line not only when i enter but when i'm trying to  figure out exactly uh what's the reason this went   up so in reality you know you could even draw it  before that because if you look at it that's when   the the reverse started uh the trend reversed but  you know for consistency's sake we're just going   to do it here but because you know conservatively  this is when we would enter for a long trade and   basically for this one too you know it's great  because it's above the zero line itself and you   notice how i drew when i drew a vertical line  there you also drew a vertical right line on   this side but um with the time base and the  tick based chart they don't really you know   you know it doesn't hit a specific candle itself  so i like to keep those independent of each other   so something that i like to do is on the bottom  for example here for the drawing set it's on   default right now so we're going to change that  as a new drawing set and we will call this youtube and we'll just call that time because it's a time  based chart all right so what's great about it   is if i do delete this it won't delete the one on  the left and on the right side we will change this   as well we'll save this drawing set as youtube  and this will be the tick the tick based chart okay so the the reason why i did that is like if  i was curious about this move up here which is a   great move up me look at it from 32 4 10 to about  32 606 so to make the math easier let's just say   that's almost 200 points and if you were trading  one contract you would just do 200 times five so   it's a thousand dollars move right there but you  know if i was curious why that move occurred um i   would draw a vertical line on this beginning here  and then let's just say on the end as well let's   just draw one right here and just for consistency  when i'm bullish end of the trade i put an orange   line right there so that's the tick based  chart and i'm going to look on the left as well   um again i'm going to adjust that more to the  left because you know if we're just evaluating   indicators this was the first candle i would have  again this is a hindsight 20 20 hindsight trading   uh the genius of hindsight trading so don't do  this when you're actually trading it's more of a   a way to evaluate a strategy that you're  using so for here let's just say you know   we hit the bottom bottom and then got out on  the very top we'll draw another line right here and orange when we did if we do end it so  now we can look and evaluate the differences   between the two so let's focus on the time based  chart itself uh this occurred on the 6 25 am   candle and if you look at the the macd  itself it hasn't crossed yet it's sort   of heading there but you don't know right you  don't know what's going to happen in the future   and then on the stochastic rsi you know you're not  quite in the oversold area yet and um i probably   wouldn't have entered and the reason why i use  the tick based chart is like as a confirmation   you know i want both to be telling me the same  thing so if i look in the text thick base chart   for that candle i would have entered if you  look at the time that corresponding candle   high kanashi candle is at 6 26 am so with  that it's tough again to enter because if   you look at the histogram there yes it's  starting to converge and about to cross over   but you don't know what's going to happen in the  future so really you know the stochastic rsi isn't   on the oversold area yet so if i were to enter  this trade when i would have entered is let me   move this when i would have entered you know if  you were a genius you can see the feature would be   on this candle right here and this candle happened  on um 6 31. and with the 631 candle you know the   crossover already occurred and then the stochastic  rsis on the overbought area very bullish candles   and then on the left if we move this to 631  would fall under the 6 30 6 30 5 minute candle   so again at this point you know crossover  occurred there you're in the oversold area   so yeah everything is in agreement so  that's like your ideal perfect time   to to enter a trade itself so that's exactly how i  back test it that's how i gain confidence from it   and if you're ever curious with any strategies you  want you know just look at a chart you know look   at a 30 base you can look at a you know whatever  you want to look at and for example for this one   you know you're never going to hit the highs when  you're shorting or you're never going to hit the   really lows when you're going long but just for  ideal sake you know you would draw a vertical line   here try to understand how all the indicators  are working and look at the corresponding tick   base also look at the time and from there you can  formulate your own system and really that's how   you can develop your own system give  you the confidence and giving you   the highest probability of being successful in  your trade and one last um help i could give   you on this is since you know we've already set  this up the way we want it we could just save   the grid itself save the grid as and for that  grid i'm just going to call it youtube itself so just in case you know you want to be able  to change it to maybe you're trading globex and   slower and you want to play around with different  tick counts or you're really want to trade um   the es as opposed to the ym and you know  you have different tick counts for it   you can do something that i do here where i  have specific ones for the uh the dow jones   industrial average the nasdaq and the s p 500  where you can adjust it to whatever works for   the system that you're using anyway  hope you enjoyed that content i hope you   learned something hopefully i answered most  of the questions that you all have but if   you have any more questions please feel  free to write on the comment section below   and please do subscribe if you learned something  and if you don't uh please give me another chance   on the next content and hopefully you'll learn  something then all right i'll see you next time you

Channel: Rocky Mark

Views: 3,923

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Micro futures, Day trading, Futures, S&P500, Dow, Nasdaq, Side hustle, Financial independence, FI, Macd, Stochastic rsi, Entrepreneur, Warren Buffet, Ray Dalio, Live Day Trading, Main Hustle, Micro E-Mini Futures, SPY, Daily Income, Daytrading, Micro Futures, Stocks, Day Trading, nasdaq100, NYSE, Wall Street, FANG Stocks, Bonds, day trading strategies, DJIA, E-Mini Futures, Chart Set-Up, TD Ameritrade, TOS, ThinkOrSwim, Inflation, Tapering

Id: UP8Dz6SASVc

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021