Our Trading Journey So Far…
In 2013 we turned our attention to the world of retail trading which had been a background interest for a number of years.
We invested in a number of training courses and joined a few online trading communities to educate ourselves and get up to speed on what the trading world had to offer. We found that many of the trading systems and strategies we came across were based on candlestick patterns and various technical indicators.
After testing and evaluating these systems we concluded that it was difficult to achieve consistent results with trading systems which relied heavily on strategies that provided trade entry signals based on lagging patterns and/or indicators.
However, along the way we gleaned nuggets of information relating to concepts such as support and resistance, Fibonacci and moving averages. Eventually our trading journey led us to something known as Price Action.
Price Action is the study of the most pure ‘indicator’ available to traders – Price itself.
Knowledge of price action enables technical analysis of the markets to be performed without the need of indicators or candlestick patterns. Price Action is often referred to as the ‘language of the charts’ and like any other language (software or spoken) it takes time to learn.
When studying the charts we noticed that there was a symmetry and rhythm to the way price moved up and down. We noticed reoccurring patterns that formed regularly as it interacted with Chart Structure which led to high probability trade setups. Over a period of several months we used our engineering skillset to fully characterize these reoccurring patterns which led us to define our Trading Edge.
Whilst price action patterns are universal across all markets, we decided to apply the philosophy of specialization which had served us well during our semiconductor careers, and chose to specialize in trading the German DAX30. There are a number of reasons why we specifically chose the DAX, the details of which are outlined in the section Why The DAX?
Throughout this period, we primarily used a combination of MetaTrader 4 and a trading simulator to test and characterize our trading edge. However, we found certain aspects of the MT4 user interface frustrating and the marking up of the charts repetitive and time consuming. Manually filling out trade tickets and controlling risk was at times difficult when trading intraday in a fast moving market.
Whilst there is no shortage of software available to MT4 users, we were unable to find anything that did exactly what we required. As software engineers with a skillset specializing in the automation of repetitive tasks and the development of user interfaces that standardize the workflow, we found ourselves in a unique position.
At this point, we made the major decision to put our personal trading on hold and focus our efforts on developing a hybrid Trade Management System that would provide an ideal price action trading environment.
Whilst this environment is based on our own unique trading requirements, we designed it with a wider audience in mind and the intention of sharing our passion for price action trading through our passion for software.
During the software development and testing phase, we used demo MT4 accounts from various brokers to exercise all aspects of the software features and functionality, as can be seen in the videos and screenshots on this website.
We were sure that others would benefit from the information we had distilled during our learning process and believe that some of you will connect with our approach to price action trading and go on to excel in it.
We genuinely love the idea of this and who knows that someone could be you! You might be completely new to trading or have already started on your journey and have been waiting for something like this to come your way.
The Blackbox Trade Controller reflects everything we want in a Trade Management System. It is industry proven and is being used on a daily basis by our trading community with great success.
Our vision is to progress on our own trading journey and become masters of price action trading in our market of choice, but also to support those of you who decide to join us and where possible help you to excel.
‘Success breeds success’ and we want to nurture a community of success-minded passionate people who get up each day with a very clear game plan and approach to their trading.
Where Next?..
Over the last few years we have come a long way on our trading journey.
Our goal now is to grow our trading community and take the Trade Controller to a wider audience.
It reflects two of our great passions, software development and price action trading.
We believe it is unique and it provides a standardized, consistent approach to a career as a professional price action trader which can be both challenging and rewarding.
As a software engineering business we are excited to engage with those of you in the world of trading who would like to get involved. We have put together an Evaluation Package to enable anyone who is interested to try it out free of charge for a period of 30 days.
The members-only area of the website will be used to develop and nurture the Blackbox Trading Community using blogs, videos, chart screenshots and regular DAX commentary.
It is our conviction that the Blackbox Trade Controller and its community will generate an energy that attracts like-minded people who want to live life on their terms.
The DAX Day Traders.