You are here: Educational Videos » Bulls 'n Bears » Apply and Adjust Settings
Track 'n Trade Bulls 'n Bears Trading System
How to Apply and Adjust Settings
Video Transcript
Lets talk just for a quick minute about the settings within the Bulls 'n Bears System. The first thing I want to cover is the Style settings. The Style settings is just a fun and easy way of setting up the software to give you a visual clue as to when the market changes from Bullish to Bearish. Also, what the Buy/Sell signals look like. The default setting which is Price Bars, which is my personal favorite. I love turning on the Price Bars settings because it then turns the chart Tics themselves to the color of the overall trend. When you see a chart with the historical price perspective, you can instantly see the power of this tool. Notice it with the Price Bar settings, we see Yellow Price Bars when the market it Neutral. Red Price Bar when the market is Bearish, and of course, Green the market is Bullish. The Lines setting actually draws a solid line above the chart Tics. Which changes colors depending on the trend. Some people like to actually turn the Tics off, and see nothing but the Bulls 'n Bears trend line. The Dots are what I like to call the lights. The lights are displayed above each individual Tic, indicating the overall trend direction. This is a popular setting because it doesn't disrupt the traditional Price Bar coloring, most people are familiar with. Which is Red and Green Price Bars, based on the market open and close time frames.
Crosses and Squares are the same as the Dots, in the respect that they light up each time they Tic. But they're of course little crosses and squares, rather than round dots. So whatever your personal preference on viewing the indicator light, it's really up to you. Again, it's personal preference on how you like to see the chart. Now lets talk about the formula settings- there are three mathematical formulas built into the Bulls 'n Bears Trading System. We've happily named them the Traditional, the Progressive, and the Aggressive. The differences are basically, how aggressive the signals are generated. The Traditional formula generates Buy and Sell signals more conservatively. Waiting for markets to make a larger move before giving it's Buy and Sell indications. The Progressive formula is just a little bit more aggressive, giving the Buy and Sell signals a bit more quickly. Sometimes this formula gets you into the market a little prematurely. But the advantage is that- since the signal comes in earlier, greater profits can be obtained when the market continues in the indicated direction.
The Aggressive formula produces the most active Buy/Sell signals, with the earliest possible entry signals. This formula eliminates the Yellow or Neutral zone, altogether. It's often the choice for day traders, who trade on intraday charts, such as 5, 10, or 15 minute time periods. The next setting I want to talk about, is the Blue Light setting. The Blue Light setting allows us to turn on the Stop Loss lights, which allows us to trail the market with mathematically calculated Stop Loss orders, which helps us know when the proper time to exit the market is.
The Blue Light has been dynamically linked between the Parabolic SAR and the Bulls 'n Bears formulas. Which allows us to create a hyperbolic link between the different formulas used to create the Buy and Sell signals vs. the Stop Loss signals. Adjusting the sensitivity slider adjusts the hyperbolic link between these two very powerful tools. Remember what I've always said: Never use any one tool exclusively. It's for that reason that we've combined so many powerful tools and methods, to create this one very dynamic trading system.
The next setting is the Display History setting. If you turn on the show Full History Setting, this allows you to be able to look back in history and see the visual cues provided by the Bulls 'n Bears. This is a key setting when tuning the Indicator, to whichever market you plan to trade. You can also turn off Full History and only have the lights or Indicator turned on for a specified period of time. Say 10 or 20 days. If you have it set to 20 days only, you will only see the Buy/Sell signals and arrows represented over the last 20 trading days or time periods. The advantage of this is that you can now still see the traditional Tic style and color of your choice; along with the Bulls 'n Bears signals, where they are the most important. Which of course is, just the last few Price Bars.
Next, lets talk about the Bullish/Bearish arrows. I like to call the arrows within the Bulls 'n Bears System the Bullish Arrow and the Bearish Arrow. Rather than the Buy and Sell Arrows. These arrows tell us when a market has changed direction from Bullish to Bearish. We use other methods to help us determine our Buy and Sell points along with the arrows themselves. Such as the change from Yellow to Green or from Yellow to Red. Therefore we don't look at them as Buy/Sell Arrows exclusively. Of course, you have the ability of having the arrows displayed, or not.
Now, lets talk about Filters. Filters are what we use to help us determine if a Buy Signal is a Bullish Buy Signal or a Bearish Buy Signal. Or a Sell Signal is a Bearish Sell Signal or a Bullish Sell Signal. In another video we talk about which is which and why we use one or the other. But in the Settings Panel, is where we can ask the software to actually filter those signals out for us, if we so choose.
The first filter is the Inside Days filter. If a Buy or Sell Signal happens to fall on a Price Bar that an Inside Day and we have this filter selected, the software will disregard that Buy or Sell signal, and wait for another Price Bar before issuing our signal. The Higher/Lower filter, filters out what we call Bearish Buy signals or signals that have a lower close than open. Inversely, filters out any Bullish signals or Sell signals where the Price Bar close is higher than it's open. The Higher/High, Lower/Low filter is even more aggressive. Filtering out any Buy signals where the close is not higher than the previous price bars high. Any sells signals where the Price Bar close is not lower than the previous Price Bar Lows.
The last thing I want to cover is the Sensitivity Slider. The Sensitivity Slider moves on a scale from 0 to 100. You can see the Sliding Scale represented in the On Screen Display, which also tells you whether the market is in a Green, Red, or Yellow state. Each different type of market trades differently. Corn doesn't trade like pork bellies, and the Q's don't trade like IBM. There are distinct differences between the different types of markets and how they trend. Using the Sensitivity Slider allows us to very simply tune the Indicator to any given market. This is what makes this tool so powerful. It can be tuned to track gold, or it can be tuned to track IBM. Or it can be tuned to track the Euro Dollar Forex market. This is done, of course, by turning on the Full History Review and visually looking at the historical past, to make sure the turning points are occurring at the appropriate places. Or where you want them to be occurring.
Some choose more aggressive settings, while other traders might choose a less aggressive setting. Notice that when you change the Sensitivity Slider, you change how quickly the Buy/Sell arrows give their indications of market directional change. Also, how quickly or slowly the color change between Bullish, Neutral, and Bearish markets make their change. Of course, my favorite default setting is 72.
As you can see, in my opinion, by using a combination of formulas, Filters, and Sensitivity settings, and a well executed trading plan, I believe that Bulls 'n Bears is one of the most robust and powerful trading tools ever invented.