I have been so busy observing price I haven't had time for much of anything else. You're an inspiration. Thank you.
Hey 40D... if you're following along, I'd like to reply here. I guess my problem is that the best entries are so close to a level that you're watching, and price often doesn't bounce off beautifully, or break through and keep going. Its a shame I'm not home right now so I can't post my charts, but even going with yours, you have a level outlined at 4156 where price consolidated at 15:15... so I wonder what the trades would look like around there because price went up and down and up and down. There is also a swing low at 13:20 at roughly 4172 that was then reached at just before 1500, and price also consolidated around this area. You don't have this marked as a level you're watching, but I had it as a support level on my 5 min chart to watch if price came down again. So I'm never quite sure what to do here. Would there not be multiple longs and shorts? When price doesn't cleanly bounce off or breakthrough a pre-determined level, things get tricky.
I have this need to post this to my journal so here it goes and then I can move on. I'm left quite upset with today. I've been trying so hard to stay focused and actually do the work required but I'm clearly not getting far. I tried to focus on just discussing behavior, but each time I'm met with the simple answer of just "observe". I'm trying to find a way to know what I'm looking for, but all the answers seem to just be that I will know what it is when I find it, which is a bit too "spiritual" for me. (Its like I'm looking for something in a haystack. I have no idea what... but some fucker put this needle in here and it just pricked me, and I still have all this hay to go through.) The bulk of my frustration is the discussions with fortydraws. When I tried to discuss the rejection at 74 with Db and hence focus on price action, because in that moment, and for the next 15 or 20 seconds price did in fact reject this outlined resistance level, I didn't get a reply. But when fortydraws shares his rather extraordinary story about his friend, complete with the inspirational account of how much money he made in one week after only dabbling in this for a couple of months, this is somehow allowed to fly. Don't get me wrong, its Db's journal, so who I am to say what's appropriate. But after some serious thought, I've got some questions. You see, in the past few months, so many posters here have been down on me for trading without a plan that is well defined and tested to be profitable. (I still don't know what it means to have a trading plan written down that is based on behavior and rejections and yet nobody can point to that behavior to me on a chart... and if I had to watch live, perhaps a 10 second video clip... but I realize this is a lot to ask) I also still chuckle about this proposition because if we all had this trading plan, there would simply be no reason to post, so I think if the only reply ever to anyone who is struggling is if they have a plan, most of these journals can and should be quite short. (Do you have a plan? No ----> then make one. Yes ----> then follow it... and onto the next journal) But something about fortydraw's story just doesn't add up for me. I'm by no means calling him out on it, I have no proof one way or the other, but it just seems odd to me that fortydraws had to talk with his friend for 45 minutes and caution him about how this past week has been exceptional and not typical. Wouldn't someone who has a consistently profitable and well tested plan already be fully aware of this? Wouldn't he have the stats to show how many days trend well? What the average range of a given day is? Why discuss the trades every evening when the plan calls for the trades to be taken and so they were? There should simply be nothing to discuss other than if the plan was followed or not. Imagine me coming home from work and calling my friend to tell them my boss told me to do something and so I did it because my job is to do what my boss says. What is the point of this conversation? (and if there is a point to this conversation, which is my point, then this trading plan is clearly not as well established as it should be) Sure my reply reeks of pure jealousy, but just like with discussions about religion and the onus of proof being on those who make the extraordinary claim, I find it indeed extraordinary that after reading the PDF, taking one trade on Monday to make 8 points, and then averaging over 35 points per contract for the next 4 days is quite extraordinary. (I arrive at this figure because I take the $6,000 made, subtract $300 for the Monday, which leaves $5,700 spread over 2 contracts for the next 4 days. Were there even any losses? If he needed at least 35 points each day per contract of pure wins, if there were a couple of 2 or 3 points scratches, then this would require over 40 points in total at the very least) Of course the swings were huge, so its all possible, but its extraordinary indeed. In fact, the only way for this to be possible for a brand new trader would be to have observed fortydraws trading the entire week, so I don't think fortydraws is justified in saying that the results of his friend don't have anything to do with him. Furthermore, if one is in tune what he is doing, if his levels are perfectly prepared on his chart, if his entries are well thought out, if he knows where he is scaling out of contracts, then I think he has a pretty good idea of where he is in terms of his P&L. How on earth a person could go the entire week without even accidentally glancing at this number is beyond me. The whole story just sounds like this guy did a bit of research, threw some money at it, didn't care, and wow, he more than doubled it in a week. I find it quite insulting almost, but this is purely an emotional response based on my own inadequacy. I have a part time business, and although I don't know what my sales are every month if I don't add it up, you can damn well bet that I have a good idea based on how busy I was, how much materials I used, etc. This example just makes it sound like he is winging it. Will we hear about a choppy week? I'm upset because I am being judged differently. (I know the world isn't fair... no need to point it out... and I even know that being here in Canada already makes my life exceptionally good and I'm already incredibly lucky for being born where I was as opposed to having to go through the struggles that billions of people in this world unfortunately have to go through.) But given that Db never wants to talk about entries or profits, its just incredible that fortydraws can contribute this extraordinary story and be met with applause. You know, from what I've seen of fortydraw's posts, he is an incredibly stand up guy so I don't want to imply that he is making all this up. But I think he's incredibly misguided to say that his help had no influence on his friend, and I find it so insulting when both Db and him question those of us who are struggling, mainly myself, because it apparently is so easy that after only a few months of observation we should all be able to do this. The thing that they say they see in observation is actually not that easy to see. If it was, we would all see it, and none of us would be struggling. Why can't someone point it out? Fortydraws mentioned in my very thread here a few weeks ago that I probably don't even understand his use of tick charts or what he's looking at. So the jab was there... where is the help? He showed the 150 vol LOC chart and how the entry trigger is the breaking of a swing low or high.... so what else is there? He says what it is, and then says I don't even know why or how he enters. My head is spinning! If I was playing a musical instrument and hit a bad note, I think the music teacher could point out to me which one it was. If I was baking a cake in my cooking class, I think the teacher could point out to me if I have a problem with measuring ingredients or not baking it right. Fortydraws is about the only person who has been successful with this based on the journals familiar to me, so this by itself is quite a testament to show how difficult it is to put all of this together. I know, the answer is out there... I just have to find it. Just observe... and keep observing. Don't think about entering, just observe. When you observe enough, you will know how to enter. No point in discussing entries because it will just come to you. When you know what you're looking at it, it will magically appear. And now that I have burned all my bridges, I can tune out and move on. The beautiful thing about this trading endevour is that nobody has to like me or accept me, so there is always a way to move forward. I will leave this journal open for a few more days so that those who want to point out to me how badly I've failed have the opportunity to do so. (No, I haven't blown my account out, but I'm clearly not doing anything right. I'm down about $8,000 in total... nothing compared to some of the poor guys who were on the wrong side of the Swiss Franc currency trade I take it. I could trade more than 2 contracts in my account still, so it should take even less than a week to make it all back based on the previous mentioned results. ) This would also be a really good time to hear from Ghost Of Blotto..... he always had something inspirational to tell me that would lift my spirits. Ps. I'd like to thank a member on here who got me onto Sierra Charts. I believe the account is a fictitious one since this member never posts, so I have no idea who it really is, but the replay function is damn easy to use (although the replay still is a bit choppy in comparison to how it moves in real time), and I have access to 3 years of tick data which I was really after for testing. This new platform is clearly going to turn my trading around!
Hi k p , I don't know any of the people on the forum in real life, so I cannot make judgement on how true their trading stories are. The only way that I can judge their advice is to ask, "does what they are saying work for me?". For example, from Db's advice I can see that preparing before the open by having my levels marked out improves things. I can see that entering on a retracement of my 1 Min chart after breaking through or rejecting one of these levels gives a positive outcome on most days. Db's stop loss exit for this was not clear, so I set a stop loss at the high/low of the retracement, and went through all of my potential entries in Ninjatrader and counted the wins and losses in Excel. This turned out to be profitable, so I guess it works for me. I find the drawdowns can be larger than I like if a good few entries stop out in a row, so I have tested another exit which gives less drawdown but does not work as often. I am still refining that one in Excel. I would apply this logic to anything Fortydraws says as well. I don't know him or his friend, or if they are truely profitable, but from my limited abilities at observing price, I can see that the more experience I have of it, the more often I can see which is the most probable direction for price to go at certain points. This does not mean that I can do it consistently, or challenge George Soros to a trading battle, but it does make me think that Fortydraws, Db, NoDoji etc. may be right about it, and that I should try to do some more of it myself. My own input would be to have the patience to wait for the right entry. I went through some of my charts last week looked at all of the entries that I took recently. I marked in my Excel sheet all of the entries that were blindingly obvious. No overlapping bar action, no entries just before potential S&R or congestion, just the good stuff. If I had waited just for those entries, I would have been very successful indeed. I will do my best to keep to it next week, although that may be tested when the bars are in motion on Monday. What has been essential for me is to put all of my trades and potential trades into a speadsheet, so that I can test what works with real figures. It takes a lot of work, but it definitely opens my eyes to what my entries and exits actually do.
Could it be because 40D has done the work and you haven't? Could it be because you have ignored all the advice provided by all the experienced traders who have posted here? Could it be because you spend so much time rationalizing your justifications for not doing the work that there's no time left for anything else? The problem is not that you're being judged differently but that you want to be judged differently and aren't being given that perk. You want to be given a pass for not doing the work. But you have yet to provide any reason why someone should waste their time helping you when you won't lift a finger to help yourself. I said recently in this journal that you're deaf. You're still deaf. And you've shown no interest in rectifying this situation. That is neither 40D's problem nor mine.
Hi Bon, thanks for following along. I honestly put quite a bit of work into this as well. I didn't get as far as actually having a spreadsheet to collect the stats, but what I saw happening at certain levels I just didn't like because it wasn't clean enough. What jumps out me about your post though is this. I don't mean to be a prick, but given all the advice I've been given and what I read in the past few days, it seems to me that you haven't observed enough. You're thinking about entries before the right thing to do jumps out at you. http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...ce-action-via-sla.282101/page-25#post-4080573 Furthermore, the fact that you're worried about where your stops should be and testing this is also somewhat misguided according to Db's recent posts. http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...ce-action-via-sla.282101/page-25#post-4080557 Now the last thing I want to do is argue with Db about trading. I fully believe he knows his stuff and is an incredible guy for spending so much time on here helping others. But when what I read is that the placement of entries and stops should be obvious after you have done enough observation, and if this isn't obvious to the person yet, then this means that he hasn't done enough observation, and then I can't help but want to point this out to someone else as well because if this is the reason why I failed miserably, then there is no reason why someone else should go down this same path.
Ah, finally something I can be right about. I am not hearing the words you write... I am reading them. Therefore, I think the correct statement for you to make would be that I'm "blind", not "deaf". This is part of the problem Db. I'm of course not saying its your problem, but it took quite a bit of time to separate what you do from what NoDoji does and most other traders. The rationale for you to enter a trade is much different than for these others guys. Your reasons to exit are just as different as theirs. Furthermore, you do teach somewhat two different techniques. You've got SLA which is pretty much auto pilot and little thinking involved, and then you're the following the behavior of traders at key levels and figuring out who has the upper hand. So it takes quite a while to work through all this, pick what one is going to use, and not let anything else influence this decision. The fact that so many people were talking in my journal set me back months. You're often also discussing different time frames. I of course see how one has to start with the daily to see where they are in the trend, but as the clock strikes 09:30, most of that can be put in the back of your head because there is more immediate price action to the left that one should be concerned with if he is day trading this. So in some ways, I think that because you both day trade and swing trade perhaps, this adds a bit of confusion because your advise sometimes is dependent on the time frame. (ie. In one time frame you might still be short if trading the hourly chart, in another time frame a long might set up if you're trading the 1 min chart) This chart I attach is in reference to this comment. "The premarket swing lows at 58 are going to come in handy at 1035." I had this level on my chart and although we had hesitation at first when we reached it, we broke below. This is the sort of shit I've been trying to focus on, trying to figure out the behavior at these levels because I can now clearly see that this is where the best trades happen. But nobody would discuss this with me. You wouldn't even say if what is on this 5 sec chart is good enough in terms of seeing this behavior or not. A few weeks ago when NoDoji was sharing her views and that anything below the 1 minute chart is noise and I tried to show examples of how this isn't the case, you didn't chime in. Its of course not your obligation, and I in no way mean to say that NoDoji is wrong because what she is doing is right for her and she's making it work. But I've tried to focus on the behavior, to discuss it, for someone to help me by pointing out what I should see, and if this I can even see in the 5 second chart but I've gotten nothing. Sure I have to watch price move, but isn't this movement recorded quite well in this 5 second chart? Can you not look at this chart and be able to piece together what you need to in order to either take a short once price drops below this level or breaks above? If we are to have any discussion and illustration about behavior, does this not have to be recorded somehow on a chart so we can show what we are looking at? I really have tried to focus on the work and I'm sorry that my conclusion thus far is that both you and fortydraws just seem to say that it will jump out at me once I look at this long enough, but this is the way I see it when nobody points out the subtleties of price at these key levels. In contrast to this first chart, here is a second one that would trip me up. Perhaps this level isn't important enough to watch even though its there on a 5 minute chart, but here it gets quite messy. The only examples I've seen posted is where the action is incredibly clean, but nobody wants to discuss what to do when it gets messy, or, once again, how this behavior is different to tell one to stand clear.
You're still focusing on trading, you're still focusing on "longs", you're still focusing on what it is you're supposed to "do". You're not supposed to "do" anything but observe. But you can't do that. You must trade. And that's the source of your problem. You're trying to trade even though you have no plan. You have no plan because you have no test results. You have no test results because you haven't completed any testing. You haven't completed any testing because you don't know what to test for. You don't know what to test for because you refuse to go through the observation phase. This is your choice. This is your problem. Stop blaming others for what is your problem. Note to those who are reading this for some reason and have no idea what the hell it's all about: go back to post 940 and begin at the beginning. You'll find many good suggestions from a number of competent traders (pay particular attention to NoDoji's remarks).
When speaking of my friend, you fail to account for the two and a half months of work and study he put into this. You have no idea how much you might learn from just sitting back and watching the market trade for a couple of months because you yourself have not done it, and you have no intention of doing so. Of course he had losses. But his last trade of the week was a short, his entry was right around 2:30 PM EST. That trade alone was worth 47 points to his account. You probably did not see it in real time. I couldn't help but see it. Neither could my friend. I posted my trading chart for Friday to DbPhoenix's journal, and DbPhonix then he posted his soon after. You can see that he and I saw many of the same behaviors, independently of one another, without any communication passing between us. If you were to take the time to do what my friend has done, and what I did as well, you too would likely have a chart marked almost identically to mine and DbPhoenix's. FWIW, I have been corresponding via PM with a few others from here at ET. One trader sent me his chart from Friday - striking but not surprising in the similarities between what he and DbPhoenix and my friend and I all saw as the day unfolded, independently from one another. It is unfair of you to be critical of a process you have thus far resisted going through. Of course you have no idea what it means to have a written trading plan - you first need to understand what you are seeing before you can conceive of a plan to profit from it. I have several times written my plan out here in posts to ET. But unless you know what to do with it, you wouldn't even recognize it as a trading plan.
Here is actually my 1 minute chart from Jan 30. I saw the exact same short as well just below 4204, but I didn't take it for 2 reasons. One, price didn't come close enough.. it didn't retest the level, it didn't hesitate, it just dropped. The further away it got, the larger the risk was because price could still come up to test this level. Two, I just wasn't psychologically able to enter any more trades because I had already lost some money this day. I hope that what came across in my post is that my biggest issue I had with your post was that you completely discredit the significance of the help that you have given to your friend. I have taken it completely personally (which is wrong of course), as if the claim is that anybody should just be able to read the PDF, watch price for a month or two and start making a killing their first week. If there were others who have matched the result of your friend under the same circumstances, then I would concede that the issue is directly with me. But the overwhelming evidence is that his results are extremely rare. This doesn't mean that a person can't do this, you certainly have, but my point is that it is with your guidance and starting on the correct foot that your friend was able to have such an amazing week. Do you realize how beneficial it is to be able to ask a mentor a question that he can immediately answer so that you don't waste weeks going down the wrong path looking for something that isn't even there? When I mentioned in my journal that I thought I was close and could bang out a trading plan in a week or two, most people laughed at me given how long this takes to do. So are we to believe that your friend did this all on his own? After watching you trade for a week, you can damn well bet that his trading plan matches your extremely closely. Why even bother looking to do something different when he was already shown what works so well? What he would have also seen from you are the intricacies of this trading plan... the stuff that isn't available in the PDF. You come from a trade, and with most trades, isn't there an apprenticeship program? Imagine you're building a roof and using the wrong nails. It might takes years to figure this out as a problem, and might only come to light after previous customers complain their roofs are falling apart prematurely. But one day on the job with someone knowledgeable, he could point out in 10 seconds that you shouldn't use those nails and you have literally saved yourself a huge expense of time and money. Even your friend knowing that he had you to fall back onto is an amazing safety net. You've got rich kids out there today trying to make it on their own, going to the best schools and maybe even really getting somewhere in life. But they know deep down that if their fail, the money is still in the bank for them to live off of.... the safety net is there. I have kept asking for help with the observation phase, but nobody has been specific enough. You nor Db are of course required to, but its just extremely frustrating to keep hearing you guys say over and over again that I need to observe as if I haven't been watching price this whole time. The aspects of the behavior that you guys watch just haven't been defined or pointed out in detail, which is fine, this can be the well kept secret that you choose to keep and just leave up to each individual to discover for himself, but in some respects, I feel as if the blame is being put back onto me for not looking when I'm just asking for help with what I'm supposed to see. With this new Sierra platform, I have been able to finally have access to all sorts of charts, so I have been able to plot volume and tick charts, complete with bars and the line on close charts. I have even been able to plot just the NY session times as you suggest even. I have looked at the price action around the important levels, I've plotted the 150 LOC chart as you have shown me and seen how the breaking of a previous swing high or low on this chart you state is your reason to enter. But I have seen that often, where price congests at an area, this would leave me entering and exiting multiple times. In reference to the short that was worth almost 50 points, I show this same chart again but highlight via the blue rectangle an area that I would think should provide a major issue to the short. It happens at a swing low that would be evident on the 5 min chart at 4172, and price even makes a higher high, so I would think that the desire to exit the short and count the points thus far would have been a wise one. But if your friend got 47 points, he continued to hold through this level. I would wonder why because price was showing major support at a previous level, why not already take what you have? Perhaps he would let price retrace 50% of the down move... perhaps he did exit one contract... I don't know. But the other frustrating thing in my opinion fortydraws is that as much as you want to help, you have only shown trades that go exceptionally well. I'm not saying you're lying about your trades, but what you show is certainly not the complete picture. Sure its up to each trader to decide for himself, but once again, I just find that this story you present paints a picture that isn't realistic and I wanted to bring forward questions that I think are legitimate given how extraordinary your friend's accomplishments are.