i manually back tested some stuff that i found intriguing. I found some value in something on his website which lead me to buying the course. For me the value has been some concepts that were in the course that i could merge with the way i trade.
What are your favorite or 'high probabily setups' of Al Brooks methods? I am familiar with this work too, not an expert but am willing to share too if interested.
The dotted line is my break even. I entered near the top of the last large bull bar near the top of the tail. It was retesting the broken uptrend within the range, it was near the top of the range, it was testing a smaller time frame trend, and was just under resistance shown with the longer line from the last significant pivot low before the non-farms across the high of the range. That was 4 reasons for me to fade the play while the bar was still a huge green bar. The risk was the top of the range, about 15 pips including the spread. The convergence of trend lines were all below the range high. Regarding Brooks, he likes to have 2 reasons to take a trade. He (and many others most certainly) discuss taking trades at broken TL (S&R) retests, taking trades at TL's, and fading range tops and bottoms. This is a 60, though I was looking at the 5, 15, 30, and 60 when I entered. In addition, there were two legs up on the 15, setting up a possible low 2 on that time frame near the top of the range (another reason to enter, though I didn't want to wait for the low 2 to complete). This chart was screen shot at 3:43 central US today. Some of my reasons for taking this trade came from my study of Brooks, others from my own experience. I don't think he would consider this a high probability trade, though...I have forgotten what he says regarding probabilities at range edges. I haven't gotten back to that in my review of his video slides...this may be more higher RR but lower probability. I took 1/3 off at 15 pips, moved stop to break even, 1/3 at 30 pips, and looking for about 50 near the bottom of the range.
The majority of the traders I've talked to about al brooks paint a similar picture. None of them follow him 100%, he just provides a few interesting, strangely accurate insights to apply to existing trading strategies. Thanks for posting this.
My pleasure. Brooks helped me with my own understanding of how markets react in various scenarios. I would not have taken the play I indicated had I not read Brooks. I didn't actively look to fade ranges until I read his book on ranges.
The books suggest his teachings pertaining to the ES 5-minute bar trading are analogous to all you need to play the violin aside from years of fine-tuning your craft with practical application. This appears to not be the case for most students.