Don't worry 40D, I am not wasting any time to hunt you down and call you out on anything. I didn't even know about this thread until this morning. But if you go out of your way to call me a troll, I have every right to defend myself. The irony of all this is that although you leave many holes which makes one question what you do, the things you show do actually make sense.
No assumptions. It's all in your journal. You may want to read it some time. Most beginners could take what's there and run with it. But, for whatever reason, not you.
But ... Again ... "If the market's behavior seems mysterious to you, it's because your own behavior is mysterious and unmanageable. You can't really determine what the market is likely to do next when you don't even know what you will do next, regardless of what you may perceive or want." "The typical trader will do most anything to avoid creating definition and rules because he does not want to take responsibility for the results of his trading. If he knows exactly what he is going to do and under what conditions, then he would have something by which to measure his performance, thus making himself accountable to himself. This is exactly what most traders don't want to do, preferring instead to keep their relationship with the market somewhat mysterious. This creates a real psychological paradox for traders, because the only way to learn how to trade effectively is to make oneself accountable by creating structure; but, with accountability comes responsibility." Mark Douglas, The Disciplined Trader, pp. 12 & 50 respectively. There is not one trade I've posted publically where the reason for it and the management of it cannot be understood completely in terms of SLA/AMT and/or using the prior day's range, amended as necessary with any overnight trade outside that range as a Wyckoff Trading Area. This is how I came to create structure, and from that structure derive definitions and rules that let me know exactly what I am going to do and under what conditions. But it is my structure. Not yours, and certainly not these mysterious "top ET members" who now know as little about trading as you do - if one is to believe you. All of your difficulties with me, and the difficulties expressed by all of your "top members" with DbPhoneix can easily be understood by anyone who understands what @monoid was trying to explain to you almost three weeks ago: I do not know how @monoid trades. If he tried to explain his trading plan to me, I may or may not understand it. Now, here is the difference between you and I: If monoid tried to explain his trading plan to me and I could not understand his trading plan, I would assume it was because I couldn't see/interpret price action as he has come to see/interpret it. But if he tried to explain his trading plan to you and you couldn't understand it, you would blame monoid, and insist that he was holding back on you, leaving gaping holes either intentionally to trick you or to conceal his own fraud. I answer here only because I think your charges, such as they are, need to be answered. I think we have done enough damage to hungrymind's journal. Should you and your posse of "top" traders wish to wring your hands further at my incomplete explanations politeness and good etiquette demand you do so in your own journal.
ET has a great feature that allows only those I follow to PM me. Had you earned a follow, you and I could have talked in private. The fact that you wanted to PM without first ever having interacted with me in the forum shows how prudent it is for me to only accept PM's from those I follow.
Veering back to the subject of this journal and the OP's desire to make the SLA/AMT at least reasonably mechanical, let's say that I tell Beginning Trader that I place a stop-limit buy two points, for example, away from the upper limit of a range with an automatic stop, if I were to use stops, of 1pt (4t). Let us say also that once price has moved in my favor 5pts, for example, that I move the stop, if I were to use stops, to BE. So Beginning Trader implements these tactics into his own trading and the first attempt gets stopped out. And the second. And the third. And the fourth and fifth. At this point, Beginning Trader may believe that I'm holding something back, that I'm being untruthful. But the problem does not lie in truth or falsehood or transparency. The problem lies in the fact that for any of this to work, Beginning Trader must be able to recognize and draw the correct upper limit for a range. If Beginning Trader has no idea where to draw a proper upper limit for the range or indeed has no idea what a range looks like to begin with, then none of what I've told him is going to make the least difference to his trading other than to increase his losses. Beginning Trader has to define a range. Only after he has done so can he even begin to test various entries, with or without stops, much less begin to test tactics for trading a trend since trends are born of ranges. If he cannot define a range, he needs to find some other approach, most likely one based on indicators.
Another one caught in the web. Man, will folks ever learn?? It looks easy, it has a smooth salesman, so THEY love it---