I have a simple definition of health and happiness at my age: waking up alive and with a hard-on. But to avoid Chit-Chat, that gratuitous comment requires some trading talk. So I will make an observation about NQ today. Until precisely 3:22 ET today, those asshole quants and their computers (and maybe the PPT) flogged a dead horse. The ONLY reason NQ rallied today was block trades. The retail trader sold throughout the day. The tape tells all. And, oh, what a delicious feeling it was to be able to short then! And don't anybody ever again tell me how smart quants are. The only thing I saw their computers do was trade breakouts. Like pimps on Saturday night, they threw hundreds across the table and left with fifties.
Jack, look, you've been promoted to the man in the moon! Does that show enough sincerity for you to return? As before, Linus and Lucy represent us, the B Team, searching for you in vain. See how dejected we are? To avoid chit-chat, could you educate us on the 80 edges you track?
Uh, oh! Chit-chatty! Needs some hard data! To gib de debbil he due, at 10:28 and 10:30 ET yesterday, NQ bounced to the tick off of the right side of the second channel you would have drawn in real time. Then at 10:33 it made a raggedy-assed (that's a technical term, well defined in my parlance) FTT and fell out of the channel. Two points for Jack. But I take away one because he doesn't tell us to expect a subsequent test of the channel, which it did. Also, I would wash Jack's feet and kiss them if he would reveal to the great unwashed masses the volume analysis which at around 2:30 said "Shoat dis muvva!"
We are now in day 15 of the Jack hostage crisis. The National Guard is in NO. The Marines are otherwise engaged. Who can we send to look for him? The Tucson PD? The Salvation Army? No, stop his Social Security check and he'll surface.
Well, take away a Jack point. If you had bought an expected bounce around 10:05 off of NQ's left channel, you would have had to "wash" (your pants, that is). That just happened to coincide with a wide range consolidation. Old Jack doesn't tell us that if price slides along a channel extreme for very long it will break out of the channel. I suppose a Jacker just sighs "Oh, well!" and redraws the channel. Why am I bothering to draw them, then? What ELSE have I got to do to keep me out of mischief while I'm in a great Anti-Jack trade?
Your comment makes little sense. The fact is price does what it wants to do. A good professional simply reacts to the signals and it is that reaction that either produces a profit or does not. If as you say, price eventually breaks out of a channel (wow, what a "breakthrough") then it is how one reacts that determines his status. For me this is simple. Either the breakout is real and I get on board or it fails and I take the failure trade. The successful analysis and reaction require skill, an appropriate context in which to evaluate the move, and the balls to pull the trigger once a decision has been made. I can understand your frustration. This market is difficult for professionals as well as retail. If you would like I can discuss an example or two to help you out. Best Regards, Steve edit: Forgive me if I don't reply quickly, as I am having internet probs here on the west coast. This was a quick test
Hey! Who's the guru here? Just think of it as a Pro-Am tournament and enjoy the game. Is it conceivable to you that what I say as an Am about market action doesn't HAVE to make any sense, as long as I trade in the right direction? My convoluted thinking got me short at 10:01ET. That Vee Wop thing, doncha know. I suppose if I had been clever I would have drawn the channel backward (bottom first in a decline), but eviddement, I am not. Relish the fact that when you read my stuff you know who you are trading against. But you probably don't trade NQ. All the people I know here who do are pervs. And BTW, price does NOT do what it wants to do. It goes where block trades or overwhelming mass sentiment push it or MMs manipulate it to create volume. Most of what I look at is volume related. Price goes in the bank but volume is king, especially if you're collecting the spread. Come to think of it, spread is what I collect with the price that goes into my bank. And you definitely demean yourself by posting in my thread. Very un-Pro, hahaha! Oh, and I resent being called retail. I'm wholesale!
Fellah's when you get done with your posturing and computers fixed... Then we will really discover who the real GURu is here... not only is there spread...but I get paid to take it... Why dont you come over to Retail Spot Forex and give me some of your money?
Now that I am in full rant mode, let me comment on what I hate most about the Gospel According to Jack. The five minute chart. It's so sloooooow. I can't see anything HAPPENING. Let me give you a reason why it's bad. With a one minute chart, you don't have to assign a numerical value to VooDoo. It is perfectly clear in the volume chart, and better, is clear at any volume level, from thousands at a congestion after a screamer in the morning to tens in a mid-day consolidation. I want to see VooDoo all day long. Now what you DO with it after you see it is another matter altogether, and best left to another rant.