prety basic stuff for most of you , not sure if it is even still relevant. I think I messed up the term ftt I put FTT as the break out but i think it is actually where my arrows are. Just a really ruff draft to end the week with atleast something
use a image hosting service .. like image shack.. it sucks having to click on a link to look at pictures... you upload them to image shack.. then just post the link on here.. you'll have to mess with the size a little a few times so you don't break the forum size and or make them to small to look at ..
I never had consistent success doing stuff like that intraday. But channels did work better than anything else I tried. When I think about it now, the big money that moves the market likely does not know or care about channels or ma's on 5-min charts. So maybe I was trying to be too precise about them, I don't know. Also might not have been taking enough higher timeframe context into account. I think they are useful on higher timeframes though. I still look at the intraday channels in hindsight, you never know, someday I might come up with a way to use them. But here's Friday in NQ to illustrate one conundrum I used to have. Obviously we are moving up as of market open, but I drew two possible channels a trader could have used. And there's a third possibility, you could have copied the upper parallel of the red line up to the 15:00 high from Thursday. If someone was trying to base intraday trades off these channels they could have very different results over time just based around how they drew their channels.
pic store on ET is perm you can go back 10y later and it's still there. Click on link to see pic is actually a desirable feature (for the OP).
It really was a ruff draft so I didn't think it was worth putting up the pictures and it would get cluttered. DV4632, The large Trend lines may tend to hold more. You may even find that none of them fail. There is a reason for this. Chop of half the second half of the chart and work with the first to draw the lines and then extend them... Statistically you need to make sure your actions are fare. You mention using long term and short time time frames independently. If both exist then the long term will at some interfere with the short term and if you are only looking at the short term you will be in shock Why is the anomaly you may see so drastic? Long term trend lines have big money when a channel is hit the volume is huge and price move may be huge. If you are only looking at the microscope of small player in the 5 min only the big boys that are looking at the hourly will come in and knock the socks off you. People like to enter the market when a trend line is hit, the larger the trend line, the more volume you will see. this means that also small trend lines may show volume when a line is hit. we have channels and volume. one can also use indicators. Entry and exit must have exact rules in order to compute. You have no rules to draw trend lines. So there will be no consistency to compute. In this case, indicators will be better as exact rules are always needed. Conversely, you can make rules for your trend lines. Trend lines MAY tend to catch moves better then indicators. While experimenting it is fine to mess about. A simple rule can be to only look at the 5 min chart and no matter what use the highest point in the first hour as a place to make your first trend line. As you can imagine it will be not as profitable as other ways ( i would not suggest it ) but it is a valid system. cause it has an exact rule. from there you play it and see how often it yields a certain % of money. Maybe instead add a moving average and find a pivot closest to a moving average cross over. Or if you find a volume plays a part through a trend line you can use that. Nothing that is precise is wrong though it may be not profitable. Nothing that is not precise is right and that will always at some point catch up to you . My channels have numbers on them this is some thing that can be used in conjunction with other things to pin point where my channel ends and a new one starts. The only way to build rules is to go through each day and observe. I once printed out hundreds of line charts, they had 3 days of data superimposed one on the other. I went through them and saw that there was a coralation between yesterday and today that seemed to be consistent. but the mind is bad at keep track. It always over estimates the things is recognises. If you think of the number 37 long enough you will see in every where you look. make rules, then you can back test and know that your future trades will be of the same type. Consistency out weighs strategy in my view. with consistency, we are given math, once you have math,, well then the future is in your hands. I know its not fun, So lets make it fun http://chartgame.com No need to email or anything, just open it and start playing around. unfortunately there is no channels , but in your case this will be a good thing. Forget about the channel totally, pull up the Bollinger band on the right pane and buy and hold. keep going and going and going. It will not take long before you notice that 2 bars hitting (vs touching) a line may mean some thing and when that does happen it stops in its tracks some where. From there, it gets a bit tricky. But options show up. you can either calculate how often option 1 shows up vs option 2 and play the odds or you can find out why option one occures and why option 2 occures. If you learn why you take the trade in the correct direction each time. if not, you take the trade and are right X% of the time and are right X% of the time. I do not think it is possible to win the game. but i do know that when a thought comes to mind numbers drop and then they start to gu up again. Do not play with time frame )unless you do so in each chart ) Now you are moving forward as entry rules are being made. Again it is just a game and very few tools are given, it is not about wining but rather learning that the market consistently does things.