I'd love it if you could find the time to post a trade on that when it happens. To be clear. I'm not arguing against technical analysis (which I use myself), but I'm suggesting there's a bit more nuance to it than what you're providing here. But the basic principles I agree with. Thank you.
You don't need me to post it.... just watch. A break of 4004 possibly means something for the upside. A break of 3974 possibly means something to the downside. Between, on balance the market is undecided... that's why it's slopping around sideways. Nobody knows/has strong opinion(hope) at this time. Personally, I think the market is "out of its F'n mind with bullishness"... but still the charts show what players are actually DOING* with their money.... that's all that really counts for traders. *That's Price TA, baby!
You have to look at threads such as this one as humor. Then you may get something out of them. OP is a comedian. Buy support sell resistance, chase breakouts, now go make a pile of money. As you state, anyone can pull up a chart and say do this and that. Trading is about executing. Pushing the button is where the rubber meets the road. Most people operate in fear, anxiety, hesitation and cannot do what they know to do in hindsight. OP does have it right about the KISS principle. It doesn’t take much to push the button. Analyzing too many inputs gets in the way of executing.
OP raised a subject for discusssion, good on him, much better than the 1000 armchair critics on ET who continually find enjoyment shooting the messenger, yet contribute fuck all of anything meaningful EVER!
This is a fun thread. I responded to a post of a sincere person who seemed to be expecting too much from it. Not sure what you’re complaining about regarding the lack of anything meaningful. This is EliteTrader. If you’re looking for meaningfulness, why not try your local church.
This is exactly right! I operate in fear, and rightfully so! Take the initial advice of buying support at 3984 or selling resistance at 4000, and chasing breakouts! Well, we broke 3984 quite strongly. If you were to buy, even Scat said it would be a loss. And when do you go from buy support to chasing the breakout? This of course means chasing the short. If you buy 3984 and use a 5 point stop, lets say you're out at 3979 for 5 point loss. Do you now short at 3979? It only dropped about 4 more points to 3975. So if you chase price lower, that short is a loss again. Now does a short at 4000 work? Sure. It goes as high as 4003, but lets assume you hang in. But once again, are you not worried it might in fact be a breakout? Furthermore, it never did make it back down to the bottom before going right back up to 4003. So this this would have been a higher low, exiting might have been a good game plan instead of hoping for a double top and another rejection. Now as for analyzing too many inputs, how else can you filter all the things that come up? I see a huge ton of setups form, and as outlined above, they even contradict. So of course you have to filter.
This is exactly my point. 3975, which was the low after the morning plunge, does break. You can even see a series of lower highs. At this exactly point, price looks like it will fall further... do you agree? And yet we know what happened. It shot up, and fast! Maybe you shorted around 3973 and get stopped out at 3978 for 5 points. Now do you go long chasing the failed breakout? Oh crap... if you went long at 3978, it drops right after entry. Now clearly the proper PA stop at this point will be below that low at 3972, but that stop is quite far away if you did in fact enter long at 3978. As anyone who actually trades can see, in real time, when you present the charts like this, it isn't so easy, and especially if looking for trades. Once you see what is happening, getting in is usually at the worst possible price. But hey, if you wanna look at this chart now and tell me I should have bought at 3972 because of that cute triple bottom then I will give you the hindsight trader award.
So, we traded below 3974 (the number you pointed out) and the market snapped back up from that level. In other words - chasing a breakout would be a net loss here and the right trade would have been to buy the low of the range or as you would say "Buy support". But according to your playbook we should be chasing a breakout there. This is precisely the problem with your principles as I pointed out earlier as there's a direct conflict between buying support/selling resistance and chasing breakouts. Understanding when to do either is the difference between being a net loser and a net winner (or a breakeven trader). ES generally isn't a breakout market and probably less so for the last year since like you pointed out yourself there's a lot of uncertainty. Personally, I would not be looking to short there as the market's in a range/consolidation after yesterday's larger move down. That's how the ES generally moves. I think "chasing breakouts" can easily get you into trouble. At least on the short side.
Ah shit, people are gonna think we are the same person cause we were writing exactly the same thing at the same time! I just beat you to it! LOL The shitty part is this. If you make it a plan to always buy every range low, you will find that half do break, and hence chasing the breakout works. But it will only work like today where it works for a bit, and then it fizzles. As you of course know, but we have to write this for everyone else reading, the market will break a support area just far enough to stop out any longs, but won't drop so far as to give a nice profit to the shorts. If you try and use stats as another poster mentioned, you will hit the 40-60% range. Basically, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Then you try and figure out some way to make it work via proper stops and targets, but this will also sometimes work and sometimes not. So day a 5 point stop will protect you, other times the 5 point stop will stop out at the very end of the move against you.
Had to log out to see what that was all about as Mickey Mouse have me on ignore. Mickey Mouse typically bashes TA/PA and prefers his own failing algorithms instead, but now he's going out of his way to defend a thread on classical TA? You're right. This thread is funny. I don't see anyone in this thread "shooting the messenger". Rather, just asking some legitimate questions regarding the proposed KISS methodology.