Its just such a funny title....'do trendlines work'....its a question like...'do golfclubs work' ..lol...'do stairs work'.... trendlines (for the most part) have a large degree of subjectivity in just how they're drawn...let alone used. So there will be ton's of variability in the answer. PS, Stairs work for me, golfclubs don't.
There is one case where they work, and paradoxically that is when they don't. You have a fair chance of a retrace back to failed trend line to shake out the suckers. Back when I was Jacking with the wrong lube I saw that a lot. That was one of my objections to playing an FTT: you usually got a second chance which was less risky than trying to divine an FTT. But that looks sort of like an H&S, so duh! Jack will no doubt tell us what I was doing wrong in his magnum opus. (Jack, you want me to edit the installments before you post them? Translate them from '30's English into contemporary argot? You remember the radio announcers from then? That's what I imagine you sound like.) We're going to be like 50's kids waiting for the new Lash LaRue serial short feature. Or perhaps the Dead End Kids, hahahahaha! I be Buh'wheat!
Who said a trendline has to be straight. Furthermore by breaking the line down you incorporate multiple fractals into one chart.
Jack. A little advice. I recommend that you write your magnum opus as a series of vignettes. IMO your shortest work is your best work. It seems to focus your attention. Which seems to be increaingly fleeting. And your readers are less likely to fall asleep. Make each post a sparkling jewel of clarity and cogency. Think of Girl Scouts. Or of Jimmy Carter soooooo lonesome down in that submarine all alone without Rosalind for six months. Try to prioritize them. You don't need to use my own rankings of the significance of your work. But I think it would come across so much better as a reasoned logical argument. Pustulates. Theorems. Coronaries. Poofs. The youth of today are not much into gestalt, which IMO is really your thing. Get with it, Pops! Mike. P.S.: Where to start? IMO, with "Never take a loss. Always scratch." That was the one I had the hardest time with. I never could fucking figure out how not to lose at least three ticks. And BTW, you know I make you look good with my puerile wimpily ineffective attacks. Oh, the sympathy you get! Pauvre Jacques! Mad mean meretricious Merchant! If such fools beset Jack, he MUST be a great man!
BSAM. Thank you so much for your defense of my woefully deficient character. I fear that the younger generation hath no classical education, and are innocent of Swiftian wiles. Or even Shakespearean. Or Voltairean. Or to the ultimate origins, Odyssean or Gilgameshian. "Oh, Polyphemus, our brother! Who injures you?" "No-man is hurting me! No-man has poked out my eye!" Perhaps we can teach this generation Jackean and Mikean satire. But I must graciously yield to Jack. He is le maitre. I could not pull off a Jack no matter how hard I tried. If I could, I would use it to get laid. But wait! Maybe he does...73?....46?....hahahahaha!
Good for you John, you are well read and have read the classics. From what you have written you are an educated guy, successful and a professional. A self thinker. It is very hard to adapt to someone elseâs line of thought, particularly when ego is involved. Learning to trade is probably one of the hardest endeavors one could undertake. You get frustrated and aggravated by your failures and aggravate Jack in return, after all he is the cause of your problem right? Eventually you will win, Jack will see no use in continuing and go away. The source of your pain and frustration will be gone. You will be at peace once again.
Steve. I very much doubt that Jack resents my ragging. He gets to use me and the rest of the B-Team as bad examples. He gets to appear to be magisterial compared to me. He has even on occasion admitted that he learned something trivial from me. Because so many of his detractors have grown weary and given up posting, he needs me to provide contradistinction. I am an edger. I am the product of my negative experiences. I will never overcome my past. I am the dunce over in the corner seated on a stool. Also, his disciples, evanescent though thay are, get a sense of belonging to a community which distinguishes itself from the rabble. Jesus would be a forgotten itinerant preacher without his Judas. Mike. P.S.: I didn't drive Jack away the last time. He slunk away after the Nwbprop et al. debacle.
I was referring to Jack's dictum never to take a loss. He calls that "washing" a trade. Everytime I read trading advice I mentally convert it to an algorithm to see if it is well-formed. That one failed the test. For NQ I try not to lose more than three ticks: two for the trigger and one for the spread. That's less than $35, including whatever IB's commish is nowadays.