An inside bar is like Jack's Voodoo setup. Of course SOMETHING is going to happen. The question is WHAT? Sometimes the same nothing happens over and over. It's called "take your money".
John, an inside bar, like almost anything else, of course can not be used alone. Like I stated earlier: "inside bars/contracting candles combined with additional technical analysis are one of the most powerful tools around." I don't think that anyone suggested using them alone.
You know I tend to agree with you more and more on this. The question what is that magic other spice that you add to make them shine. I'm working on mine
Your charts are very similar to mine. However I use a stochastic oscillator as a filter along with trendlines and support/resistance areas. I weight the inside bars at the overbot/oversold areas move heavily than those inside of a trend. I take my buy/sell signals off a 15 min chart but use a 3 min to time my entries. Another trader I know takes the inside bars only at the bollinger band extremes that coincide with major support/resistance/pivots. I will post a chart when I figure out how to do it. Good trading is rather simple, but I noticed the pseudo-intellectual wannabe types try and make it harder on themselves by getting caught up analysing the angular momentum of a bicycles pedals rather than just going with the flow and riding the bike. Sure deriving the angular momentum of the pedal in relation to the tires is nice to know, but what edge does that give you if you don't know how to ride a bike in the first place. As you mentioned, *none of these work by themselves*, they need to be used in conjuction with other tools. A simple analogy would be like trying to steer a car with no wheels. Or if you have wheels, there's no steering wheel.
saavy, man, what do you mostly trade these days? i know you used to trade 1min divers successfully for awhile and then that stopped working, right?
I trade like the charts that I have been posting here. Many of these charts have actually been real time for actual trades. I draw support/resistance/trendlines and then wait for the market to break these lines. Of course there's a little more to it than that, but not much more. Finding those contracting candles is a big part of it. Yeah, those 1m divergences were killing me. They did not stop working, I just finally realized that that particular style of trading didn't fit my personality. :>
Savvy. My point was that I don't trade anything I can't test. A two rule system is untestable. But then again I trade a seven rule system, so go figure. I have posted mine. What's yours? An inside bar followed by a consolidation BO? That's so shitty only a fool would waste time trying to optimize it. Add a third rule for volume? For whether or not your tongue gets hard about the setup? Hahahahaha. No disrespect intended. I just love this fucking place. Mike.