I did make some posts in the thread that gave an idea of what I was doing and why I was doing it: I guess I was hoping for someone who trades in a somewhat similar way to help me correct mistakes I was making etc. I guess I didn't give enough details. Not to worry. I'm happy enough in the shadows for now. cheers
Sorry. When you didn't provide any context for your first charts, I had no idea what I was looking at, and since I didn't know what you were after, I didn't comment. There are so many similar journals, and I do try to avoid becoming a nomadic crypto-pundit. When you decide to emerge and begin again, let me know.
When I look over your journal as well apprentice, I too thought you actually had a really good run! You had many winning days in a row and honestly, to date, yours was about the only journal that I thought was real and consistent with making money since you presented the info so well by just posting your actual charts. Now I did also think at the time that it seemed like you were trying a bunch of stuff. I never quite knew what made you put on certain trades, but the way you wrote seemed like you were following some sort of intuition, and deep down inside, when you know this intuition isn't based on hard facts that tell you that you have an edge, then I can see how this would fall apart. This part really jumps out at me though. It may seem like a personal attack on 40D, but it isn't. You say you tried to trade like him and it didn't work for you and I understand this because what he calls a lower high at resistance is such a tiny little spec that does qualify as a higher low, but means nothing sometimes, so as you say, you get chopped up. If one is to truly trade like this, there have to be multiple scratches often. Perhaps 40D has a better filter of which ones to take and which ones to skip, but its hard to know since once again, no trades are shown. Its also hard to know if we should expect to get chopped up like this, since 40D says that he doesn't even register a scratch, and hence if we are doing it right, or if there is something else missing. I doubt 40D is reading this since it appears that he put me on ignore, but hopefully all the readers out there will see that I'm not trolling, I'm just pointing out what you say here because I have seen the exact same thing. All the other guys are in the observation phase, they aren't yet hunting for entries so they haven't encountered this yet. If we could get more info from 40D I think that would be great, but it sounds like he is only running private messages now so we will never know. Anyway, I want to thank-you apprentice for being honest and I've really enjoyed your journal. I will absolutely start up my journal again when I'm ready to go and hope you will too!
Seems kp is so accustomed to taking swipes at 40D that he's no longer even aware of doing it. Be that as it may, I posted the following elsewhere to someone who's making nice progress with his observations but has the same entry question. The "trick" here -- though it's really just planning -- is determining just how far away from this activity one's entry needs to be to avoid being caught in a false move but not so far away that one gets caught in the first retracement. Some avoid the whole problem by just taking it and saying the hell with it. But the fearful are incapable of doing that, and trying to do it anyway just creates more damage and sets them back even further. Therefore, one needs to do a little testing and find that sweet spot referred to in the first sentence above. And that's it. Of course you have to know where to enter in the first place, the limits of ranges, the limits of channels, and other extremes. If you choose to enter elsewhere, you're on your own. And, yes, finding these "sweet spots" takes a bit of time and a bit of work. And they change with volatility. Which is where all that observation and characterization come into play. You may also be interested in Appendix F, here.
If by swipes you mean that I'm compiling information posted and reporting the facts I find, then I suppose you're right. But I am only searching for facts and answers and sharing what I find. I am always up for a discussion about the observations I make and the questions that arise. I would love to be shown where I went wrong with my fact gathering. But you only say I haven't done the work, as if to mean that everyone who does the work is successful. So everyone who fails hasn't done the work... is this the only logical conclusion? 40D provided an excellent answer when I questioned him about that one trade that looked suspicious. His answer that it was a SIM trade was sufficient. Of course why he never shows the real trades that he takes from IB in the TWS platform is a question I would still love answered, but its obviously not going to happen which is fine. Perhaps if the apprentice would be so kind as to post his chart, if he does have a screen capture of it, of where he took trades trying out 40D's methods, then we could actually learn something from this discussion. Perhaps 40D could also share his opinion of those trades and steer us in the right direction of why they were either inappropriate or why they were in fact in accordance with the rules but its just one of those cases where you have to scratch. I'm sick of arguing back and forth because its getting us nowhere, but I would like to see more charts and a discussion about actual trades.
I think we can differentiate this troll category into further subcategories. There is of course the type who says something can't be done and their mind is set so no matter how much proof you show them, it won't change their hard wired opinion. There is also the other type, which isn't really a troll in my opinion, but this type wants to see proof before they believe something. If you call them a troll because they ask for proof, I really have to turn the spotlight back onto the accuser. For the record 40D, I'm not saying you're lying explicitly. My beefs with you have been that what you show is incomplete. My beef is that your friend, if he does exist, isn't successful because he read the PDF, he's successful because he saw you trade for a whole week and had you coach him for hours on end. He was extremely lucky that he started to trade during a week that had amazing moves and nice trends. I asked about his trigger for entry... I showed 3 different charts asking you to point out why he took the trade there because based on everything you showed us, it didn't make sense, but you didn't reply. So my beef is that its hard to follow what you're saying when you don't follow up. I, for the record, would love to be proved wrong about all of this. I am only searching for the truth and proof. But when I see posts in your journal asking Db if you are drawing your channel correctly on soy bean futures, I have to wonder why a person who's making as much money as you claim to be making has to ask Db how to draw a channel at this stage of your trading career. You see, all of my questions are good, but your only response is to call me a troll. I simply don't know how to respond to this when I'm asking good questions that you're not answering, but just diverting the conversation by putting me down and comparing me to your children, claiming they are smarter for knowing how to tell up from down. If someone at school teases one of your kids, do you tell them to just reply to the mean kid by calling them ugly?