Ok, here come the personnal attacks. Very sad. And yes I make a good living. But if there's one person on this board that comes across as bitter, sad, lonely and frustrated it's you. Let us hear what your trading has achieved for you in the material realm. Because somehow you always avoid sharing something about your personnal life. In what kind of house(s) and where do you live, what kind of cars do you own, to which places have you travelled, how do spend your leisure time? Tell us about the wealth you have acquired and on what you spend it.
My going into personal details isn't going to magically provide somebody with a trading plan. And if yours is making you so miserable, why not inflict it on somebody else? Like the monkey's paw?
Dude, you've got nothing to show for. The same goes for your followers. That's the bottom line. And if it makes you happy to think i'm miserable, please do. You're sad enough as it is.
Hey k p, if you want to make profitable short term trades with minimal risk, the #1 Rule (in my opinion ) is: Wait for clarity. Now here's a tip, when drawing trendlines, don't draw ones that are easier to break. Draw ones that are *hard* to break, because when they're finally broken it _means_ _something_. Have another look at your charts if you like.... hope this helps.
"Gus the Guru I've never met Gus. I've never spoken with Gus. I've never e-mailed Gus. But I know a ton about him from struggling traders who've contacted me. According to these people, he is a guru's guru. Gus times the market in exquisite fashion. He takes indicators, trend lines, Fibonacci numbers, and any other technical tool and paints an almost mystical story of market action. He easily explains why prices do what they do(note past tense here). When I first heard about Gus, I thought, "He must be rich from trading, since everyone says he is top notch at analyzing the markets". Well, not quite. It turns out that right now Gus isn't trading at all. It seems his last account ran down to zero. Broker malfeasance, he claims, but it is not the first time he has had no money to trade with. Either he must run across a lot of crooked brokers or the story is more involved. In any event, now he sells his advice on the Internet. His pupils, enamored with their guru, got very confrontational with me when I suggested that maybe Gus wasn't such a great trader. More than just on the hook, Gus has these fish on ice, in the cooler, on the boat, filleted, and ready to toss on the grill. Gus's Lesson: Beware of gurus who don't trade. The reason most don't is that they can't" ~Building Winning Algorithmic Trading Systems, Kevin J. Davey Sound familiar?
Except that it's free. All one has to do is read it, test it for a couple of weeks, then decide whether or not he wants to continue, without having risked a penny.
It's possible that this particular way of viewing the market just isn't for you. What I've found is that most of the posters that I learned from (including DB) all use the same basic approach, just stated in a different way. Some look for " PA/TA patterns", some focus on the use of market psychology, etc. But the core principles remain the same. I believe DB's approach is the simplest. Once you realize what it is that you're looking for/at, you'll wonder how you ever missed it. Judging from your posts, you have been on sensory overload for quite some time now. You appear to be frustrated and wanting to blame others. Take a few steps back and think about the basic principles of the approach again. I will PM you a couple of threads to read if you'd like, that use similar principles, just displayed in their respective threads a bit differently. You may find that after seeing some of these principles from a different perspective that you will re-read DB's journals with a completely new set of eyes. Someone who used to post here a couple years back referred to this as "circular learning".
Hi broomstick.. thanks for your post. Sure... PM some of the threads, I will have a glance, but I am certainly at the point now, which is a good point to be at I think, that it just doesn't matter what anyone else says, its just about what I can see and what I can do about it. I am frustrated, but to be honest, I don't think its right to assume I'm blaming others. To me, this is more of a logical argument, but I realize that many people on here at much better at basic logic than I am, so its something I can't defend too well, and all I can do is present my views. The crux of my frustrations have to do with what I see as inconsistencies/contradictions. The SLA method is a great trend following system, I see that, but for a scared trader, the entries are often too late. Its obvious that 40D and Db do not wait for RET entries that appear on 1 minute charts. So on the one hand this system is supposed to be for the scared trader, and yet, the pros who do this take different entries. I think what a scared trader needs the most is more wins with minimal losses, even if the wins are small. For me personally, this actually means getting in right at an extreme level at the slightest sign of a reversal with a 2-3 point stop that if hit, means that price really isn't bouncing off, at least not yet. To wait for that 1 min RET to appear is much riskier in terms of price. You see, I think that if these entries are ideal, then why aren't the guys who are killing it taking these same entries? Now don't get me wrong, I know everyone is different, and everyone has different fears, and a trading plan and entry criteria must be matched to the psychology of the trader, so SLA cannot account for all of this. But in a sense, if what is good for 40D and Db, and by good I mean most profitable, then why does it take so long to see this and why isn't this right on the first page? Here is an example. So price shoots up 10 points above a resistance level, and I finally see my first entry because price dropped down a bit and allowed that RET entry. It fills. But of course, right after it fills, it hesitates a bit, since it did after all just shoot up 10 points in only 2 minutes, and I'm already 3 points down. I know that there is a swing low still 2 points away that seems to be a good area to bail if its breached, but do I really want to sit through a 5 point loss to find out if buyers step in and and push price up? Contrast this with the idea that ok... price just shot above the resistance level, watching a 5 sec chart or tick chart, its obvious that it only retraced 1 to points and keeps going higher. So fuck it, lets just buy. If it drops below the resistance level I'm only risking 3 points, especially because as Db says, if it doesn't take off, you don't want to be there. So when we hit that congestion area 10 points above where the 1 min RET entry appears, I'm already in and 5 points ahead. I can afford to wait to see what happens at 50% of this up move. Most importantly, I also see that using an exit as the break of a previous swing low is tricky because so often price pokes one or 2 ticks below the low of the swing point and shoots up after running stops. So its even important to watch how this swing low might break because it could be nothing. If anything, if price should happen to break back above that swing low, then this is a very good sign its going higher and you'd be kicking yourself for exiting too soon. So holding on isn't so much about hope, its more about seeing how price is reacting, but the price risk is getting higher and higher on that 1 min RET entry. I think that since this whole game is about a series of trades and thinking in terms of probabilities, its best to take trades earlier, with less confirmation, and less price risk, rather than later trades, which naturally means a higher stop. Now of course this is just me, and maybe I have this all wrong, but I think this is what feels right for me. I am sad that I come across as blaming everyone else because that really isn't my intention, but if most of you get this feeling from what I write, then I have to concede that this is what I put out there. I am only human, and although I might be negative and sound ungrateful, what I am striving for most is honesty.
These gigantic posts with questions about specific trade scenarios is not the point of this thread. It's whether or not you have found the information useful. But regarding what you posted above - what is your trade plan? Are you taking every BO of s/r areas so that you don't miss that 10 point up move when it takes off? If so, you may take a loss now and then. Or are you waiting for price to confirm with a RET? If so, you may take a loss now and then. You're going to take losses when you trade. It's not about never having losses. It's about minimizing those losses and taking only the highest probability trades which is what the principles of the approach demonstrate. It can also help you stay in winning trades longer, more often than not. That makes those losses unimportant. If a particular trade goes against what your trade plan is then you simply don't take the trade. No need to reply here, I'll shoot you a PM with a couple threads to read over if you decide to. I should warn you that neither of those spell out a way to trade that involves no losses. They simply explain trading approaches based around the same principles in a different manner.