What incentive is there for DB's "students" to post here and try to prove their case to you or anybody else? People who come across his material are either going to put forth effort to study, test, and come to their own conclusion as to its merit or they won't. There are four users of this site that have made a significant positive impact on the development of my personal trading skills in different ways, and DB was the first of them I came across. I find it baffling on the best of days and somewhat agitating on the worst that many users here are so consistently negative, close-minded, and seem to carry an air of entitlement for proof or information from people claiming to be successful. It has been my observation that most antagonistic or unsuccessful individuals here seem to fall into two categories. 1. They are hampered by severely limiting beliefs tied to various financial orthodoxies, "conventional wisdom", call it what you will; that blind them to what's actually possible for small retail accounts staying well under liquidity restraints, 2. Those who have seen some rhyme and reason within the markets pertaining to the potential of astute technical analysis but are prevented from capitalizing upon it by various emotional or psychological obstacles. I suppose a third category of individuals makes themselves known sparingly in those who have achieved a degree of success with more institutional methods but come across severely skeptical of those claiming success by other means, which I suppose is understandable even if I disagree with them. In any case, if there is someone who reads this and is actually interested in improving their trading or adding value to their repertoire and not just in direction-less recreational debate; I'd advise you to get off this site, or at least use it sparingly, and research the markets independently. Or, look through the history of some positive contributors and try to strike up a correspondence with one of them.
Well without what DB writes most of reading thru Wyckoffs course would have flown right over my head. What's interesting to me or at least my interpretation is that the SLA/amt is a means to track the movement of price (SLA) at areas (amt) that will afford better opportunities. How one enters and exits etc etc is up to the trader however options for entries and exits are provided. Id highly recommend to anyone a trip through the wyckoff way thread at TL. It's wildly informative. Some fantastic discussions there without the banter and bs
Folks, use your heads a little here. Wykoff is from the early 1900's--- seriously, do you really think there is any correlation to today from back then about what works in the stock market? man, that is just dumb!
Since we're on the subject, I received the following message from Urban Dictionary: Thanks for your definition of dbelieber! A few volunteer editors read your definition and decided to not publish it. Don't take it personally! To understand what definitions we publish and reject, check out this blog post: http://blog.urbandictionary.com/post/49469679426 Try rewriting your definition so that it's easier for others to understand, then try again. Thanks, Urban Dictionary ----- dbelieber one who is a fan or believer of dbphoenix and the methods that he demonstrates im like a dbelieber yo, strate lines n shit, S 2 da L 2 da A, get rich or draw lines tryin'
Interesting thread that I just discovered... and I'm sure part of the reason for this has to do with my postings in his journal today. I think the biggest problem is this. The way he trades, what he actually does, where he puts his order in, is not what he is teaching. He has always said that SLA was designed to help the struggling trader, and he clearly is not the struggling trader. I, as a struggling trader, need to enter at a good place where my price risk is very small (I don't want to see price move against me more than 2 points), and at the same time, I want to know that I am entering in a place where the trade is likely to work, or at least an exit could be made for little loss, without the trade taking off right after I exit. (if I exit too soon, as a struggling trader I am hardly able to enter in the same trade again quickly, for an ever worse price perhaps, even if this trade ends up netting 30 or more points) This is impossible to accomplish (little price risk with lots of confirmation that the trend is under way). Many retracement entries on a 1 minute chart will not work once the trend is under way unless the trend is very nice and clean. Also, these rarely happen right from the open, and by the time the trend presents itself, we may very well have hit our max drawdown for the day (even worse if you don't respect your max drawdown), or are out of confidence to take the trade, or in many cases, have to get to work already! And, just as bad, the one minute chart may not even offer the RET entry because its 3 or 4 bars straight up! He is of course already in because he is using tick charts, but this once again is not how he teaches. Take these two charts, today and yesterday. I mark with a green arrow where if your attention was focused, you could have made a killer trade and rode it up, and this is based on stuff you could have already had on your chart before price hit this level. The question of course is how many bad trades have you had until this time and are you therefore ready to take these trades when they present themselves? Where would your entry also be? One point above the high of the bar? Everybody says to trade with the trend, and yet, the best opportunities that Db takes and that 40D takes are the exact opposite, they are trading rejections. Just like Warren Buffet who says to be greedy when everyone else is scared, these guys are trading rejections and going against the immediate trend (ie. price is coming down to support... which may be support... but price is coming down... so the immediate trend is down, but these guys are looking for a bounce off support to go long). So you've got SLA that is supposed to be a trend following system, and yet the best, cleanest and safest trades (from the point of view of price), are in fact counter trend trades off major S/R levels (ie. you get in right at the extreme, and if price penetrates or doesn't do what you think, you're out very quickly). By taking a trade after the first RET, depending on where the most reject swing high or low is, you may very well have to hold through a 5 point stop before the trade is really invalidated, but there is no way these guys are holding through 5 point stops if they are trading 20 or 30 contracts. So you've got a case of "do as I say, not as I do". The other thing these guys have going for them which the beginner doesn't is the lack of emotional connection to the trade. Of course this is the proper trader mindset, but who has this? Its like with dating... the one you really want can smell it on you so this desperation for her attention is an unattractive quality and kills your chances. The one you don't very much care for throws herself at you wanting validation! To be an expert trader, you have to not care about the trade, but to not care about the trade, you have to have already been successful and know that even 3 scratched trades in a row will not impact you one bit. Similarly (I do love my dating analogies), I noticed that in high school, the guys who always did well with women were the ones who got lots of practice because they were popular, but the only way to get this opportunity to practice, was to already be popular! (classic catch-22) So for me, my honest opinion is that Db is a phenomenal trader, but given how different each of us is, and given how we all come with different fears (and barely any strengths that are applicable to trading), it is almost impossible for anyone to do well without some private one-on-one tutoring. (This is what really gets me about 40D.... the fact that he discredits the huge influence that he had on his friend who saw him trade for a week before jumping in himself) I think for me, I could have done much better if I saw hey... these guys enter a few times too and they have scratches. Or shit... these guys really wait all day until price hits this level and they do nothing until then. I would find it extremely informative to see their actual trades, but this isn't provided. I'd love to see how close to the level they enter, how long they stick around for until price finally moves a few points in their favor, if they very quickly change sides once they see that price isn't rejecting but in fact continuing, etc. I think I could almost reverse engineer what they do... but since entries are never discussed, except maybe the best one for the day without seeing the others, its hard to make any conclusions. (Imagine if pharmaceutical studies only reported on the people who benefited from a new experimental drug but didn't have a little footnote about the dozen or so who dropped dead while taking it!) Lastly, in Db's most recent reply in his thread, he stressed the importance of watching price move. But when he was replying to me, all he kept saying is that if I've analyzed 100 ranges (and by analysis, I assume he means the chart, the hourly and 1 minute charts, or else he would say if I've replayed 100 ranges). So without even getting a firm answer on what I should be looking for, how the behavior of watching price move differs from what can be seen on a chart, heck, even a 5 sec chart, this makes it even more difficult.
This I will have to disagree with. The behavior of how we trade hasn't changed in 100 years because our DNA hasn't changed. I can tell you with certainty that my shitty trading is directly a result of my fears and I do the same thing over and over again. People today, just like 100 or 500 years ago still die for their religious beliefs, they still kill their former lovers who leave them, they still steal from people who have more than they do.... etc. These things don't change and the charts really do look the same if you remove price and time scales.
I've spent some time reading db's threads and in all seriousness, if anything they've had a small positive effect, irrespective of motive.
Those who really use their heads will see the real lesson here............ how easy it can be to build a flock and eventually make money as a vendor. An entepreneurial person who applies the same techniques online might just build their own flock, and have a way to make extra money...... deposited right into paypal account!! For sure their vending techniques work a lot better than their trading techniques!!!