if sla entries work i should be able to code it quite easily, will make life a lot easier rather then tireless edge hunting
1 min is just a bar interval. It can be any time interval. I use daily and hourly intervals and at times jump in to 15 mins. The logic is the same independent of the bar interval. Intra-day traders don't have much influence from weekly or daily location unless they are close to an important weekly/daily level. I had my epiphany a few years ago yet I didn't just become profitable overnight. Once I got to understand how to read the balance between demand and supply I did quite a few months of replays. At 3x speed in 30 mins one can do one day of replay. The first 90 mins of the day. Going through those one gets comfortable with trending days. Then summer arrives and trending becomes sparse. Then one has to learn to figure out how to identify possibility of price not going anywhere substantial. At this point SLA can be brutal but there are ways to do that and identify those days and minutes when it's not clear which side has the upper hand. And that's the point. Going through different seasons one gets the weaknesses covered. I did all this on intra-day data because that was easily and freely available. I trade much slower using the same principles. SLA-AMT is probably closest to how I trade. Yet, I am even more selective than that. When I see hinges I know what needs to be done but they give me a bit of tummy ache so I don't trade them. I adapted what Db had taught me to what I could handle. I just use TR or TC and to hell with the rest. Douglas wrote somewhere that the decision to engage the market is also ours. I just engage when I feel comfortable. With slower trading I have all the time in the world to think about what needs to be done instead of killing myself to make a decision in seconds. To get my brain to function properly I practiced on 1 min bar intervals to learn. All this hides that fact that after all this research I didn't have available funds, so I worked on eliminating debt, and increase savings. This took a few years. I just observed mostly in those years and it helped me only focus on this method and the other older faulty ideas started getting weaker. This in my opinion was an extension of my observation phase. I find it strange the desire to become an intra-day trader. One can work and do trading on the side and gain experience without the stress of making it the sole source of income. It's only a vehicle to make more money. When the funds and experience have become solid one can always quite the job and work at trading full time. The path others took isn't always the path each one of us need to take. Psychology has always been the biggest barrier to success. Looking at why and how someone else got through faster is only going to prolong the agony. The fact is this: You're writing long messages after long messages instead of using that 30 mins to get one day of observation done. Over time it will become obvious to you what needs to be done. There's a human element involved and that human is you. It is you who has to judge price, and it is you who has to send the signal to buy or sell. It is also you who can just sit there and not trade but look at price daily. And it is you and you alone who's responsible for your success and failure. There's nothing wrong with being a failure. Let me repeat: There's nothing wrong in being a failure or giving up. Notice your feelings right now and if you're getting an emotional response of unease, know that failure scares you. Go back and look at the list of the Limiting Beliefs I mentioned above. You’re stating that mind and emotions are the biggest barriers, yet, what are you doing to fix that? Are you writing longs posts for your emotional unease/fear to evaporate due to them? Do you really think that fear will go away if you even used a mechanical method? I doubt it will as you'll be terrified any time even a consistently profitable system experienced a string of losses. The fear of failure will eat you away. There is no hiding from this fact. The problem isn't out there. The problem isn't @fortydraws, it's not @dbphoenix, or a half baked system. The problem ISN'T even YOU. Yes, it's not your fault that you are unable to trade profitably. You choose to trade. You are not a student, or a trader, or any other title. You choose do those things, things that are are independent of your essence. You're special irrespective of whether you are good as an intra-day trader or not and nothing can change that. For some reason you entire current existence has become dependent on this one fact that you ought to become a profitable trader in record time to be special or to have any worth. Despite all this you are responsible for the CONSEQUENCES of your actions. You are the one who bears all the responsibility of continuing to NOT do what might bring success. Playing any game well requires following the rules better. Trading is a game and there are many paths to becoming profitable. One cannot travel a path without travelling on it. Stay on the path, and stop heading to the woods every two steps, or pick a different path. Gringo
Double bottom and double tops are edges. An edge doesn't have to be something complex. The reason there is a mention of TC or TR is that they add to the edge. Picking a long in the middle of a range or at the bottom of it don't have the same probability. For some alignment of stars in an edge. I may not be comfortable with that edge but I have known those who still trade using some kind of planetary or lunar rotations. Your point though, @AdrianHagh81 is valid. We do need an edge, otherwise what's the point? Gringo
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Good question, Adrian. I also like Rich Turtle Dennis magazine comment[FUTURES magazine if I remember correctly, free to qualified traders]; remember its the job of the market to wreck computer systems[[Accurate paraphrase, NOT an exact quote]...........................................................................................Yes I usually read some of his stuff, but IF one person could make you- one person could just as easily brake you====================================================.
Double tops and bottoms in and of themselves are not edges. They are simply patterns. Your edge comes from how you incorporate such a pattern within the context of an overall strategy....your entry, your exit and your risk management.
Thanks for your very detailed reply Gringo. I unfortunately cannot give you a proper response as I'm getting ready for work though, so only one point. Once again, in reference to this observation, there is no more detail about what I should be seeing. When Db made his post about "Note how price behaves as we pass through successive previous daily high swing points." just today, I am seeing how sluggish it is, but why had nobody been able to define any of this? When eminiman asked in 40D's thread a few weeks ago, 40D only replied by saying look at what price is doing between 1030 and 1032, or whatever the time frame was. If I was teaching someone to swim, should I just say look at how they flap their arms and kick their legs? I think anyone would drown with that advice! I'm not jumping on the bandwagon as you can hopefully see that this is all crap, but so far, nobody is really trading a pure version of mechanical SLA, everybody has their own filters and different methods of entry, so we can't even really come to any conclusion. Of course Db knows the market very well, but once again, I maintain that how he trades isn't what he shows in the PDFs with entries on either hourly charts or 1 minute charts, and 40D certainly doesn't trade this way either, and neither does his friend since he showed one of his trades and it was not an SLA trade. So I'm happy that everyone who is successful at this has been able to take the concepts that Db shows and make it their own, but this leaves a big hole. And yes, I know, its my job to fill it.
When I asked my local preacher, father why does god allow bad things to happen to me ? he replies, The lord have a plan for you son, you need to pray and read the gospel again and again to find out what it is. And so I read the bible every day, and prayed every night before bed. And with each passing day I begin to feel closer to god and starting to think I'm uncovering what his plans are for me. However to this day I've never truly understood what his plans are for me.
Be very careful if your preacher wants to explain it to you very late at night after all the other church goers are long gone and he wants to see you alone in his private quarters!