I'm finding a lot of interesting info. It's slow work, but the results have been pretty interesting. Basically I'm finding a few things that happen 50%-60% of the time before, or during a RET. I haven't yet cross checked them together, but I soon will. I guess I'm just glad that there seems to me a method to all the madness when you really sit down, concentrate, and manually and methodically sift through all the info that's there in the PA/V for you to see. Maybe I'm getting somewhere. Maybe not. haha
Jon, I like your dedication and determination, plus got a good feeling about you, for this I'm extending you a special invitation. If you are ready for some hard work and want to join my private room send me an email to anekdoten@gmail.com (just you as I get petitions on a daily basis but room is over it's capacity) It's completely free and it's price action only based trading, think you will fit right in as my students/friends all trade the NQ. Anek
I'm now using the common characteristics I've found in RETs together. I've printed out around 20 charts and will note the conditions under which at least 2 (I have 5) of my characteristics come out in the chart. For example If X and Z happen, did that turn out to be a RET? What percentage of the time? What if Y and Z happen did that turn into a RET? What percentage of the time? Hopefully I can come up with some common conditions that occur before/during a RET a good percentage of the time. Replay from NT was pissing me off so basically I have a chart on paper and I'm using a piece of paper to slowly uncover 1 bar at a time. Low tech I know. It will be a long night. Sad activity for a 21 year old in downtown Denver on Saturday night huh? Oh well.
Wow I'm getting somewhere. It looks (LOOKS) like I am able to spot a RET pretty consistently. Not every RET by any means, but when a certain amount of my specifications are met it turns out to be a RET the VAST majority of the time. I'm far from finished though and the results could end up very different, but it looks like I'm finally gaining some ground, albeit not very much. It's a start.
I was in the shower thinking about the common factors that I am starting to get together and I had a sort of epiphany. I don't think recognizing and cataloging them is enough. Well maybe its enough, but I think I should be doing more. For example lets say I noticed that price always behaves a certain way while vol is doing this during a RET. Shouldn't I be trying to find out why? Why is price behaving this way in the context of the overall picture? Or does that matter? It seems like it should matter in that understanding the market (human behavior) is our over all goal, right? Maybe its not so important in the system of a day-trader, but honestly I hate that description of what we do (or try to do). Day trading to me should be just a stop on the way to really understanding how the market works: fear, greed and their relationship to supply and demand. Thoughts? Is the "why" important? Another question. If you develop a method that is rigorously defined and profitable, shouldn't it, almost by its definition, be able to be automated?
Jon, I'll let you know. My husband is automating my primary strategy and will be testing it shortly. The only time my strategy fails to be profitable overall is when I (the human factor) mess around with it. It appears shortly I will be competing with myself in pure electronic form.
i think the value of 'why' varies from trader to trader and person to person. my interest in why a car does what it does is less than my dad's interest but more than my wife's interest. and my wife's interest is more than our daughter's interest. four people with very different levels of 'why-interest', all doing the same thing: driving a car. too much why can become very distracting from the what. it can also become too misleading. how many times does every single market do something other than what a trader thinks it SHOULD do? proactively knowing why something happens doesn't promise unvarying results. to me the importance of why is a matter of market context. if i am doing anything other than flipping a coin on a trade, i have some interest and reliance on why: why did i take this trade? everyone finds their own functional level of why. or they don't. btw, kudos to you on your contributions to the site and your progress. stay with it ...
That makes sense. Like you said, it kind of boggles your mind and we can only handle so much at one time. Thanks for the kind words.