OK, Jack, nobody defending yourself here but you, and you ain't doin' that great of a job. I take it from the overwhelming lack of response that nobody else here likes five minute charts for intraday trading for any other reason than orientation. We're walking...we're walking... Objection #4: SCT deviates so far from classical TA as to be blasphemous! Blasphemy, I say! Jack brags about his "Guasians" (sic). Pull Shabacker off your shelf. (You don't have Shabacker? I don't think Jack does either. Shame on you all!) Go to page 37. Read carefully about volume formations at turns. Then look at every fucking subsequent chart in his book. Oh, yeah, it's an original idea! Search Jack's posts. Do you find these words anywhere: support, resistance, high of day, low of day, previous close, previous high, previous low? You get the point. Look at Shabacker's charts. He draws downtrend channels from the BOTTOM and top. He draws uptrend channels from the TOP and bottom. There are good reasons for that practice. Reasons that SCTer's befuddled by whipsaws might well consider. I could continue, but I think you get the point.
Thanks so much for posting. i especially liked the commentary on the "always in the market" aspects. This is an objection that comes up when people are entry/exit orientated. Going to the hold/reversal is difficult. John Letto, who is famous for metals and poker and setting the vegas psorts lines, is a person who trades "always in the market" when money can be made is someone everyone sholud listen too when they get a chance.
And here also resides the crux of the problem. You have assumed the system is complicated. It is not. Most of ET's residents believe in the same paradigm. 'If I do not understand something, it must be therefore too complex." Ask someone who understands options very well to attempt to explain option trading to a beginning equities trader. The use of additional variables in option trading, totally foreign to the beginning equities trader, creates an impression of complexity in the mind of the beginner. Jack made the same mistake initially while trying to get people to transition from what they knew (indicators) to what they did not know - his 'view' of the market. People simply could not get beyond what they felt Jack 'meant' each time he posted instructions. As with Equities, Jack's 'Beginner Level' Futures trading instructions were less a 'cookbook' for following than they were guidelines designed to "get eyes on a chart." Jack believed (from his past experience teaching these techniques in person) that 'getting eyes on a chart' would lead people to 'see' the market as Jack had the ability to 'see' it. By starting with indicators, jack believed people could then transition to 'seeing' the interaction of Price and Volume - and that is where the rubber meets the road. What Jack did not anticipate was the pervasive myth busting mentality which seems to permeate the internet in general (and this web site in specific). Such a mentality seeks to locate the "chink in the armor" and prove the methods false. Combine the 'new way' of looking at the market (outside the realm of probability and statistics) with Jack's often maligned style of prose, and you have a recipe for disaster. However, if you separate the methods from the man (and his writing style) and honestly evaluate the methods themselves - and not another's viewpoint of what they think Jack said or meant - then a trader can see how what once people deemed 'impossible' not only becomes possible, but actually makes it to the realm of the probable and finally into the world of fact. Search the ET archives to find out what people said about Jack's Equities Methods back when he first started posting to ET. You'll find the same negative - almost visceral - response, back then to Equities Trading, as we see today with trading Futures. Yet, one can see a transition of opinion today with respect to Equities. The bottom line for anyone looking for answers is this: Use your own brain. Differentiate for yourself between truth and fiction. Don't rely on anyone to provide you the tools needed for success. Jack provides a wonderful view of the ballpark. He can tell you about every rivet used during construction and wax poetically about each coat of paint applied. However, if you search his words looking for a 'hitting coach' to give you detailed instruction for 'swinging the bat' at each type of pitch, well, I suspect many will find disappointment. Oh, The instructions are there (on occasion), but blinded by hatred, ego or flat out ignorance, many fail to recognize the assistance when they see it. What takes 'months' to learn isn't the system. Breaking the (old and often bad) habits of the past require far more time than a few days of reading through pages on a web site. Most people fail to understand the level of effort required to reach levels of success in any profession. Trading is no different in this regard. However, what Jack has provided is a process (and if you haven't figured it out by now, Jack is all about the process) by which a trader can reach profitability. Since 95% of all traders who follow conventional orthodoxy fail, why not follow a path which shows improved odds of success? Good trading to you all. - Spydertrader
One mystery that might be cleared-up is: What is meant by 3 times the daily range? Is that 3X intraday-high to intraday-low? Or is it 3X the movement, for example, if something goes up, then down, then up, does 3X the daily range mean 3X the up + 3X the down + 3X the final up?
Nice post, Spydertrader. I hoped you'd come back. To paraphrase Mick Jagger, "to get your fair shere of abuse".
Another thing we encounter in life is people who say what they wish were true rather than what is true. How does spyder's post cover the bases?