Its all pretty easy Ged... here is a chart for you! (my blue lines mean the overnight levels, and my green lines mean the previous day levels, but cyan and pink are S and R as per Db's convention) You just outline the ranges and bring forward the highs and lows of these ranges, plus their means, and then of course the prominent highs and lows that you see as well that would really stand out on an hour/daily chart. Sometimes this provides a great trade, like the ones pointed out by the red arrows, so you take credit for these, as if you just bought or sold assuming that price will reject at these levels. Sometimes price goes through, and then just hovers there (green arrows). It appears to break out, so you might want to go long, but then it fails, so you might want to go short, but that fails too. Then when you express frustration and ask for help, you're just told to observe. Of course when price finally takes off, you will be told that they were already in, and if it fails, they were already out and had switched sides anyway. If you don't know why, it means you haven't observed enough! (sorry 40D... I just couldn't resist)
Lately I've been trading most of the day, and it is difficult, impossible really, for me to focus on taking screen shots and recording observations while also watching my positions. I am not at the stage of development where DbPhoenix is where I can "go do something else" while in a trade . I will try to do a series in the premarket soon - I usually do not trade until after 9 AM EST - most of the time I wait for the NY session to open. I will also do another afternoon series like the one that I began this journal with, but again, it has to be when I am not in nor planning a trade. I do not use volume in my day trading. I do try to use it per Wyckoff's course and William O'Neil's How to Make Money in Stocks, for making longer term trades, but I am not at all confident I have achieved even a moderate level of expertise with using it to make trades.
That's for the best. The only thing volume tells you is how many trades are taking place. What matters more is whether or not price is rising or falling.
The quotes below are from your journal (which is were I will ask you to stay): That was real time, by me, in an effort to help you. I announced in your journal that I was short, and then just a moment later I edited the post announcing I had switched to long (but I did not "erase" the fact of my immediately prior short. And, if I recall, I held that long for quite a while. Those posts are time stamped - so go back and look at your NQ chart for that morning, and look at 4119. I took a shot short, the market indicated I was wrong, and I switched. I can't tell you whether I made or lost on that short. To me, two points either way is a scratch - it doesn't register as a profit or loss in my mind - just a shot. That's how this goes, for me at least. I don't know which way price is going every time, and I do not always get it right the first time. The difference between me and you is that I have learned to recognize an opportunity, I have learned to recognize when I am mistaken, and I am able to adjust my view and to act without hesitation because I have taken the time to learn. As Wyckoff says, "hesitation must be overcome by self-training. To observe a positive indication and not act upon it is fatal - more so in closing than in opening a trade. The appearance of a definite indication should be immediately followed by an order." How did I learn? As Wyckoff says, "self-training." I sat in front of my computer, put up a 5 minute chart, and watched. That exchange between you and me above where I had gotten short and then moments later switched to long was five weeks ago today. Have you made any changes to what you were doing before? Have you even bothered to study DbPhoenix's SLA booklet? Have you bothered studying Wyckoff's trading course? Have you read his Studies in Tape Reading? Have you done anything that anyone who has tried to help you has recommended? You really are an ungrateful toad, kp. You may as well drop the pretense of desiring to be a successful trader. It is too late for you. You have fully made the unfortunate transition to internet trading forum troll. I tried to help you. I would hope you could at least acknowledge that much to yourself and muster enough self-respect to leave my journal in peace.
I remember this day very clearly 40D and I was annoyed that you didn't tell me in advance to watch for this. By the time I saw your posts, you had already edited them, and the time stamps are long gone as I think they are only kept for a day or two by this forum. I know posting live calls to ET is extremely difficult though, even typing it over skype is extremely difficult, so the only way to do it properly really is via skype and using voice. So I don't blame you for not doing more of this nor suggest that you should. I know you have tried to help me, but this is the first time I even see you posting that sometimes you get a trade wrong and exit. Almost every one of your other posts shows one trade... held for quite a while, with an exit for like 30 to 50 points. When I look at some of these levels, it looks impossible to get it right on the first trade.. so I wonder how you could be hitting them. I am trying to learn from you because you do have a different way of showing things than Db. Remember how I even posted the chart trying to figure out why your friend went short where he did? I tried to show this on a 150 vol chart just like you showed me (even added a 5 sec chart as well)... looking to see if the entry criteria was there as you suggested, looking to see if I could find something that would help me with the observation phase of what I should be seeing that tells me to enter a trade. After I got up and running with Sierra Charts and was able to do a 150 vol LOC, I went back and tried to recreate every chart that you have shown me as I illustrate in this attachment, to see if I could see what you're looking at. What I have here is your chart along with mine superimposed, just to make sure it lines up and that my 150 vol LOC is correct. I don't mean to be a dick, but it wasn't long ago that you called me an ass in one of the message posts, but what really hurt was when a month ago or so you showed this stuff to me, but then fired back with saying that I don't even know what you're looking at or understand why you do anything that you do. I found this frustrating because you're showing me what you're doing, and then completely disregarding what you just said so my head was spinning! I also feel that you are almost teasing when you say that you private messaging all of these guys who are lost, and yet I've been asking for help and its quiet. I'm not saying that you are obligated to help in any way, but I would hope that any person reading would see that I have tried to be gracious and do the work, but I'm obviously coming up short. Blaming me for it is just not cool. I don't think I've been sitting on my hands not doing the work, and if you're helping these guys who are hopelessly lost as you mention, then I'm clearly not an isolated case. Thanks for reading and I will leave you alone at your request.
lol. Just rolling on the floor laughing my fucking ass off lol. You can hover your mouse cursor over the post time - the post was 9:34. I shorted the break below 19, the stop and reverse to long was indicated by the higher low. Your opinion, as usual, is quite wrong. You're right. It is much cooler for you to blame DbPhoenix and me, and everyone else who offered you a hand. This is the last thing I will offer you specifically. It is up to you - not me, not DbPhoenix, not NoDoji, not Redneck, not BhProp, not KDASFTG, not any of the many who have offered you sound advice - to decide what, if anything, you will do with what follows. You! Here is the chart you posted over in the DbPhoenix bashing thread. It is that simple - look for the higher low at support and look for the lower high at resistance and trade the failure. But if you cannot see it on a dead 5 second chart, however, how are you going to see it in real time? This is the stuff, kp, that comes from doing the work required of you. You protest, and say "but I have been doing the work." But you haven't. Because if you have, you would not be at the same place you were a year ago, or even just five weeks ago. You would have discovered for yourself the importance of lower lows and lower highs and why sometimes they offer tradable opportunities while at others they are mere pauses on the road to the next level of value. You are doing something, and you might even consider it to be work, but it is neither effective nor efficient, and it is yielding you nothing usable. The fact that you do it everyday over and over and expect it to yield something different and new for you is ... let me be charitable and just say that such behavior is, at the very least, self-defeating. Anyhow, that is all I do - that is the secret sauce. Lower highs, higher lows, and knowing where they might be meaningful (S/R) and where they are likely no big deal (a retracement in the area between an S level and an R level) and hence there is no edge to trading them or even using them as a stop on a long trade in progress. Here is something else: Before you see that lower high on a 5 second chart, you've already missed the first lower high. This is where I really do think I excel - I watch so closely and I have seen it so many times that I can see the first sign of failure more quickly than most are willing to believe. But here is the thing - whether you or anyone else believes doesn't matter to me. I know. You see, kp, I did the work, and I read the source material provided by DbPhoenix before hand, and so I knew what to look for and where to look for it. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Having said that, I would also tell you that the reason neither DbPhoenix nor I can tell you exactly what to look for is because it is never exactly the same. Yes, a lower high is always a lower high, and a higher low is always a higher low, but no two are ever going to be identical. So this is where your watching and observing and learning need to kick in. Think this way: I read this somewhere and jotted it down - it might have been Mark Douglas, but I am not sure. It is not mine, and I might have paraphrased it or I might have quoted it verbatim, I take no credit for it, but I happen to think it is accurate: "Whatever your edge (higher probability of one thing happening over another) is, it will never be exactly the same as the previous scenario because unless every single person who created the pattern in the past is present in this now moment, interacting (behaving) exactly the same way with everyone else, the patterns cannot be exactly identical." This is where focusing solely on the pattern, and not the underlying behavior can cause problems. If you look for a pattern that is never exactly the same, you will only catch those instances where the pattern is close to whatever your mind has told itself is the ideal pattern. But what about the low in your chart? Certainly not nearly as "clean" or as "clear" a higher low as was the lower high at the premkt high. But it is, nonetheless, a higher low at a level that one might have expected support. Oh, and as to that 4319.50 low, most would probably be baffled as to how I could possibly say that that was a level at which one might have expected support. Thos who have taken the time to read and to study the source material, especially the AMT booklet, would have identified that to have been the mean of the premkt range. Everything anyone needs to get started with this has been repeated by DbPhoenix thousands of times. Why you or anyone keeps thinking he is holding back on any of us is the result of you not paying attention, not studying (reading is NOT the same thing as STUDYING). I'll tell you what brother - I studied. I studied my ass off, and I still do. Hardly a day goes by that I don't study a few pages (often far more than a few pages) of the source materials - Wyckoff, DbPhoenix, and some of the authors DbPhoenix has recommended, e.g. Douglas, O'Neil, Mamis. I study. And why am I pissed at you? Because rather than open your ears and do the work, you have become an ambassador of bullshit and negativity like so many here at ET. You are pissing in the well that has provided so well for me, and yes, I resent you doing so. How old are you? Where is your sense of self-responsibility? You say I am under no obligation to help you and yet you act as though you are entitled to that and so much more. My ten year old son is has the presence and sense of responsibility not to tell me that "that's not fair." I remind you that this is the last thing I will offer you specifically. I remind you that it is now up to you - not me, not DbPhoenix, not NoDoji, not Redneck, not BhProp, not KDASFTG, not any of the many who have offered you sound advice - to decide what, if anything, you will do with what you have just read.
Ok... how about this for an answer because I do stand by this comment. I was too focused on watching/observing price to take notice of someone replying to my journal! Had I known it was you, I would have glanced over at the time, but I was simply trying my hardest to focus. Now I do of course want to thank you very much for your detailed reply. I really am impressed that you would take the time. This part I think I would like to address a bit. You see, much of the info in the SLAAMT PDF doesn't cover any of this. Many of us have tried to SLA our way, and entries based on what Db shows are RETs based on 1 minute charts. It is absolutely obvious to me that what you do, which you present, is not what is presented in the PDFs in terms of entries. How Db specifically trades I don't know, but I too doubt that he waits for these 1 min RET entries. Now don't get me wrong, they do work, but they also don't often, and when they don't, its not 2 points that are at risk but much more. I have always taken special notice of how Db talks about the rejections, and I've always wanted to read him write more about this, but he has been very focused on strictly SLA. He even mentioned in your journal a couple of days ago that he's not sure how much of this is tied to SLA. So you see, I spent months trying to make SLA work, trying to find filters and all this jazz, but at the same time grappling with the idea that SLA is already backtested so why I am not just going purely mechanical. I think your friend had an excellent start once again that he was able to sit beside you. I don't deny that what Db writes, the way he characterizes the market is some pretty good shit, and these targets work damn well. But trying to SLA your way into them via 1 min entries is difficult, especially for a new trader who wants/needs to see their trade take off immediately. While we struggle holding our position, you guys are already in from lower down and can afford to hold through any congestion. Now once again, I am in no way suggesting this is anyone's fault other than my own, but just grappling with the idea that what you guys do and what is shown in the PDF being quite different in terms of entries takes lots of mental power to put together. I gather that if your friend didn't watch you or had access to you and just read the PDF, he would be looking for 1 min SLA entries, and on a day like today, I imagine he would get chopped up a bit. For the record, I didn't start that thread, and I do find it interesting that the person who did is clearly a Db follower because their limited posting history has only been in his thread or my journal. Although I have been negative, I have been calling it exactly how I see it, and I'm not ashamed of this or regretting it. I've never asked to see detailed statements or proof of how much money you're making, I simply wanted to see the trades that were taken... all trades... to understand how you're managing certain tricky areas and how often you're in or out. Lets be honest 40D, your performance is absolutely extraordinary when you consider anything else that is posted here. I gather that some of the guys Db argues with in the P&R forum do very well from some of their posting history I've glanced, but none of them participate in any trading threads. So I think there is justification for asking questions, especially when you consider once again the difference between what you guys do and what is actually in the PDF. And with reference to the time stamp when you hover over the date... you got me there.... you are 100% correct. I wish I had time to go over the specific example of what you look for, but I don't tonight, nor do I want to push it since you said that you won't help specifically any more. But I do thank you for your time, and hope that you will perhaps answer more questions in the future.
40D, I think you have stated this before, but it looks like you only play reversals. "It is that simple - look for the higher low at support and look for the lower high at resistance and trade the failure." Is there a reason you do not trade continuation when price blows through a s/r level and pulls back to it?