I don't use the rdbms method, which is the most recent of Jack's inventions, the only place where he used bar-2-bar de-gapping. I believe that bar-2-bar de-gapping doesn't make sense for Jack's traditional approach neither on 5 minute, nor on daily. For your example it doesn't seem to make a difference, but on larger bar spans, and especially on daily, bar-2-bar de-gapping generates an artificial view of the price action. To directly answer your question: no, I don't think a bar-2-bar de-gapped chart would align the various methods more precisely. I would let the chart as is, gapped, and only mentally bar-2-bar de-gap it for the rdbms assignments. On your example it is nice how the rdbms aligns with the price containers and the gaussians, how it resets on the faster fractal. I guess that Jack worked with somebody to develop the rdbms method, maybe spydertrader, the first I read mentioning bar-2-bar de-gapping. Anyway, congrats to all of you who worked through Jack's posts to dig out his last pearl!
You seemed a little frustrated last night. Maybe you watched /read your favorite news programs too much "Calm" is better.
Degapping issue always seems to bring about trouble between you two, whom I consider the most knowledgeable with Jack's work. Degapping bar by bar seems to me that it helps with viewing the current fractal that is active or is beginning, where as in another point of view, if the top/bottom was made for a bar, why does degapping it matter when the next bar actually didn't cross it, and therefore it should be considered inside bar with price being stuck in a range? Degapping bar by bar I suppose eases us into the smaller fractal once the bigger fractal is on hold. At least that's how I'm seeing it at the moment. I still can't seem to wrap my head around taking reversals at the right moment and not even close to taking 2x 3x (maybe even 6x as Jack mentioned for those who can trade intra bar as well) ADR. Only thing I seemed to have grasped somewhat is that I can now enter with less risk and exit for small loss or a decent gain. (The first 15 min of RTH always gives me trouble though, so I'm staying away these days) I'd like some advice on what exercise I should perform to carve the turns better? What should I be paying attention to more for me to be able to stay in the market all the time? Any tools or suggestions?
Yeah, you’re spot on! That des cheerio petty tyrant and minions negative toxic vitriol is difficult to wash off at times. Taking in a glorious Indian summer sunset on a rooftop terrace helped a lot! I appreciate your perspective, good to see you post more.
Jack's RDBMS require degapping, at least if following what Jack reiterated in many many posts in several threads, also the most defining threads for RDBMS. However, very few places and only by students, are all bars degapped bar by bar. Jack's own posts all show gaps, though we suspect some automation and mental degapping as well. What matters most though, is staying on the right side of the market, and what that should mean to you. That is trading. If something doesn't make sense, one can't effectively use it, least of all for trading. For daily bars degapping all bars may make sense if what makes sense to you is what happens inside each bar, bar by bar. @stepan7 showed us earlier how much of the flow continued relatively undisturbed by larger gaps. So I believe both may be important considerations. Even though I started degapping bar by bar, I'm currently in reset mode, as I'm not sure how to effectively leverage this info in real-time, but that may also have to do with the fact I don't have time/focus to do realtime-trading manually. Could also have to do with daily bars being more complex than 5-min bars, and don't adhere strictly to RDBMS.
Are you doing the carryover of the previous day? I did try carry over from the previous day but I feel like I'm either getting it wrong or just the sheer volatility difference of RTH open gets me in trouble. What’s your market display composed of now? What drills have you done? I'm currently just looking at only the 5m charts with 30m boxes overlaying in the background. I have tried using YM 2m charts and OTR charts to spot the turns for awhile but I kept ending up exiting out of good trades or entering at the wrong spot. I have not been able to spot the 2 pair spikes and such nor time the correct turns early using YM charts. Can't seem to tell what I'm missing.
Post a screenshot of what you are looking at on your monitor(s). With the lack of an answer to what drills have you done, it would start with the first one, the 5x5. Not by copying, but actually starting with a blank sheet of paper and 'thinking' through how a bar forms. Where it starts, when and what manner it reverses intrabar, how it closes. Post your result. How you organize the bars will give an insight into how you are currently perceiving shape, movement and the change of shape. The short answer is being mindful of the long diagonal of the container parallelogram. The long answer is being able to determine that change in geometry in correlation with volume pace change.