That is a really good exchange between svrs and tiddlywinks. svrs has done a great job of explaining what the crux of this method has always been; applying a real-time judgement onto a ever-unique context based off a theoretical model. The amount of complexity and rules helpful for each individual to do that varies. Spyder started out jumping fractals all over the place, with little technical requirements for containers or completed sequences and still managed to be profitable. At the end of his posting he had refined things into quite a detailed and consistent set of rules. I always go back to the Channel drills he posted; I'm pretty sure I understand all of the nuances and rules he used to build equal containers and promote them with pace in order to maintain fractal integrity. But all trading the much slower fractals really does is stretch out the same decisions you'd be making every 10-15 minutes over the course of a day or two. When it comes down to it there is no perfect answer. You need to make a decision on how to interpret present data and act on it. Some of the best months I ever put up in trading were in 2016, which I posted some of the graphs for, were also by far my messiest months trading, where I didn't try to perfect my method, and I didn't try to over-analyze my mistakes, but I just let myself play the game and win more than I lost. Anyway, I don't know if this thread is the place for a discussion like this. I don't want to derail the exchange Simples and Sprout are trying to have. But I thought this paragraph by tiddlywinks especially captures what it takes to really succeed with this stuff. And from everything he's posted tiddlywinks seems like he's been doing this stuff successfully AND consistently for quite some time now. He may very well be the best PV trader we have still active in a public capacity. Thanks for continuing to take the time to contribute now and then.
As a point of clarity, am appreciative of the contrast provided by svrz, tiddlywinks and Heroic. I have much respect, appreciation and gratitude for their prior work. Their comments do point to something other than what has been explicitly expressed. The work that you are doing builds perception and if applied through consistent practice in turn builds confidence. The method is accurate and exact in it's systemic operation. Any conclusion other than that has the seed of doubt based on an incomplete dataset. The incompletion is not due to any aspects of the method. It's within. There is a wellspring, an inner guidance that is available to anyone. It's always here. The role of doubt is to mask this inner source of guidance. Doubt's function is to slow one down. Doubt when left unchecked is paralyzing when timely action is required. This in turn will exclude one from having consistent and lasting success in any endeavor one feels inspired to create. We are the creators of our own reality. We have free will to choose how we feel in the face of any and all circumstances. Happy people with no money. Unhappy people with lot's of money. Unhappy people with no money. Happy people with lot's of money. Thinking the money is the cause of their happiness is looking for something outside themselves. It can be the cause in some contexts but not all. There is always a greater understanding to achieve, at the cost of a prior (what can now be seen as a limiting) belief. What someone else has achieved or not with these methods is solely within one's own sphere of influence. Any other thinking is victim mentality. There is no cure for doubt. There is only shifting one's focus to increasing confidence. When one says that feelings don't matter. Ok, you get to wake up on the wrong side of bed randomly and to decreased wellbeing with no influence in the matter. Feelings do matter. Every exceptional moment of one's life has a feeling associated with it. It is the basis of a living a loving life. Back to Failsafes. Let's go back to the ten cases and look at the Sym. Depending on how large the 2nd bar is compared to the 1st will determine the slope of the respective RTL's. The pair is enclosed with the lateral boundaries thus forming a container. This container has 2 independent and opposing FS pairs within it. We see which becomes Dominant as we move up to XB or down to XR. This now valid RTL is the early bird FS of the horizontal lateral FS. Early bird FS's are when price XO this RTL line. In lateral formations this will happen quite frequently. However when we are in a Dominant traverse the only place this (XO of RTL) occurs is at the end of the first Dominant leg of the traverse. We will also notice this XO happens on decreasing volume. Thus Break Out on Trough 1 has come into view. This is the first trough after a single peak in volume or a series of successively peaking volume bars. This is the end of the lowest risk trade. Price can and frequently takes off with more XB's or XR's. We are working bar-by-bar. The RTL gets an increased slope due to the increased pace. Our FS adjusts for this. We move our pair of FS up Bar-by-bar as need arises. The pair now refers to a RTL and the horizontal line that intersects at pt1. This horizontal line (lateral boundary opposite of price direction) in known as a Bookmark. BM being one of the two types of FS's. A BM frequently is placed near the apex of a turn. It's our hard stop or reversal point depending on the type of trader one is - Enter/Exit or Hold/Reverse. The end of this particular Dominant traverse is always the XO of the RTL. This move can be a single leg of a larger Dominant traverse. This can be a single bar of pause or a lateral before the larger Dominant Traverse presents itself. It doesn't matter. We are bar-by-bar working faster fractal containers first, identifying Dom and non-Dom. The cost to frequently adjusting to be on the right side of the market does come with a cost. The psychological cost is that one isn't doing something right. That's an inaccurate assessment. We are perceiving the precise flow of Dominance and non-Dominance in the market at this resolution with the current tools at our disposal. This BO can also happen on incr vol and we have defined that as a C-turn. At every moment there is the right side of the market. Adjust the mental frame of your annotations and logging so that this is your home.
Just wanted to follow-up with the "analysis" from yesterday. Here is my updated NQ 4minute chart. Further, here's my NQ 2 minute chart... my primary chart for trading. Important reminder... VOLUME DEFINES HOW CONTAINERS ARE BUILT. That's what prompted me to post charts, hopefully illustrative of such. Just as important reminder... I am not a JH guru, and even less of an expert annotating volume gaussians. And just in case I haven't made it clear, I am a fractal jumper! If you don't use volume to build your containers (and points), you are using a personal invention. The PV relationship is explicit. In my experience, the explicitness allows the relationship to be eventually, self-correcting.
Over years I found that 4 Min chart is better suit for JHM and with superimposing ES to NQ is very helpful to do MADA as I am trading ES.
It's fascinating that 2 bars may extend into more and more context by reading new information flowing into the current fractal. Attempting to learn by doing through guidance. Anticipating trends with volume and range at daily fractal bars. Treating Sym's as anti-trend artifacts (basically non-DOM within Traversal). QQQ EOD Looks "heavy", like it's being pulled down, at least while plunging into and staying in bear Channel. No black volume redeeming all the big red volume on long range bars yet. Actions within Channel/higher fractal (ie. 3-6 Jul) seems to show volume DU and FRV before price BO on DOM-bar 7 Jul. Unprocessed weekly shows bearish tapes (red) in the period: QQQ EOW
The 2m is a good looking chart. Relaxing and activating at the same time. The first SFC and early entry started at 9:26 with the 10:00 a Dominant SFC that the right side of the market is to be short. An area of interest is the trend segments from 10:24 to 11:00 are the clearest Fastest Fractal's First's annotated on the chart. They are the thinnest channels yet price remained within the RTL. Steep sloped RTL's are a low risk area for bar-by-bar trading. There were 5 trades from reversing on XO of the RTL. This XO is usually on the open or close, we are looking at the doji as it appears as legs of a bar are built. It makes the most coin per unit of time and the exit is pretty clear to see. In this case the geometry of a two bar pt1,2,3,ve,ftt define our fractal container. Volume gaussians are observed intrabar. All we know is if vol is incr or decr from the first bar until one does the 5x5 (with the diagonal doji's) drill. Make a couple of copies of the grid and then on one copy trace as you did the sym several posts ago but do it with color. ie. From the open, price decr, then as the price oscillates on the bar and the position of the closing tick relative to the opening tick trace price as a continuous line. The goal is to de-construct the building of a bar from a vertical orientation to a horizontal one. A 5min bar with a snapshot at 1min intervals gives 5 vertical lines linked through a de-gapped closing and opening ticks. There is the path of least resistance, which builds most bars. and There is the path of most volatility, which builds the bar by presenting more doji's as price oscillates. It's important to perceive the difference.
Yes, very good deductions. Adding more bars to your display will be helpful. Lot's of times during debriefing one sees a larger context that clears confusion.
Here's my charts for NQ yesterday. I had one long from 9:48 to 10:10. The FTT up didn't quite have the type of volume I was expecting for an intermediate-level turning point so I was looking to get back in for another leg up at some point. After we started seeing decent XR vol I had to adjust my expectations. I was willing to short one if a good entry came about but there was never really a pronounced non-dom leg to hop into for another trip down. Lastly I considered a long right around 10:45 that would've worked out quite well, but after the breach of 5780 I knew it'd be fighting the slow dominant sentiment; the lateral forming made up my mind since trading non-dom out of one of those isn't usually too lucrative. Pace was decent enough for it to have worked though. Still coming off a hiatus so I think I'm still a little more gun-shy than usual. Regarding the larger picture, still hard to convince myself that this two week trend made it's high with how the PV looks at 10:00. And it's too much of a wedge all of yesterday afternoon for me to be that confident on what we're building at the moment. Clearly an r2r2b2r of some sort is easy to see from ~10:00 to ~14:00. But whether we'll have some more conviction down or a drift into new highs is something I need more information to decide at this point.
An update on NQ 4min. What an exercise this turned into, tracking the wide container. Recall, the point is... containers are defined through volume, not through visual geometry. So the previous iteration of this chart had points 1 and supposed 2. Non-dom volume did not follow point 2, making P2 questionable. And at the open on Friday a NEW P2 formed, followed by the required non-dom volume for P3. There are at least 5 fractals in play on this chart , imo. It is very easy to fractal jump even with thinking. Anyway, 4min NQ, based on my work, here are the possibilities... 1) be on lookout for FTT -or- 2) BR cycling... 5880 area is the top of at least one of the many fractals in play. Ideally, If FTT is to occur, I would like to see dom-volume of 12K+