Yes, Queen Donna, whose beauty is exceeded only by her trading acumen, almost gave Jack a coronary when he met her. She supposedly misinterpreted his response and fainted dead away.
OK, PA lovers, a gitf for you (a gitf is a twisted gift). Professor Joe Doaks and I have wearied to the point of mental rictus reading all the laudatory posts on PA. So we whipped up some PA for you. Took me maybe a minute to do the algorithm, and Doaks less than that to code it. We of course selected a time of day when it works. We love it so much we can't bear to backtest it. We call it "OuijaBored." For obvious reasons. Times are West Coast, as always, because Joe and I wish we still lived there. Ordinarily we would ass-tonish all of ET and piss off moderation by creating a thread for it in Technical Analysis, but we mean this to piss you off specifically, so we posted it here.
I prefer higher lows and lower highs, with the trend or as a valid reversal signal. But...trading HH and LL is a fine breakout strategy, especially with CL. You buy at the high or sell at the low, then close your eyes really tight, throw both arms into the air and yell, "Weeeeeeee!". I also attempt pure counter-trend trades with a sort of grace and precision that puts Circe de Soleil to shame. You wanna see me do that some time? "Here, hold my beer and watch this..."
Thanks for the clarification. Glad that works for you in CL. It sure doesn't work in NQ. Counter-trend trading should be listed in the DSM-IV as an incurable neurosis. But I WILL try the "Weeeeeee!" thing. Probably beats cursing.
Your entry zones look perfect, but maybe your actual entries are too late into the move? I can't tell where you're getting into the trades, or where your stops and targets are, etc.
I make all my comedic charts look that way to enhance their credibility. Nobody wants to buy a chart study that promises to hurt their eyes or their head.
I agree with you there. When I announce such a trade to my trading roomies, there is a sudden deep, deep silence, through which I can actually hear them closing their eyes and slowly shaking their heads.
You need to first understand the environment first. Analogy: If you are taking a road trip from Atlanta to Chicago and at the very beginning of the trip you need to drive 10 miles South in order to catch a better and quicker road Northwest toward Chicago . . . would you just not take the road trip because you had to first drive 10 miles in the opposite direction first or would you turn around and go home after you drove the 10 miles in the opposite direction and decided it was a waste of effort and go back home? No to either scenario. You knew that your long term goal would be achieved continuing on your way because you had all of the information needed to reach that decision. If I KNEW the overall strength of the chart I was trading was DOWN then any trade I take short has the FULL advantage of that strength. When I entered this trade my entry price was 1.2910 (after the label which was the close of the bar). The most the trade went against me was 7 ticks to 1.2917 (which hit on my entry bar). My stop was 1.2927 but wasn't a factor. If I can read a chart correctly, read the strength of the chart correctly and have personally watched it play out many thousands of times before without fail, which is more important; The stop or the goal? The goal of course but only screen time will give you the confidence to trust it.
Does that mean you don't trade double tops or bottoms? Or, if you do, then do you classify such formations are semi-quasi-pseudo lower highs and higher lows, respectively? I squint and make it so.