One of the reasons I took up sct was to keep me occupied because most of the time the market itself is very boring. Drawing channels is fun for me. Its the fine tuning that I could not get down. I wish you could automate that part of it.
You could try linear regression over several time frames. This would allow you to draw channels nested inside channels, and determine inner channels' reversal points. But, I'm not sure an automatic system would be as efficient as the eye/mind system. Good luck!
I think there is a great value in drawing the trendlines and counting prv as opposed to having them drawn and calculated by a computer. You start to understand what´s happening better. Until you are a pro and can play wargames while you´re making money, it can be pretty boring to trade, so drawing channels is a nice way to fool yourself that your actually doing something creative.
Don´t underestimate the value of actively interacting with what you see on the chart. When I was studying journalism we had to draw the letters by hand in different styles - times new roman, serif, arial and so on. It wasn´t fun, I assure you, but you get a much better feeling for printed texts, when they look good and when they don´t look good and how to edit them. I believe the true value in channels and prv are what you learn working with them.
The Sweep doc is a good starting point for seeing the major elements of SCT to consider. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=836810#post836810 My advice (coming from a beginner) is to go down the path of learning to annotate channels across multiple fractals. You will soon see that it is a worth-while skill to develop, and you will realize the difficulty in automating channels due to the discretion involved.
One thing Ive found useful is to keep adding channels as the day progresses. I drew in that top trendline around 11:30 and it got hit three more times almost to the tick.
Interesting... I've given thought to this in the past but thought the logic was too fuzzy to automate (at least for me to tackle right now), but perhaps I gave up too easily. How granular are your channels? Have you automated detection of the current channel and traverses, ST, & IT, all on the trading fractal? Is your logic for identifying the channel lines based strictly on price? Do you treat the RTL as a precise line or a gray area? Do you have one set trading fractal or do you adjust based on the pace of the market (i.e. find the fastest fractal that is currently taping) or some other factor?.
No one was interested in my little theory about gaps a month ago, but I still think I´m right A filled gap is very often an important s/r, especially when the gap is in the opposite direction of the trend. Some days, like yesterday, for me it´s obvious that the gap is filled only because of gap players, not because the market has any reason to go up. I could have bet my ass that it was gonna go down to test 1264 again after the gap was filled. There was a good entry point around 10.15.
Hi trux, Well... let me say this: I strongly believe that any strategy conceived can, with thought, be automated with a reasonable understanding of math, and of course programming. That being said, consider that Jack's descriptions can be applied to aspects of trading beyond the seemingly obvious. I personally don't use bars, per se, and I barely even consider "price" as commonly perceived. So what I'm trying to say is utilize what jack has offered and think of creatively applying it "out side the box". kt