The trades you have focused upon are a lousy situation to go through. It is very possible at anytime that 5 min bars can behave in the ughliest way imaginable. A person who was not in the mood to really on top of things would ride through the situation just because he didn't stay ontop of it. It would have made more money for sure if he had. But it does happen that things can get difficult once in a while. In this situation the person was following a lot of bar 6 with the flag up because IF 1 put it upafter the close of bar 5 was passed on the way down in bar 6. At the end of the bar trade S3 is mandated by IF 2. I would say "rats" just because bar 6 almost made it to bar 7. "Rats". Bar 6 closes as low as it can. The bottom. As the entry is okay on bar 6, we like seeing it falling. Bar 7 makes all of this history. You did some looking on the T&S to see the sequences and you determined that the price rose the first minute and hit the S3 entry, so L4 comes into the picture. what is also true and also really uncool is that the bar seven price movement does two things: goes below close (IF 1 raises flag) and then IF 2 is satisfied with the price going below bottom of bar 6 meaning reverse. you have, in effect two shorts dictated and two longs required under APA which you have down cold and understood. It is time to say "rats" again. As a mechanic on a keyboard you either do it all or you do 1/2 of it. Either way you are long and on the right side of the trade. It is either S, L, S, and L or S and L. the fastest way is a point more expensive. The slow way is BE. It is worse than how to use 30 seconds to push buttons. The events are spaced and they eat up some of the 30 seconds. What the example represents is a time when bars are closing low and in the next bar the "trend" drops below the prior bar and then promptly goes on up in the next five minutes to wreck the trend position. It did this twice on consecutive bars. What a drag. When you lookat the "perspective" you see a C perspective. It is for high volatility stalls. The phenomena od whipsawing is usually related to consolidation and/or congestion. Perspective A deals with that because it is easier to deal with and fits into a class of things that work out the same way. High volatility stalls, especially at open are a drag. They are not nice when on the end of one bar and the beginning of another bar you get IF 2 and IF 2 invoked along with APA.
Okay. So IF1 and IF2 denote the regular trading and the APA is the reversal thing you do if the entry in the current bar gets revisited. You accomplish the APA by going to the next fractal down and performing the IF1 and IF2 assessment there? -- Jerome
Here is a word page. It covers the trades on another day and is just in draft form. There is just a sentence of two that explains it is a context. The description you used is about the same. There are three lavles: Perspective gets you to a place where you have market sentiment in hand. On persepctive A, B or C you use the IF 1 and If 2. A few words change according to A, B or C. IF 1 says be alert if the price on the current bar passes the prior close going against you. Flag is up. If @ says that when you pass the end of the bar going the wrong way reverse. this is not complex. most of the time things go along during the day. But occasionally a situation comes up when you are STILL ON THE SAME BAR YOU ENTERED UPON. It turns out that right after entries is a screwy time for anyone. after you get past an entry bar things calm down. You have begun to make money and if you are normally intelligent you go with the trend to its end. Some people use targets for some reason; they must limit profits for a reason they thought up. I do not limit profits. I get on the next bar and even IF 1 is not being invoked usually. But what if you get in on a bar and then......then the trade goes against you. This is what people like to do as "drawdown" . People have "drawdown" as part of their reasoning process for reasons they choose. Choosing to loose money is not to cool. It is part of some methods. I choose to make money instead. If a person sits through drawdown and likes it, then he sees me sitting too and I am making money instead. APA says when the price on the bar you entered on turns around and come back to your entry and is going the other direction, wash and reverse. It keeps going or it doesn't. After you reverse you go back to IF 1 and If 2. you will notice the close of the prior bar is always there. it is likely you will pass it making money. You smile. If you continue past the end of the bar you smile too. Both events make money. But if it goes by and comes back again, then you raise the IF 1 flag. If it goes out the end of the prior bar you reverse. ETC. Notice all of this is within a bar's length and it is a cheap solution all the time. Notice it is on two levels at the most and one level usually. 81 bars on the chart. What we want is to continually make money. We segment this money making. Every segment makes money or it is a looping that washes (flat so no money is made). the loops are to turn you around and keep you headed in the direction of profits. Why doesn't it just keep looping and never make any money? Well it could on any number of fractals. You look at the one that is contrite and behaves best. You jump on it and use the rules. Experts use the 5 min on ES03Z. For slower trends they go to the 15min. either way you make money at the potential the market offers. In ET they have a daily challenge that has gone on forever (two days so far). Anyone could use this and do okay compared to the guys there that know how to trade and it is better than how the others trade. If you only use it for the places that beginners and intermediates cannot trade, then you make more money. If you use it for multi contracts, then you make more money. If you run several different fractals simulataneously and financially independantly so there is no cancellation you make more money. You can use it in several indexes too during the day. just have a sheet of paper for each and have a chart too. It is like a look-and-do thing. What is neat about your analysis is that you went through the stuff and found a tough situation. four actions were required in 30 to do it perfectly. Failing that you just did 2 and saved a point. A person I connect with did 39 trades today and 13 were washes he only made 17.2 points on the ES. What happened to him is this: he was ready for every move the ES made and he took them. He was tired he said. He was happy though. All his pictures that are myths are being placed in oblivion. He is getting to a plce where when he see a bar stick down or up from the end of a prior bar end, he reverses and goes that way. If the price turns around on that bar we enteredupon, he turns around by an APA wash and reverse. If he turns a little early, he makes a tick or two also. Et runs a challenge every day of the best here in ET. It is many pages long. People pop trades in and really roll. I just do my thing with a sheet of paper and I mark the chart too. All the rules are on this page so I will not attach the draft sentence in a context. You posted how it works exactly already as well. My lucky bar is #76. If a person can not figure out he is passing a prior bar close the wrong way, that is a togh situation. If he can't see he isgoing past the end of the prior bar that is tough too. If he can't reverse with 20 contracts that is tough too. if he can't see the price turn against him and reverse (still 20 contracts), then that is tough too. These are the tough challenges of SCT. All of them that's all it is. The 5 min bars are the ones that work. If Gordon Gekko can trade the 5, 2,3 STOC for a day and win then why can't everyone just trade price only and do better by many points every day. There is no challenge to looking at two bars and doing the same thing when called for, over and over. If an entry poops, APA it and go back to comparing two bars. LOL There is a big deal statistical reason why it works. That is the challenge for smart asses to figure out. LOL. Clue: do stats on the three levels if you find them and then do a family stat for all the fractals to optimize. Bingo.
I've been using a program called WindoTrader that combines the Market Profile and Volume analysis. It has some tools that are really excellent for viewing decreasing volume points for potential reversals. Website: www.windotrader.com
If you ever want an example of what KISS is in trading do this one for a week. Can you imagine what it would be like if i turned 100 traders loose on this. If you do it for a month, you will be very frightened and feeling "How could I have been so dumb not to see this right off". Do it in YM and NQ too is is so smootT in those places... So what if you have to do full contracts after a while. Try Sidney too it has better data flow. At some point you can see why Gary Smith had to lay stuff off in equities. This is getting interesting........ SCT rules...... LOL. Find out just how ridiculous it all is. it's realy tough.
Also, if you pass a bar extreme in the other direction, you must have passed the close of the bar. So what use is IF1?
I did give it a try today. Here's the main problem I had: 5-min bars very often go out 0.25 and then swing immediately back. So in fact what happened a couple of times in addition to the wash losses was that I couldn't react quickly enough to the swings and lost points rather than quarter points. A few of those, and I was primed for losing some more. I guess the "knowing when it's going against you" is kind of key there. But if I knew that information, I really wouldn't have any problems whatsoever. If I knew that information, I would just enter at random, determine whether it was going against me, and reverse if it was. Since I'm clueless, how can I develop that skill? Alternatively, you also mention using the right bar period. Again, how does one actually do that while trading? Just to double check your explanation: you take the bar extreme bo; if it returns to your entry point you reverse. Next bar, if it bo's the last bar's other extreme (de facto passing the close) you repeat the process. -- Jerome
Yes go momentarily from 5 to 1 min. Then go back. The timing is such that APA,if it is used, it is used within the time left on the current bar. For example, if the IF i sends you to IF 2 you are using time in the bar. Then you go past the end of the prior bar on IF 2 and act. That takes time too. you are now sitting with little time in the bar. Maybe as much as three minutes or as little as the last minute of less. You punch in your APA order and sit there and find out to use it. If you use it, then you click to send the APA order forth. After that you cannot use APA again on that bar. You are in a mode now that is calm. The bar is being used up time wise. What can happen before the bar changes is this. You go past the prior close. When you do you are proceding in the direction that you want to go. it ispossible that you continue out the end the bar furthering your progress. all is weel and you procede. On the other hand, lets say you are not moving where you want to go. Lets say the bar does not end. Lets say the current price of entry is degrading by going in a direction that is against the trade. You may still have time for this. So far I haven't. The thing to do is look for IF 1 on the prior bar. You will find that you have no chance to rise to the prior close level and fall again again in all probability. You will just sit there and the bar will length against you and end sticking out it closing flag. And you start another bar. The new bar will start IF 1 again and you are on your way. worst case continues and IF 1 is triggered right off. You use IF 2 next and you are on the right side of the trade. This is the scenario you started with in your first post. It is not an easy situation. I posted this to give you the view of what can happen in greater detail byadding the time available this time and what happens if time runs out. What also happens is that as time passes the opportunity keeps changing and you have a method of dealing with it. I could type problem in place of the word opportunity so it could be read from that orientation.