it was SCT boot camp then neoxx came along p. 10 and it became neoxx boot camp for awhile. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141661&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
Quote from jack hershey: There are three challenges for cycle 1: 1. wait for a volume trough, then after end of trough enter. 2. Enter according to the sentiment as measured by incresing price for long or decreasing price for short. 3. Exit to the sidelines whne the PRV of the bare is less than the prior bar. PRV is greek to most of you. It is Pro Rata Volume. PRV tells you what the volume will be at the END of the bar. This means at the beginning of a bar you can "know that you know" the ending volume of the bar. This means you can compare the volume of PRV to the last bar's total volume. By knowing this you know that you know what price will be doing in the bar. There are nine things a bar can do during its formation. You want to exit when you get to the part of the bar that is BEST. CW doesnot have names for the parts of the bar. Ir is all Greek to CW people. Very neatly, this brings us back to BF and the A, B, C and D of BF. A is over and under reacting. steps 1, 2, and 3 help prevent that. The early exit will be there fpr a while but we will take care of that soon. B is continuation and reversals. We can't deal with that right away; we have to consider the stigma that CW has for entry/exit trading. C is making reasonable change in approach upon emotional signals. The emotion of PRV is not too tough to deal with. It takes two bars so the market will progress beyond the target as volume is watched. this makes it nice emotionally. Holding for three bars can happen as well. that is a big step for some people. Emotions will come the longer the hold. So exit and make reasonable changes to this approach. There are none to make but at least you will find that out by trying to make changes AFTER you made a profit. D irrationalities you have as baggage. Write these in your journal. Also figure out why you believe in these irrationalities. As you annotate and log these trades also note the irrational annotating and logging. The two most common are: not annotating and not logging. A reasonable change in technique is to draw lines and to write on a sheet of paper that has columns. Make up the vocabulary as you go along and put the vocabulary on 3x5 cards that you can paste on 8 1/2 x 11 sheets when you have more in your brain.
Quote from jack hershey: Whipsaw and antiwhipsaw. In yet another thread there is a contention that some ama based indicators can create a perfect whipsaw signalling condition. That is true even when an adjustment is made for stretching and squeezing the indicator (power thories are often used). In cycle 1, the binary vector ten cases of adjacent bars and laterals are used to head off getting inot whipsaw inadvertantly. People get caught in whipsaw after making a decision to enter or reverse using poor timing or inappropriate timing. Timing decisions are best made at the beginning of bars, all based upon volume. Thus, Price Action (PA) trading precludes being able to make timely decisions to stay out of whipsaw. As seen in cycle 1, entering only happens on dominance. Whipsaw does not begin on dominance, fortunately. Where whipsaw is encountered most often is on reversals. PA may not recognize a reversal unless it is a DOJI where sentiment changes. The N node is the DOJI box on all the cycles. DOJI's in PA trading are just another bar type occurance. In cycle 1 you can get to a DOJI in several ways BUT NOT WHEN A BAR IS A SECOND BAR OF AN INTERNAL. Many internals have second bars that are DOJI's. A few are syms, FTP's, FBP's, Stitches and OB's. By recognizing that any internal is to be treated as ONE BAR, you immediately take a second bar DOJI off the table. The second bar has NO OPEN against which to form a DOJI except the prior open on the first bar. You will discover through observation that an internal two bar DOJI rarely comes up AND you will NOT be in a dominance (volume measured) situation in cycle 1 on any internal except one (the OB). Look at the two bar internals and see how many times doing the above keeps you from commencing a reversal on a IBGS which then in the same bar returns to the former price movement direction. Instead, during an internal second bar you may go to the sidelines if and when the volume signals a J or K circumstance. Thus, you return to A and "look for" a B or C. The N node is part of cycle 1 and only gets used when a two bar internal is properly compressed and the open of the first bar becomes the DOJI reference. By removing the possibility of being "upsidedown" on any pseudo sentiment change, you eliminate all the situations where trades breakout against your sentiment determined hold positions. In PA trading the two major handicaps are a result of not having an N node, not entering based upon volume (late entries most of the time) and not perceiving the continue to hold on a second bar DOJI (this is known in PA trading a the "early" exit). By holding through and not reversing on a second bar internal, you get to see the dominace return in the former price direction. This is an identity with trading ftt to ftt on the faster fractal relative to your trading fractal detemined by volume bars. This is the first major step towards trading like driving a car. Next i will post on the differentiation of retraces from reversals AT THE BEGINNING of either. Not getting whipsawed and being able to differentiate between retrace nd reversal are two key ingredients for precluding any losses on the daily P&L. This, in turn engenders feelings of support, comfort and confidence as the alternative to fear, anxiety and anger. SnakeEYE: Note.I sorted out that paragraph since i do not use bars display,hence free of 8 cases.I use some other things to compress them all.
Quote from jack hershey: Retraces and Reversals Above we "cured" whipsaws. this was the "freakout" trading problem that does most beginners in. Seeing a DOJI as part of a prior bar was the clue. Not being able to use the N node was the solution. Retraces and reversals can be differentiated right at their beginning moments. PA trading does not have this capability, unfortunately. holding in cycle 1 always comes to an end at the end of dominance. There are no cycle 1 trades in retrace or reversals EXCEPT when the volume is greater than the trough and you are @ node S. All retraces and reversals begin at the beginng of the bar after the end of a dominant movement and profit taking. Both begin right after you have just taken profits by hitting node J OR by hitting node N on a DOJI while coming from S node. Plain and simple, you always know that you know when a retrace or a reversal begins. In both cases, you just took a profit. This is a place of great comfort, support and confidence AND perfect CERTAINTY. We are coooking with DYn-O-MITE. J takes you to wait @ A on cycle 1. Reversing on a DOJI can only be done coming from an S!!!!!!!! You HAVE TO HAVE THE MOMENTUM OF VOLUME AS INDICATED BUY BEING ABOVE THE TROUGH THAT BEGAN THE FORMER DOMINANT HOLD. You pass out of N to Z and go through P to get to another bar. Volume keeps you making money after the change of sentiment. At this skill level either you are going to take the retrace (non dom) profits or you are in a reversal that becomes dominant on the next bar. Worst case, the DOJI is a DOJI @ bar end and you go back into the prior dom with no color (sentiment) change. Remember in high school you could make it to school every day. You learned to navigate anything that came along by going from node to node using the links. For me it was either a '34 Chevy coupe with a rumble seat and cut out or an older Pachard straight eight convertible (with rumble seat) no cut out. Complete school bus avoidance. Is it too hard to learn to navigate cycle 1. Yes, for most people it is. In annotating fractals and using cycle 1, you are home free on all trades. You are using the P, V relationship and the patterns. All moves from point 2 are retraces going right to point 3. Volume is non dome after the N node DOJI sentiment reversal. this lets you carve the turn. Cycle 6 polishes it by using YM as a leading indicator of ES. cycle 7 lets you SEE the switch in the sentiment as you SEE the sum of the ladder go nondominant. Cyle 8 lets you see the DOM wall price where this occurs. cycle 9 shows you 30 seconds or more ahead how the smart money "works" off the PREM. On cycle 10 you get to see the OTR bars change color on both the YM and ES OTR charts. All moves from the ftt to BO of the RTL and to point 2 are reversals. Here you know you know right @ the DOJI that you have an FTT. Cyxles6 through 10 are as above AND you hit the RTL and the dominance chances from nondominance WITHOUT A COLOR CHANGE. NO WALL IMPEDES AT THIS LATER TIME. VOLUME SCREAMS IN AND THE OVERLAP OF TRENDS ENDS. You are no longer an advanced beginner. you can drive the car and you have cycle 1 nodes down cold. You turn 5K into 15K and you get to go to cycle 2 and trade with 10 contracts. 3 points increases your P%L by one contract margin and you DO NOY increase by one contract. You sit at 10 contracts and spend 12 days accumulating ppoints so you can go to cycle 3 and have 47K left over to sweep into your PVT account. In Tucson, we built the "board" to show cycles 1, 2 and 3. What do you know? An artist saw it and she is going to replace all the vinyl lines with painted lines. everyone has lasers and we can point to either the board or the 52 inch screen to coordinate the trading calls while we log. So annotating and using cycle 1 gets antiwhipsaw set up and differentiating retraces from reversals is in the bag. We trade dominant trending and robust non doms. Abou 12 trades a day and several are more than 2 points. We are exceeding the P&L by a great deal. The 12 days in cycle 1 are for gaining "facility". Facility is like driving to high school. Take out the rumble seat floorboards and use the cut out to create total flames under the rumble seat when you turn the ignition back on going into the student parking lot. LOL.... Anyone want a ride home????? SnakeEYE: As is
Trading Plan Quote from jack hershey: 60 days and 204 trades. Five, 12 day, cycles. Laying out an Excel sheet is fun. It can represent a plan. The spread sheet can also be used as a record. The spreadsheet is a learning tool. the spreadsheet can be used as a comparison of progress made in acquiring skills and knowledge. Traders set targets for trades and for days. The time they spend doing this makes them aware of how trading days go and how markets work. Lets say a person looked at the "bottom line" (trade 204 on day 60), he could conclude that he would NOT use the Excel simply because of a set of reasons he thought up. Google: detractors.) Another person could pencil in his total daily trades and see how he is doing COMPARED TO THE PLAN of the Excel. Look at the column labelled "time in"; a person could fill in the time he was in the market each day he traded. From this he can subtract and get the "time out" as well. Over time he may find he spends more time in the market. At the beginning of trading, what is nice for a potential trader to do is follow a plan, follow a strategy and follow a routine. The Excel is a plan. Trading dominants only, is a strategy. This is cycle 1's strategy. MADA is a routine. Look at the demands for excellence: 1. Always be on the correct side of the market, and 2. Compound profits. To do 1. you: a. Annotate three P, V fractal levels. This informs you as to where you are in the trading cycle. Three trades ar done each cycle: (1) point 1 to point 2 (2) point 2 to point 3. (3) point 3 to ftt. b. You note the volume leading price and use PRV (Pro Rata Volume). (1) point 1 is at a peak, a trough occurs on the prior rtl and point 2 is a peak (2) point 2 is followed by a trough at point 3. (3) form the trough at point 3 you go to a peak at ftt which is the new point 1. c. You know the ending volume of each bar because of PRV. You use the PRV to do cycles 1 through 5. (1) just trade donimant moves (pt 1 to pt2; pt 3 to ftt as shown in cycle 1. Here you learn what to look for to go bar by bar on a dominant trend. (2) add non dominant trading by following cycle 2 in addition to cycle 1 dominant trades. (3) connect dominant to non dominant trades together using cycle 3. (4) Introduce the pattern to your trading in cycle 4 and 5. Learn that move 3 (pt 3 to ftt) is dominant and so is the next first trend move (pt 1 to point 2). d. learn the relatiionship of YM to ES by applying all of the above to YM (2 min) and seeing YM leads ES which you are trading. e. Add the DOM sums of each bid and offer to understand the minority controls price movement. Also learn that a lot of the majority is left holding the bag on their unfilled limit orders. f. Learn that DOM Walls are where price reverses. Also come to understand all the games played by those who add and delete big orders not expecting any fills. g. learn how to front run the smart money using the PREM. PREM is NOT maintained as time passes and its bias is a leading indicator of front runners at work. Join the front runners and let the herd "push you". Use the S/S pane to see the smart money move ahead of the hesd. h. Use YM and ES OTR charts to monitor the precise opportunities to carve the extremes to the tick. Here you see that the opporunity to take profit segments is a wide window available to all traders. To do 2. you do: a. Monitor profits. When you add 30 points of profits, add a contract. b. Dwell at 5 contracts until you have 150 points profit and go to 10 contracts. c. Dwell at 10 contracts until you have 300 points profit and go to 20 contracts. d. Dwell at 20 contracts until you have 300 points profit and go to 30 contracts. e. Dwell at 30 contracts until you have 300 points profit and go to 40 contracts. f. Dwell at 40 contracts until you have 300 points profit and go to 50 contracts. When you reach 50 contracts, continue to add contracts and do partial fills by splitting trades into multiple parts according to the T&S. Being correct means being on the right side of the market during market "continuation". Being correct means, changing sides of the market at the brief points of "CHANGE". Markets have two events: CONTINUATION and CHANGE. The above is a means of measuring each and know that you know when the status goes from one state to the other. Tools are used to know that you know. The tools are built in your mind. Once built thay surface immediately when needed since your sensing triggers their automatic appearance. It takes about 60 days to go from 5K to millionaire these days if you are older than a fifth grader. Postponing building your mind is so very common. It has to do with laziness and "inventing" as an alternative. Anyone can reveal to themselves how slovenly they are in a few days. Just spend 12 days logging the cycle 1 events as they occur in the ES. Simply post each and every page of the log. In 12 days you more than triple your capital. By putting the nodes on 3x5 cards in your own words, you begin to build your mind. Everytime you get an emotional signal, you journal the emotion and the context of the market and your mind. Then you go to the node card and improve what you wrote. You iteratively refine your understanding. You increase the long term memory associatated with the context of the market and you. You are drilling into your mind the reality of how to partner with a market you totally come to understand. Potential traders do not have the mental resourses to pace the market's activity. They cannot keep up mentally. The solution is to use a display that can be completely annotated faster than the market moves. For making money as soon as you begin to use charts, I recommend using a chart that forms bars slower than you can think at this time. The five minute chart is a good one for teenagers on up. ES is fun to begin with. Here you can annotated three fractals of trends. Make a heirarchy of the three fractals by using the fastest fractal to build the middle fractal. Similarly, use the middel fractal to build the slower fractal. Annotate bar to bar as the fastest fractal. Always treat internal bar pairs and laterals as one bar when annotating the fastest fractal. Plan on trading the trend moves on the middle fractal. Fortunately, price lags volume. Because of this you can discern a trade coming up well before the moment of the trade. Annotate volume so you can discern dominant and non dominat moves. I recommend that you just trade dominant trends on the middle fractal until you triple your money in two weeks or so. This way you can catch up with your annotating between dominant moves and be ready when each dominant move begins. Using this as a beginning you will avoid whipsaw and you will learn to dicern a retrace from a reversal right at the beginning of each. You will not trade retraces and you will trade reversals. By beginning in this manner, you will not be encountering losses. Some handy notes: Dominant trends begin with volume troughs. Dominant trends end with peaking volume Holding a dominant trend is done by observing that volume is always increasing. To "see" volume you need to have a Pro Rata Volume "shadow" showing behind the forming actual volume. PRV is the volume height that will be reached by the end of the bar. For example, you know a price extreme is occurring 5 minutes before the end of that bar. Sometime during the bar formation the price extreme will occur. This allows you to be a more steady trader since you are looking to see the price extreme just before you know it will occur. There are no trades at the end of any bar. Extremes occur as bars form. After a while, you can consider "acceleration" and "deceleration" of volume to be able to put a finer edge on carving the turns. Just start slowly with dominant only trading and triple your account every two weeks or so. In this way you will have more contracts to trader sooner. As you see, this is a simple automated trading setup. It is just on an entry/exit new beginner orientation. To begin to use a hold/reversal level of advanced beginner will take a few more weeks. You also do not get stuck in the PA beginner level of trading from which PA traders do not emerge. SnakeEYE: Couldn`t attach my own Excel version,here is the reference link: five cycle chart et version
Was simming Asian session and was able to trade on the full 1-2-3-ftt fractal only twice so far.Even though i had similar results real time trading metal futures betting style of trading,SCT is much comfortable and less stressful. There was a little problem,however.The 8:30 am spike,that splioled the whole picture.I had a dillema,either to scale up the position to get out,or to take ~$200+ loss.I choose the first,wich is never a good idea and you can do this only with infinite account.I was annotatin correctly,it turned out,but hesitated with the fan,prior to the spike,exited wash with -0.25 loss and for watever reason opened short.Should be operator error,as i was annotating more then 10 hours by that moment. The sceen shows 2 day simming,prior to the spike occurance. My question is ,is there any cure for intraday `black swans`?As anyone may encounter the same event.So far i can see the cure in the correct annotation.Any thoughts?