PointONe, no offense taken. And thank you for your comment. I sincerely appreciate whatever happens next. That's how life works. What do you mean by "right end of bar"? THis is new to me.
It's not that I entered and thought it was a pt3. IT's that I missed the damn thing altogether. It's like I'm staring at the chart, running through the salient questions in my head, looking right square at what's going on, and don't see anything but a blur of data.
I think he means the 'correct' end of the bar. Or the earlier the better once 'change' is recognized. If one is 'late' or 'not timely' in identifying 'change' and then executing a 'late' trade, one can get real behind, real quick. 'Timely action' means exactly that; but on different resolutions we can slow down or speed up the 'actual' time required for a 'timely action'. Which is why we started this journey on the 'slowest' resolution - the ES only. -Mike
BM, the thought that has run through my head more than once while reading your posts over the past few days is, and I don't mean this disrespectfully in any way, to take a break. Take a vacation from SCT. Let your mind subconsciously process what it knows and doesn't know. This is alot of information to absorb. At the beginning of the year when Spyder first laid out the syllabus I thought 'what the hell, why do we need a year to do this? Why can't he just lay it all out and we can get down to business." And now, even though I keep current on the posts, I'm two-three months behind in progress. Sometime around the middle of May I just watched the market for a month. No trendlines, no gaussians, no nothing. I kept them in the back of my head, but for a solid month I just casually observed and it was the most beneficial month of the year for me. I'm sorry I can't offer more practical advice on how to get where you want to be. But frustration and forcing things will only beget more frustration. Relax, surrender to the flow. Then, with some distance, decide if this is the path you want to follow.
Hi Mike, I understand, and this is what makes matters worse. Spyder posted about "when you know". I fought this a lot, and now understand it's possible. And, I am still at the point of not knowing. I truly don't want to get anybody mad. Understand I'm not disagreeing or arguing with what Spyder said. On the contrary, what he said must be. My mental filters don't allow me to get to the point of knowing before bar end, expcept in certain obvious situations (eg. 1/2 way through bar and actual vol already exceeds prior bar).
I sincerely appreciate your suggestion. I'm specifically choosing not to take a break because doing so in the past has made things worse for me. In particular, it was very easy to convince myself that all was ok, that I was making progress. It was a form of hiding from reality. I may be wrong, but I have made a firm decision that I will push through this until the point that the owner of the thread determines my presence is detrimental to his purposes. If that time comes, that will be my signal that I really do need to let go of the idea of trading. I can't think of a better place than right here, with people like you helping, until success is reached or it's clear I'm done with trading.
Ok, now we are getting somewhere. So what if you don't know until bar's end, hell when I started I didn't know til the channel ended! So start working with what you do know on the ES only for now and lets see a chart tomorrow. -Mike Edit: Spyder, if this is too OT for the journal I will take this up with bundle via other means.
I repeat my suggestion: post an example, explain what you were thinking, and invite others to say what they'd think in the same situation. Have all your normal annotations made on the chart. Maybe it's even better not to say if it was a point 3 and you missed it, or if it was not a point 3 and you mistakenly took it, or if it was correct, whatever. You could do this on a new thread. Just post here the link, so it won't distract from this month's discussion.
Bundlemaker - You said you already reflected on mak/bearbelly's comments, and that's great because their words held some real truth. I would suggest/reiterate two things: 1) FIND YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER. Once you have that, experiment with peanut butter, and eventually some jelly. You are confused during much of the day as to what is going on and what you should be doing. I challenge you to go through a bunch of ES charts and find 1-2 instances in any given day where you did/would know what to do. Forget the YM, just look at the ES. Once you find some of those spots, study the crap out of them so that you can identify them real-time. Then, ONLY trade those for awhile, and get out after you've made 2-3 pts (or 1 pt, or 10 pts, depending on the day's volatility). This isn't following the method, but it allows you to build upon a base of success. And always remember that most traders would kill to be able to net 1-2 pts a day, so that's a number to be very happy with at first. An example today would be this spot: <img src="http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3903/p3zl3.png"> First we see a DT/FTT, followed by an RTL breakout on increasing vol, the subsequent retrace on decr vol, then red starts to increase again. I know that you can see P3s when they are this obvious. This is fact, I've seen you do it in a chatroom. When they are less obvious, $@%# it. When you miss a trade, #%&@ it. Just sit back and chill. Listen to an audio book, play a game of chess, chat with friends. The biggest challenge to being a bread + butter trader is learning how to sit on your hands, IMO, and be "zen" about it. 2. STOP CARING SO MUCH. I know you've given up a lot to study this stuff, and you've put a ton of time into it like the rest of us, but I think the fact that you are so emotionally/personally invested in this may be affecting you. Maybe this will mean taking more days off from the market, or maybe it will mean taking up yoga/meditation. I don't know, but you seem to be riddled with anxiety which is exactly the stuff Jack says is poison to a trader. Perhaps that's the common thread to your difficulties with other methods as well -- I don't know. Best of luck to you Bob...
bundle, I know exactly what is your problem. You are having a serious case of indigestion. I had 'seen' a 8 year old trader, on any given day he will have at least one trade. He sees the setup (the only one he knows and he takes it). In your case, you have so many setups that you don't even know which one to take and by the time you make up your mind it's probl time for some new setup. If you read Darvas he had the very same problem, he cured it by taking a long break. Or if you like exercise try this, look at a YM chart, identify a clear B2B, R2R notice the time then make a note of long or short ES at that time. That's one of simplest sequence I can think of. I am sure you have some favorite seq you want to see. Why not just pick one and stick with it until you clear your head. And remember to breath and relax thing will come to you, don't force it, ohm... ps. a sample of YM r2r, b2b http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1319125