Here is another example of what I said earlier about strong retraces. Snipped from the day I'm simtrading right now on Ensign. <img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=1653479"> What do you notice about this retrace? What I notice is that there was half as much volume as the last black bar, YET price traveled nearly twice as far. That has to mean something, like that one side of the DOM has dried up allowing 18k market orders to do twice as much damage. Now in this case the retrace didn't mark the beginning of the new channel, but if the black traverse following it had been one point lower, it would have. Point is that I view "strong" retraces as a pretty big clue, just like "decreasing peaks" or any of the other patterns we are supposed to notice.
Personally, from my resolution, the gaussians tell me what they tell me, and then I use formations to establish an entry point based on those gaussians. Example: You are a forest trader, you get a few bars of increasing black for the BO, a few bars of decreasing red for the retrace, and a nice little FTP forms. I take the entry on the break of the FTP and anticipate incr black volume to follow through-- if it doesn't, I might wash or take a small profit.
You said all I do is criticise, and I post a link to where I specifically sought YOU out to explain something on the basic forest and what is needed to be seen to find a forest point 3. Instead of seeing that or trying to comprehend it, you post this in response where there are "no directions". The directions are very easy for this situation: BO of the big down channel for the day on INCREASING BLK VOL (14:20). Then we continue on rising blk vol (bar after bar for 3 bars) until we get a couple bar retrace on DECLING RED VOLUME. We then get an inside bar (showing that the retrace has possibly ended) then we have the next bar DOUBLE BOTTOM and blast off of that DOUBLE BOTTOM on INCREASING BLK VOLUME. Bottom line, bottom frickin line, if you cant see IN REAL TIME (so that you can place a trade and profit from it) that the 14:50 is a perfect point 3 of the developing up channel then you are way way behind. I'm sorry, no niceties from me either, I just cant fathom this far along that you dont understand this situation. Personally, I dont know you and I have nothing to GAIN at all from trying to help you. I enjoy learning and helping others (and sometimes that helping is to be blunt with things). Look, you have a brain and you have eyes. Use them, trading is not some cookie cutter profession where all you need to do is follow someones exact footsteps to arrive at their level. Spyder is doing his best to tranfer knowledge but you have to do your own work too, not depend on spoon feeding every little drop.
So, the last 2 black bars made up a FBP, which broke out to the upside on increasing volume. And, it sure looks like a point 3 too. Now, according to the instructions I received, one would enter long roughly 1474. Next bar opens, it's on inc PRV but you gotta wait a couple ticks to see what price is doing (because at the moment the bar opens we're mid range of the prior bar, ie still in the lateral. Now, I see this is also an FBO of the formation. So, at best you'd reverse around 1472, 2 point loss! Hardly a wash. This is coarse tools naturally. Now, one could have washed with the close back inside the lateral. But if you start doing that, you miss out if price does indeed start going back up. I have spent months in the past, doing studies on formation b/o's. I can tell you they are just as likely to do random things as anything, based on a big, big set of data to test.
If you care to know what I actually did during this segment, it was long at 1473.75 (FTP break), exit at 1474.25. I chose to take a .5 profit instead of riding it out like a regular PT3 trade, because of what I witnessed in the red bar. I couldn't deny that this was a sweet PT3 entry, esp. because of the FTP that was generated, but I simply did not have confidence to "hold." Not "holding" when I'm not absolutely confident in or have doubts about what is going on has saved/made me a lot of sim dollars. Then short at 1472ish.
"Spyder is doing his best to tranfer knowledge but you have to do your own work too, not depend on spoon feeding every little drop." LOL I avoided any posting in the forum until I had what I believed to be a legitamate, solid, useful question that could help me and others I'm trying to help. I could not find the answer anywhere in this thread. I have thought about it for weeks. So I ask. What do I get? Attacked. Then I posted a document containing where Spyder said the answer was supposed to be. I got news, it aint' there. And when I post that, no response. No sir, I thought maybe it was me for a while. It's not. There is way too much ungrounded accusations, too much ignoring evidence I provide. If Spyder has a problem with me on some other basis he should just say so. But any reasonable person, reviiewing this thread, will find all kinds of less significant questions being answered by Spyder without all the contentiousness. If he doesn't wish to respond to me he's doing it in an aweful backhanded manner. I"m beginning to think I've got him stuck. And you know what, others can read too. Take sides all you want, the truth sticks out like a sore thumb to those interested in such things.
1474.25 was 1 tick away from the top of that bar. You had increasing black volume. That's the clearest signal of continuation we have. There was a clear channel FBO. I can't see an exit there as anything but guessing. The red highlighted bar was almost flaw volume, looks like a dip. Another continuation signal. I appreciate your sharing this, it has me baffled about what I should be giving weight to and what not to.
All I'm trying to say is you should try and figure that out for yourself. What I posted up there may very well be flat out wrong by Spy's standards or his personal rule set, but it has worked well for me. In any given day I end up with a ton of .5 trades, 1-2 solid PT3 trades (3+ pts), and maybe 1-2 small losses. I used to have 1-2 solid PT3 trades and a ton of -.5/-.75 trades, sometimes barely breaking even. Getting the F$#* out when I'm not 100% confident took me from just above breakeven to 5-10pts/day. That's what works for ME. Now go find what works for you. No amount of people giving you instructions or guidelines is going to help unless you can start personalizing and internalizing the info here.
You may have gotten attacked but you also got an answer (pg 1137 for instance by spy). You went long at an FTT and EXPECTED a pt 3 long when in reality we were still in a down channel and price had not shown that it indeed was starting an up channel. In YOUR OWN MIND you created the scenario that long was right and you were wrong. End of story. Learn from it and move on. We all make mistakes, it happens.
Bundle, you say you had continuation at the red highlighted bar & you had FBO of the channel. If you had continuation, wouldn't you have gone long in the region of 1472-1473 even before the breakout of the FBP. So if I executed this trade according to YOUR analysis I would have had lots of time to exit or reverse the trade when it broke out of the channel. Just because you had continuation (long) 2 bars ago. doesn't mean you have continuation (long) NOW. Yes, we had increasing black volume, the volume was much lower than the volume at the previous peak. Compared to the previous traverse, the bar closed quite a bit off the high. So continuation but with a possibility of failure. I am talking about the last black bar. EDIT. I understand how Spyder feels, because I am honestly getting tired of this act. Has it been a month already?. This happens at the beginning of each month LOL.