Thanks so much pointone and cnms2. Yeah, trying to understand and draw volume gaussians the way that some of you do have me in knots despite studying all those charts. They were helpful to some extent but I just could not see it. I will now draw them to make sense to me and if need be later adjust them to more correctly reflect what the price does (something like what cnms2 does on his price channels I believe). Also, thanks cnms2 for explaining how you draw the gaussians. It helps. Ok, took some time to play around with the volume gaussians and I have a much better feel of how volume is showing me the price movement. Man, I should have asked this question a long time ago. Hmm..I suspect now with this understanding, those volume gaussian charts that you all have been doing will now make better sense to me and I will be able to see better. Thanks once again. You can't believe how happy I am as I thought there was no hope in me understanding the volume gaussians
I see what you mean re the LTLs, and understand about the volume decreases not being equal. But it seems to me trading on bar ends of 15 minute bars (mind you, I can't imagine doing this myself) you wouldn't see that it's a finer fractal until much much later, and it could cost you a lot more than a little. I've also much appreciated your trade posts, btw, they've helped me not so much with seeing the market as with coming to grips with some of my psychological blocks re this methodology.
I don't think it is as much about you asking this question as it is about you being ready now to make good use of these answers. I'm sure you haven't read now something you haven't read before, posted by Jack, Spydertrader or somebody else. But you were not ready to make use of this same information at that time. This is why I recommend, as part of your learning, to keep reviewing older posts making good use of the ET or google search engines.
Sorry if I wasn't clear about those 15 minute charts. I don't recommend trading on the 15 minute chart, on the bar closing, or exclusively on decreasing volume. I posted those for illustrative purposes, to show how a very simple almost mechanical system can bring you close to (or actually well beyond) your target. Maybe I should've called them drills ... On the other hand, I keep open a 15 minute ES charts at all times, and I use it as part of my continuous sweeps. I think that if you know how it looks like, it's easier to recognize it. It's like knowing that there'll be a guy dressed up as a monkey ...
Thanks cnms2. Yeah, you are right. Palinuro /Tikitrader, With regards to Procrast website, now I have 'website server not found or something like that' This was what I initially got when I tried the link. Later, managed to get the website but saw a username and password. Am I the only one with this problem?
I suspect it's just getting overloaded with downloads...a lot more people read this thread than post.
I thought reviewing this whole thread would be useful and it certainly has been so far. Quite remarkable, thanks to all. I have a question but first I better say where I am. Chronologically I am up to March. Progress wise I am holding back at 'forest' level and have not integrated the 2min YM yet, I intend to tomorrow. I am happily drawing and annotating charts and can read guassians with reasonable confidence (I sometimes get 'sucked into' the faster fractal when looking at the bottom pane but usually sort myself out rapidly). My issue actually is not technique per se it seems to me its some sort of behavioural/emotional hitch. Here's the deal once in a trade (paper or real I tend to behave pretty much the same irrespective) I tend to stop monitoring 'properly' and get drawn right down to each individual tick. If price pauses for a second or two or god forbid backfills a bit I immediately think 'change' in an almost completely irrational way. Actually that's the thing I don't think at all. If I monitored properly at this point I would see clearly that there was no sign of change - I can do if there is no position on. I can't seem to draw my eyes back to the main forest channel or even the new tape that is starting to take me along on the right side of the market. I just seem to fixate on the ticking up or down. I am happy doing drills though of course I make the usual mistakes now and then (is this an FTT or stall type stuff). I wonder whether anyone had suggestions that might help. I should be honest I have a dom up at the side of my screen, this is simply a a tool to enter at the moment, its just easy to click on the ladder, thats often where my eyes end up. I guess the first obvious suggestion is going to be ditch that and use a simple buy sell button. Actually I cant remember who knocked up the hold button but thats what I need!!! I know that really this issue is not really to do with this method and actually probably comes from previous experiences. Sometimes I am not even aware what's going on, its as if the mouse finger thinks it has detected 'change' and so acted accordingly. Apart from the obvious 'fear' motive I believe my ego is at work too. I think at some level I am chalking up washes or small tick gains as 'wins'. I know this is old orthodoxy so actually has no place here but I can't help feel there is some part that gets a little electrical impulse as a reward. Cheers.
Please forgive my lack of ability to fully grasp what Spyder explained to me about BO's of formations. I have developed a crude diagram (attached) of what my current understanding of proper BO's are. If possible any and all corrections would be much appreciated. Help a brother out man -guava P.S. It is just a word doc.