Take special note: this is why traders fail. Even when presented with the answer, they refuse to believe, and ask questions that were already answered, at great length, had they chosen to just r.e.a.d.
true 'dat So I got to the point where I was drawing geometric figures on a chart to identify the trend and likewise to identify the pullbacks and some more stuff to try to figure if the trend was going to continue.. and when that started to make sense I started putting it all into a C++ script... guess what? That is a whole new level of difficult! Just how, exactly, do I draw those things?????????? I "know them when I see them!!!!" I wracked my brain for MONTHS trying to define exactly how I produced some drawings and I have only partial solutions so far...
Your options: 1. find a more competent programmer to code it 2. find some assistants in low-wage countries and pay them to manually find the patterns per your instructions...but never give them all of your secrets....you can find an assistant for around $300 per month (maybe even less) in some of these countries...compare that with how much for a programmer
This is the secret to winning in the markets. Most people don't want to throw away the beliefs that keep them from winning. It's alot easier to blame the markets, government, floor traders, etc. than to take a long hard look at what you as an individual are doing wrong. This happens in almost everything in society. Wise people question themsleves and their methodology or actions, most however, just blame others.
Usually, some ones drawings more of an art, this is cause most of them are done in hindsight, but lets put that aside. It may be worth to take out the human aspect here, you may be trying to code the uncodable (your feelings on a given day) Something is going to be lost in translation. Why not take control of what is lost ? using a pre made channel system or using pivote points generated by a indicator can yield to channels being drawn. They are not the ones you want. Probably not even you can reporduce your own channels. so let it go. being close is enough, it may actually yeild better results! Actually you may want to look at bollinger bands in a way they are like channels Maybe you are used to c++ there is also excel and "R" R is free. Keep in mind you are analysing price here. There is alot more that can be done.
I am responding to your specific observations. There are many many ways to be profitable. Reading the markets is like reading a book or looking at a painting. You can do one but not the other. So you learned to read. You can do arithmetic too. Now, I will give you the mental shift required. I read markets in an instant. I feel comfortable, supported and confident. I will answer your question about finding the what to look for. Here in this post you will see how it all works. Your eyes and brain are the two things to use. Your eyes do three things moslty: space, shape and movement. Your brain updates when you sleep. The brain gets inputs from your eyes on two levels: conscious and unconscious. 1 to 1,000, respectively. Your mind merges the two as you sleep. The equation for both is: sensing (10%) + inference(90% = perception (100%) Trading is done based upon looking at events. You look at a space. That is a chart with panes (I use only a few but you can see my screens and the order inwhich I look at the panes) You see shapes. (so I frame these and color their backgrounds). You see movement (the shapes change and lock in). This is a painting. I do not keep secrets so I am telling you everything. This is how simple it all is. In the most important pane there are 11 shapes. This is the independent variable. Put it in the middle. In the pane above, there are 10 shapes. This is the dependent variable. This is the answer sheet. You have to have the shapes in your brain or on a few sheets of paper. I put the 11 on a flow sheet that depicts a trend. I always know I know where I am in a trend. The 10 shapes give me permission (or not) to look at the 11 shapes. Two say yes; the rest say no. To take a profit segment, I test to find out if I have finished a trend. The test has three parts and I have 5 minutes to do it. I started with an empty mind. I was ignorant. and I had an open mind. I started to trade live half way through learning. I did my learning in 40 days and I started trading after the first 20 days. The mind is built. You get long term memory by doing drills. Inference is long term memory. Today anyone can take a shortcut to learning and have inference in a very short while. It is 3:00pm here. I could meet with a person and give him the 21 pieces in a little over an hour. Use GTM for example. He could copy them on sheets of blank papr until he got them straight. Tomorrow morning he wakes up and can log the 21 pieces on a log for the day's trading. If the three part test says a trend is over, then the person reverses to the other side of the market. If you ski you can understand this (from me as a past certified Swiss Ski Instructor (the red jacket)): do not snow plough; it is dangerous. Only parallel ski; you will be safe at all times. I can teach a snow bunny to be an intermediate in two days (A lift is never used). All of the above is done with Orders Of Events. All shapes are relative. Two bars make a shape. Can you learn 2 shapes out of 10 that say yes. Cetainly, you learn the two and forget the rest. In any trend the first name of the independent variable is assigned; all others are named relatively. Did you ever learn to count? Do you remember you were TOLD to begin counting with 1? This means you can see shapes and you can do things in a dictated order. Last comment. I am different than are you. This was found out about me by others. If you want to see what I am like get the movie: "The Temple Grandin Story". I am not autistic. But I am like what Tufte describes and Jung describes. Someone post the 11 shapes (or just names) of the 11 independent pieces. Someone post the 10 dependent variable pieces. Can you remember 21 of the 26 pieces of the alphabet? Yes. BE DO HAVE.