This is from esignal : elliotists know how difficult it is to identify wave 1 and wave 4 especially in realtime. My wave 1 is identified BY ADVANCE I don't need realtime, nevertheless the market can differ the correction - as I would show : Friday's flag correction is the "interference of 2 waves" (it's an analogy with waves in Physics) from 2 consecutive days which created the flag pattern we got just after opening on Dow Jones. That's why during dynamical phase it is important to have some invalidation criteria (Now a tip: by experience if the market want to be bullish instead of bearish I have observed that he would gap above the bullish invalidation zone of scale 1 right from opening)
FYI--- per innerworth.com joe ross from www.tradingeducators.com is the creator of "trade what you see, not what you think" mantra. further thoughts on their way..... stay tuned best, surfer
It's a semantic issue. "Trading what you think" really means trading based on information that has either zero or negative expectation, but sounds superficially plausible; "Trading what you see" means trading based on your market experience of what works i.e. certain pattern setups that your subconscious/experience recognises as positive expectation trades. The general idea is that excessive conscious thought/analysis can get in the way of optimal execution of subconsciously learned patterns of behaviour. Thus trading what you "think" is going to interfere. Just trade what you "see".
WRONG. charts are very deceiving. it is one's ability to interpret and think that allows success in the markets. trading what you see worked up to late 90's but unfortunately is a dead end philosophy in the markets of the 21 century. best, surfer
WOW! Now that is a smart post! Not to mention the start of the thread! What a great issue to crack onto. Congratulations, marketsurfer - this is one of the very best ET threads I've seen for months! Great work, surf! My personal opinion - As usual, I can see many naysayers here, but that's just the irony of the market (in order for a minority to make the money, the majority has to be ...) Well, I'd just say I'm absolutely on marketsurfer's side here and agree with the latter statement by him. I couldn't have put it better myself. To clarify my position : I absolutely advocate proactive, anticipatory trading over reactive, past-based trading. I also believe (confluently with marketsurfer) that reactive trading is a style of the past. It is something that's written about in any trading book. But honestly - Who can still make serious amounts of money in the futures markets, trading like that? If you trade the present, or worse even, the past, you'll get nowhere in a hurry. You're up against the finest of players out there today, who have already taken all the money off the late 90's amateurs and they use that money to take more - off you! If you want to trade seriously well, you better be on one level with them, and that is preferably anticipating what's going to happen before it happens! It is indeed about progressive pre-emption and "path analysis" of various variations in the future, to then pick the path and move of most likely probability in which you have maximum cover and yet freedom to move and at the same time eliminate as many attack opportunities of your opponent as possible. Sounds familiar? Sure does! Exactly like a chess game! I don't even understand how people can question this? George Soros, a relatively successful trader, knew this a long time ago. He made a fortune with this thought and paradigm in mind, it drove him where he is. He even disclosed this publicly: "Trading is like playing chess with god." - George Soros Anybody here play chess? How many of you (who are any good at it) look at what's happened in the past more than what's threatening to happen in the future? Pretty few I'd say. Why trade differently then? I believe that past-based trading is obsolete, or at least terribly inefficient. People who think this way are the same crowd that uses TA indicators. It's all nonsense. Not only are TA indicators invalid because they only consider price or volume, but rarely both (which is a fatal flaw), but their major flaw is that they are calculated based on the past. To me, 101% useless. What the hell is the past worth? Anybody who thinks you can predict the market future based on the past is just kidding himself. If it were so, then you wouldn't be taking a cent out of the market, but only some very large super-quant supercomputers programmed to exploit this. There certainly is some validity to the efficient market theory. Sure, you should always be aware of the "strength" of any particular trend and your market situation, but your main mission is to see not where it's gone or where it's going, but where it's going to go. Anticipation of future moves based on current pre-emptive thinking is in no way doubtable, but IMHO a fundamental requirement for a modern trader. Not to mention the problems that arise with trying to interpret the past or present; Tendency to interpret your opinion or bias into your reading, for example. It's easy to deceive yourself. It is at least an extremely inefficient way of trying to make a living in a market in which everyone has orders in place before you do, because you're the dummy reading the past action. Just because turtletrader.com or Toni Turner tells you this is how you do it doesn't mean that it is how you do it really well. Myself, I trade almost exclusively this way. I always think-scenarios-forward-anticipate. I give you a brief example: I see market has certain direction => Market has moved certain amount, let's say 9 Ticks into one direction => I now really expect market to retrace a little, let's say up to 7T (depending on my current stats model). I place a stop order 6T above the current pivot (where the retrace starts), and wait price to hit my stop. All the fools trade what they see and enter at market. I long have my stop in place, generally with the trend and counter the retracement. By the time the retracement hits my 6T stop, I am the first to get filled, because I've been in the game long before everybody else has. I am long filled and in, and at that point, the tape will tick over red or green, and price is likely to continue the other way again (it might trace up to 7T or 8T, setting me back a couple of Ticks, but then will most likey reverse again), and I have locked in profits immediately. I lock in fractal-scaled partials at various profit stages, but this is all automated by my execution platform strategies anyway (ButtonTrader). Result? Very nice profits, low risk, high probability, low stress and an actual thinking challenge. So I go and make myself a coffee. The only problem is that the big pro's know the same. Funnily enough, they seem to do the same thing at the same price levels all the time. You can feel the competition. But then there's always plenty enough left to take from the suckers. Thank god even in the 21st century there are still plenty of them around. I don't trade the past. The past is dead. It's the playground for the losers, I leave it to them. There are a couple of nice quotes who address this issue beautifully: "The people who live in the past must yield to the people who live in the future. Otherwise the world would begin to turn the other way round." - Arnold Bennett "The future ain't what it used to be." - Yogi Berra marketsurfer has once again clearly shown in this thread that he understands these concepts only too well. He has shown a lot more flexibility than LTCM or Enron and replaced sheer conservatism with proactive, anticipatory thinking, envisioning what will happen instead of what has happened. He is going to be one of the people that will lead the financial industry of the future. Who knows - he probably already is. So I am not at all surprised at the general reaction to surf's thoughts. An Einstein quote comes to my mind: "Great spirits have always found opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." - Albert Einstein. Remember : Nobody cares if you're right or wrong. Your ultimate challenge as a trader always remains to beat "them" both in and out the door. And you're not gonna be doing much of that if you waste your time dwelling in the past... Scientist.
wow, what an insightful post. happy to see that someone is able to clearly articulate what i am trying to say in this thread. the george soros quote is KILLER ! best, surfer
when playing chess you try to anticipate your opponents move, but in the end you play off of his exact move, which in fact may or may not be the one you anticitpated...so in short you are playing from what you see not from what you anticipated his move to be...... I would say you trade the present based on past information in order to make money on a future move... I agree with surf very interesting and thank you for taking the time to post it...
Couldn't agree with you more. The concept of trading what you "think" and contrary to what you see is ludicrous and a formula for bankruptcy. The art of trading is all about : a. ABILITY to *quickly* size-up the situation b. COURAGE to take a position c. DISCIPLINE to exercise stops
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I have no choice but to agree with Scientist & marketsurfer. A Master Trader knows HOW to anticipate & predict price movement well in advance of the move! Marketsurfer has demonstrated this ability in his journal. I have done the same in mine. If you only trade what you see then are you not indeed "following the herd"???.......directly to the slaughter! It never ceases to amaze me at how the BEST & Brightest here at ET are the MOST bashed & attacked for thier contributions. I really do hope that the majority disagrees with us so that we may continue to TAKE THIER MONEY! ....eye will c u on da other side of my trades!