Jack, Thanks for your suggestions. I must say it's one of the few posts of yours that I could fully understand I've sat out of the market several times as you've suggested and I find that it helps. The ebb and flow of the markets certainly takes a lot out of you when you are in it every day. My initial efforts / first years tuition ended about a year ago and that mindset is firmly in the past.
Entry = No trades inititated before 10:30am LONG = The issue has made a at least one higher high/higher low, pullsback and then trades over the previous DOWN days high. SHORT = The issue has made at least one lower high/lower low, runsup and then trades lower than the previous UP days low. EXIT = upon a minimum 2-1 profit/loss objective is met OR the issue trades outside of the Bollinger Bands. all trades taken on daily chart setups.
You are very welcome. If i were to paint a brief picture of making money, or to put it another way: being effective with time and capital, I would suggest some really fundamental truths that must be managed properly. 1. It takes little initial capital to become a millionaire in a very short time. 2. The market does not jump around: it migrates from condition to condition. 3. Everything considered all you have to do is have a KISS approach that handles all market conditions of 2. In 1957, I was a super dummy and newbie. I have gone the course. It has been the most fum thing in the world. Prove 1. to yourself by using the compound interest formula to make up stuff about the workings of he market. Not many people here can make up what is required to understand 1. Read a few of the ninnie's comments on the stochastic thread. I use the yellow brick road illustration to show the potential of making money. The fact is that p[eople can not intuit the answer of which of two compounding approaches will be the best. given A or B it is not possible to process to the anwsr that is correct without doing the actual maths with each set of factors and get the comparison values. Clue for you: You have never chosen or gotten to the correct bar duration for what you are doing. Example: reagan and his team made us the greatest debtor nation by operating on the wrong side of a distribution curve because they though they were on the other side. They actually did the opposite of what was required to get to optimum because they thought they were on the other side of optimum than they were. The compound interest formula is impotant because it teaches you how much of the market potential you can get by the limiting factors of your efficiency to participate. If any thing has slowed down the ET efforts people make in learning from me it is this factor. 2. is complex. The singular point that it makes is that there is no need to gamble nor predict. You can see ALL over ET people are operating in a nonsensical world. If you know where you are and there are paths of migration for the operating point of the market, what does one do? Well you simply apply a set of tools that handle all eventualities in the immediate path. There is a quiver of tools available to all players. simply use the group that can have possible application and the market comes to where it wants, all to your advantage all the time. you read here about guys who fade the market or enter on retraces blah blah. the real deal is to go along all the time and extract money continually. If the market jumped from place to place it all would be like gambling. But it doesn't and the gambling stuff doesn't apply. The market is not a macro thing either as you would think if you read a lot of stuff here. It is entirely micro. 3. Getting to KISS is a process of winowing and culling and powering up your skills. The market is a slow motion thing with no surprises at all. The size of this monolith is so huge that we only have to deal with our chosen microcosm. You will see all your life most people not knowing where they are at all. So sillily, they are looking at where they are not and they know so much about all of where they aren't. Notice the referent frame in which people place themselves. Some kewl ones are nitro and TM, magna and blah blah. How did they get hung up and hung out to dry? Here is the groove: Find out where you can optimize your micro potential to get what the market potential offers. For me, it is 30 min on equities and 5 min on futures commodities indexes. I deal with quality stocks and their 6 to 8 day cycle. I pull down 50% of the potential there; call it 10% for reference. Plug in 50 cycles over three years; that is half the trading time available as you can see. Half the time and half the profits available is what I take out. The commodities is about 50 times more productive. I take many steps to know where I am, what is next, and how fast things are changing. I cover my situation using standard market tools from my quiver. Look at it as tic tak toe. the nine cells are eight cells surrounding the center. The market operates in many many cells but you can always consider where it is as the center one and there are eight possibilites around it. Use tools to cover those immediate eight posibilites. It moves and you reenlist another group of tools for the next step of migration. What makes it easier and easier is that the migrations arerepeats of the past. Further, things distill by looking at what are the road blocks to each of the alternatives. I call these road blocks flaws. At each operating point, initially there are many possibilites. Possibilities die when roadblocks are seen. Finally, and without fail, the market moves to the only place it can. You hear people talk about set-ups. This is moronic truncated laziness usually. Zoom about and look for a set up. Sit and wait for a set up. Blah blah. It is easier to just know where you are. Cover the situation with tools. Pull money out at a portion of the current potential (your personal effectiveness). Get a tool box.
OOPS. I forgot to mention some tool box details. All boxes have two drawers: Top and bottom. You have only one drawer open at a time and you only use the tool box when the market is open. I recommend using only the top drawer at first. But the bottom drawer makes more money on an annual basis when you look at the production of both drawers. What I would do is put labels onthe drawers that indicate when to use them. At first, you use neither because that is when you are out there gathering tools to use to put in the drawers. As you expect you get the tool and you learn how to use it completely. Like each tool is sort of driving a car type thing. My personal fav car has three transmissions, dual brakes, 12 cylinders in two banks of six, my gas peddle is electronically connected to other stuff and my spark advance is done with two motors feed by a computer. My wiring harness to the engine cost 1100 dollars. I cannot adjust my idle without replacing computer parts and two motors. You can learn to drive any car. When you drive a performance car it behaves a little different. We can build you a two drawer tool box that is a performance type tool box. In a while i will give you an offset tool for dealing with scalpers. It is a shiny little thing that puts you on the oppositeside of scalpers. Here are the labels for the two drawers: Top is "continuation" and bottom is "change". The fact is that you need two separate sets of tools to play the market continually. Next to "continuation" write (entry/exit). next to "change" write reversal only. the market operating map looks like a checker board and some squares are "continuation" and some squares are "change". They are mapped like continents and oceans instead of simply alternating. There isn't much point in googling this stuff (nohkio excepted) because I am starting down a road in ET that has not been done as yet. We need to get into making some money. A new GROB 109 would cost a little more than is usually talked about here. To pull 5G's you need something that will stick together. While MM is a meat and cheese guy, I am a v12 ans 50:1 glide ratio guy. His tool box is falling apart. We need to groove here.
i have to say, this is one of the first few posts that i understood from you mr. hershey. don't know if that is you or me i feel like i'm certainly only just starting to understand the "top drawer" (continuation or...entry/exit). i stumble upon the bottom drawer (reversal) time and time again, often i think it has to do with the failure of the first drawer's tools i speak of. thanks for this interesting explanation. i truly believe #1. i am not yet halfway there for #2. i think i am already approaching it as a KISS approach.
Making money is awesome fun when you are grooving. we can all groove soon that's for sure. I am so glad there are fewer and fewr twits posting when good threads are rolling along. regards jack hershey. I am on another machine right now)
I suggest giving TR another try. There is a lot of wisdom there, if you can get past the slick, sales persona. It may take three or four reads (listens), but understanding what he is saying can/will be the key to your future success.