I have a feeling right now that wyckoff/price-volume/supply-demand (i don't know what to call it...) is something that i SHOULD learn, that it is the key for me in learning to trade, and of course ultimately to trade profitably. But I understand that it will take a lot of time and effort to master (or at least now in the beginning - to grasp). I'm not afraid of doing hard work in this area, but I would like to hear from traders who do use this method if it is worth the effort or if it's is just marginally useful. Is it possible to trade only by using price and volume? Are you doing it? I guess I could answer that question myself by saying that every indicator is in fact derived from price and/or volume. But can it be more effective to trade on price/volume alone than using a bunch of indicators? Or is a combination of analysis of price/volume together with some indicators the way to go?
Learning to use the variables of the market is a process. Once you recognize that there is connection among the variables it opens the door to trading all most all of the time. Personally I link learning to an ever enlarging set of knowledge, skills and experience. In a nutshell, starting with only price and volume is the best. Bounding volume with an envelope (channels) is easiest and then you see how volume leads price (Granville) in the container. As your skill improves, you will find you need more for attaining precision. Today there isn't much but you can code to get more precision. You can use the principles of calculus to make the indicators become leading in the signals that they can provide to you. The test of anything you use is that it works on all fractals. If you are starting without any background at all it is easy to get up to speed. If you have been learning failure in trading, it becoms very difficult, then impossible, to make the switch to trading price and volume.
Some traders cannot make indicators work so they believe these are useless tools and as a result believe Naked Trading (no indicators) is the only way to trade. They have highly developed Price Action reading ability. Others have figured out how to use and read indicators to the extent they believe price action is not only less important, but down right confusing and as a result they trade without charting price movement. Ask either of these groups and you will be told there is only one way to trade - theirs. You'll get good and bad Wyckoff traders just as in every other approach, so the what will you do when all the camps trash each other and tell you the only to go is... Wyckoff works, and so does everything else. Achieving mastery of even one tool requires dedication, creativity and belief. Check out Wyckoff websites, get a few trials and see if it's for you. It's not the holy grail, but I wouldn't trade without it. At times price moves without any volume signal and I've got my tools for that. Pretty often volume is the tell-tail and sometime the screamer and it's then I'm glad I paid my dues to Mr Wyckoff.
The guy to talk to is dbphoenix at T2W.com. He has a couple of old threads here on price and volume as well as a book on trading by price (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DbPhoenix/). LC
All the questions you have asked can only be answered by you and not by anyone else. Only you know your strategy and only you know how you tend to approach the markets. Simply, get to work and you should have your answers in a few months or more. Mark
Yes, everything I read and have been told about price/volume and "smart money" makes sense to me. The question is how I should go about to be able to use this, to create a method which I can trade. And if learning the theory from books and getting practical experience from watching charts after charts and paper trade will let me find a method which eventually can be tradeable and profitable.
Without being flippant, I guess that's the question only you can answer. I looked at some Wyckoff websites and can't make head or tail of them - I think they got lost in the detail. As I said, I'd start with VSA's book. It's the most concise treatment of applied Wyckoff that I've seen.