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I wasn't sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders. I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh. The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge. My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me. So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out. Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500. Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money. Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines. It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow. By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either. What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway. 1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post. 2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy. 3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading. 4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome. 5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can. 6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up. 7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash. 8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend. 9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4 10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”. Good trading to you all.

Donald, here is the pdf version of the book, if you are interested. While a bit "salesman-like" in its approach (all of what he claims cannot possibly be true or it would be the Holy Grail), it was packed full with pictures, commentary and helpful information. Enjoy. Profitable_Candlestick_Trading-HERE.pdf

I'm not one to make a habit of bumping old threads, but based on earlier discussion, this is clearly the best place to post a link to the original Wyckoff course: The Richard D Wyckoff Method of Trading and Investing in Stocks: A Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique. Wyckoff - Course.pdf

Hard to believe its been almost 11 years since we had a great year in this thread. I think of you guys still. I wish we could have a reunion week here for any of you who are still trading ... or even if you're not. Maybe the first or second week of June 2020. If interested, drop a note here and perhaps an email address if you don't plan on checking back. No more forex for me - just stocks, ES, and NQ. As always, Best Wishes, Thales

Here is something that should get pretty lively.. Since everyone keeps telling you that screen time is important, there has to be something to it. But nobody is telling you what you should be looking for. What is it going to teach you? There has to be something that those who do this for a living see that you don’t. Well there is. And just like the magician that exposed the secrets to magic tricks on national TV, I am going to tell you what we see. But before I do remember one thing. Take everything you read in a forum or book, or hear from a guru or in a seminar with a grain of salt. Question everything. Only when you prove it to yourself, does it become the rule. What I am about to share can be found on thousands of sites and in countless books. If you have done any research at all, you have come across Dr. Elder’s triple screen, or some permutation of it. You understand the principles behind using multiple frames of reference. What has most likely not been explained to you is why it works or how to apply it correctly. In most cases you are only given a single example. Single example you say? Yes, when most first stumble across using multiple time frames, they follow the rules of: Use the upper time frame to identify the trend, the middle time frame for the set-up, and the lowest time frame to enter. If by chance you are not familiar with the triple screen just goggle “triple screen +elder”. Trading instruments exhibt three different types of market action in any given frame of reference. You use multiple frames of reference (i.e. Time or ticks) to identify the current market environment. These markets are: Trending, Trading, and Volatile. Why screen time is so important is that all instruments do not exhibit the characteristics of Trending in the upper time frame, Trading in the middle, and Volatile in the lower at all times. They can be in any one of the following combinations at any given time: Trending/Trading/Volatile Trending/Volatile/Trading Trading/Volatile/Trending Trading/Trending/Volatile Volatile/Trending/Trading Volatile/Trading/Trending Or any one of 84 possible market combinations if you consider Volatile/Volatile/Volatile. Like the major pairs in Forex, the combinations I listed are what I consider the major market combinations. The elusive secret that you are looking for, and what screen time teaches you, is to identify which market combination you are in and then how to trade what you see. Or better yet, when to stay on the sidelines. Each combination requires a different strategy, and some may not be tradeable at all. If you are trading across a broad range of instruments, you only need to master one. The fewer instruments you trade, the more market combinations you may have to learn. But you have to learn them one at a time and only add the next one once the first is mastered. But you ask what about Trending/Trending/Trading? Or how about Volatile/Volatile/Volatile? Or if I use Weekly/Daily/Hourly I get Trending/Trading/Volatile but if I use Daily/Hourly/Min I get Trading/Volatile/Trending. One step at a time grasshopper. One step at a time. As I mentioned there are 84 possible combinations. Multiply this across thousands of instruments and countless frames of reference, and I hope you get the picture. You do not have to learn them all. You only have to learn the few that fit you, your chosen instrument and frames of reference. Find the market combinations that are most prevalent and learn to trade only those. This is why it takes screen time to learn to do this, and why each trader is different. It is also why three traders in the same instrument will be doing something different. Trader A will scalp, trader B will be a buyer, and trader C will be seller, and they all make money. They are using different frames of reference and therefore see a different market

To become a full time traders, it will take years. Full time trader is smiliar to becoming a lawyer, Doctors, etc. The problem is many people believe day trading es is "get rich quick." If it takes 5 yrs to become a doctor, it will take 5 yrs to become a full time trader. I have no clue why people believe they can become a full time trader less than 1 yr. If that is true, why does it take a long time to become a doctor, lawyer, etc. According to the Gov report, 97% of the people lose trading in the futures market. One of the reason they lose is, they failed to understand trading futures involves substantial risk and only risk capital should be used. All brokerages and few trading school websites have those risk disclaimer. But for some reason, most people FAILED or ignore the risk disclaimer. For those who are a successful full time traders took them yrs to get there. Plus, they fully understood that trading es is NOT A GET RICH QUICK and trading futures involves SUBSTANTIAL RISK!!!!!! hope this help

Put simply, support is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference are willing to show their support by retarding, halting, and reversing the decline by buying. Resistance is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference attempt to retard, halt, and reverse a rise by selling. Whether one calls this money professional or big or smart or institutional or crooked or manipulative or (fill in the blank) is irrelevant. If repeated attempts to sell below this support level are met by buying which is sufficient to turn price back, these little reversals will eventually form a line, or zone. Ditto with resistance. A swing high or low represents a point at which traders are no longer able to find trades. Whether that point represents important support or resistance will be seen the next time traders push price in that direction. But everyone knows this point, even if they aren't following a chart. It exists independently of the trader and his lines and charts and indicators and displays. It is the point beyond which price could not go. Hence its importance, both to those who want to see price move higher and those who don't. The first two posts to this thread address these matters, as do others here and there. However, finding S&R in real charts in real time takes more than just a couple of posts. But one must understand the nature of support -- and resistance -- itself before he begins to look for it. Otherwise, he will find what he thinks are S&R in some very peculiar places. Before coming to any conclusions about what “works” or “doesn’t work”, and thus does or does not provide an edge, one ought to keep in mind that a given event -- such as price seemingly finding support or resistance at a trendline (or moving average, candlestick, Pivot Point, Fib level or whatever) -- may be only incidental to what is truly providing that support or resistance. A fundamental misunderstanding of how "indicators" are calculated and what they're supposed to do can lead to all sorts of off-task behavior. We think we see the indicators indicating something, or not, and believe we have made an important discovery. We then devote our efforts to improving the hit rate and the probability of whatever it is we think the indicator is indicating when our efforts ought to be focused on determining whether or not the indicator is actually indicating what we think it's indicating. In most if not all cases, it isn't. Consider the virgin being tossed into the volcano: sometimes it results in a great crop, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe tossing her in earlier or later will change the probability of a healthy crop. Maybe two virgins are better than one. Maybe six. Maybe tall virgins are more effective than short ones. And surely age is important. But does the robustness of the crop really have anything to do with tossing the virgin into the volcano in the first place? The money under the pillow is not evidence of the existence of the tooth fairy, and spring will arrive regardless of whether the virgin is tossed into the volcano or not. (Db)

Here are some trading courses that I know they have experienced trader as a teacher: - Stock Trading & Investing for Beginners by Udemy - Consistent Profits from Stocks With AI Assistance In Just 10 Minutes a Day! by Snap Academy - Trend Following For Stocks by Decodingmarkets Give me advice which one is the best to join?

One of the number one reasons that traders lose money is because they cannot follow the most important rules. In fact, some novice traders do not even have any rules in place when trading. They are simply relying on luck or tips to make money in stocks. Here are three rules that every stock trader should adopt if they want to have a chance in this market. 1. The 10 Percent Rule. The ten percent rule was made famous by the legendary trader Jesse Livermore. He said that he would never take more than a 10 percent loss on any stock. Whenever he broke this rule and let his emotions get the best of him he really suffered a bigger than expected loss both financially and mentally. A ten percent loss keeps you in the game and allows you to fight another day. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have seen one trade turn into a huge loss. This giant loss often hurts the trader involved and has even been the cause of many blown up accounts. 2. Do Not Trade With Capital You Cannot Afford To Lose. There is an old saying, scared money never makes any money. Whenever traders and investors trade with capital they cannot afford to lose it hinders their thinking. Trading comes with enough pressure already, but betting the rent or the mortgage on a stock simply affects the traders ability to read or follow that stock's price movement correctly. A good rule is to also apply the 10 percent rule to position size. Never put more than 10 percent of your account into any one stock position. This will allow you to find other trading opportunities should they arrive. All of your capital will not be tied up in one stock. By keeping the position size to just 10 percent of your account you will not have too much of an emotional connection to any one trade. Keeping the stress of trading down is extremely important for your health. 3. Learn To Use And Read Charts. While most of the people in the world will use fundamental analysis to trade (PE ratios, EPS, book value, ect) it is the charts and technical analysis that will show you the actual money flow of a stock. The bottom line, the trend is your friend except at the end. Reading charts of stocks will show you patterns and signal where the money is going and flowing. Remember, it is money flow that moves stock prices not opinion from some talking head on the financial news channel. How many times have you seen a company report great earnings only to see the stock plummet and vice versa? Often, the chart will tell us this will happen before it does. Chart reading will also help traders to place stop losses and know where pattern breaks down or fails. Traders must understand that it is just as important to know where you are wrong on a trade as it is to know when you are correct. Charts do all of these things and more when a trader can read them. Every trader and investor should get educated in reading and understanding charts. Nicholas Santiago InTheMoneyStocks

:haha: I hear you say. But really. I think that this is perhaps the single biggest factor in the high failure rate of new traders. Perhaps it would be better put that you should not expect to make money. Let me put it in a different way. A beginner will come into trading and have had very little experience of anything similar. The market will however look familiar somehow and tease them into thinking small successes are down to skill. After all, humans like certainty and are quite happy to congratulate themselves when they think they are good at something. Would you expect to pick up a guitar and then a month or two later be playing at a rock concert? Would you expect to pick up a paintbrush and shortly after have an exhibition on display at the Louvre? Probably not. The difference is though that poor trading costs you your money. Coming into trading, you will be pitted against seasoned professionals, massive hedge funds, banks and computer systems to name but a few. Losses early on affect more than just your bank balance. They affect your emotions and your ability to learn and develop confidence in your understanding of markets and methods you use to trade. If you don't understand how to 'take a loss' this can be catastrophic. Do yourself a favour, when you start trading, trade to trade well, not to make money!

I read somewhere on this site that technical analysis doesn't work for day traders. It sounds like most traders are having a hard time discerning what's important and what's fruitless with regards to intraday signals. I am starting this thread to cut through the clutter and tell you how the markets can be traded in ANY time frame. In this lesson I will explain the two most elementary technical signals on the chart: price rejection and price acceptance. I'll bet that most traders have a hard time determining the general intraday trend and I believe this is due to your dependence on ultra short term charts, such as 1,2,3 or 5 minute charts. Moving out to 15 minute and 30 minute charts one can see things that are basically invisible on 1-5 minute charts. What I like to see on a 15 or 30 minute chart is a hammer or doji candlestick following a consolidation or range breakout. What is the psychology behind the hammer? Price moved from the breakout zone to some new level. Then price then retraced towards the consolidation zone and was rejected (hammered) back into the direction of the new trend. The breakout of that hammer bar IS THE ABSOLUTE SAFEST BET YOU CAN MAKE!!! Why? Because if the market just got hammered away from a price level, what do you think the odds are that price will immediately return to that level? Not very good odds at all. The doji is similar in nature because it still shows price rejection on a lesser scale, but also vividly displays the mini-consolidation which leads to a continuation move. And both breakouts CLEARLY DISPLAY WHERE TO PLACE YOUR PROTECTIVE STOP, at the other end of the hammer or doji bar following the breakout of that bar! Since the number one rule of trading is to always know your risk BEFORE you enter a trade, this is the best indicator in trading. (It doesn't hurt to have MACD confirming your trade direction, but it is not imperative). Just use the 20 period moving average as your trend filter and NEVER trade against the trend on the 15 minute chart. Price acceptance is when the market moves to a price level that previously turned the market around but this time doesn't, thus indicating that the market may still go further in its present direction. This is most useful when the market is searching for support or resistance after a prolonged move and you are trying to decide whether to exit or add to your position. I'll leave trade management for another discussion. Hope this helps! Luv, Phantom

UJ hit target. I was out of town and marked some nice trades that occurred while I was away.

I would think about it, but without a doubt ... I think ETFs are the best option.

Binaries aren't designed for you to win in the long run learn to trade spot and get better at risk management, you'll do better overall vs binaries

Noobies, PAn said "Indicators are absolutely worthless" To be more accurate, PAn should have posted "Indicators are absolutely worthless to me." Indicators are like any other measure or representation - worthless if you don’t know how to use them. When I first started trading I studied indicators in depth then moved on... it was not until many years later when I got into automation that indicators and learning how and WHEN to use them became not “absolutely worthless” but extremely valuable. ... PAn, somewhere a noob is in a Price Action thread trying to integrate new material. Someone like you pops up and says “Price action trading is absolutely worthless. Indicators are all I need” . Helpful? No. To really be accurate PAn should have posted nothing at all in this thread...

Actions for the 30th.

Hi folks...Another shot at this GBPUSD long (if triggered). God Bless.. WP

Took this Long on the bullish candle after chasing the entry somewhat @ 1.3253, ..RR still attractive. Will be looking for areas to raise the stop to a more favourable level. God Bless.. WP

I invested a lot of time looking for profitable traders before getting into the niche. Something around 2-3 weeks of 12+ hours a day just to find somebody whose words I can believe enough to make any conclusions. I must say that I found profitable and believeable traders in both markets, but stock trading had much more of them. I found just 2 full-time Forex traders whose words I can believe. They don't sell any services or products, they just live from trading of their own accounts. Both of them are tired of trading. As for the stock market, there are a lot of people sharing their results publically. I found enough to make my own conclusions. There are also a lot of people who finally moved from future to stocks. It's just more profitable at the end. While Forex may seem more profitable at the very beginning becauase it's so volatile, the truth is directly opposite. Forex isn't "volatile", stocks are much more volatile by their nature. Forex gives you an illusion of volatility due to insane leverage. Taking into account average daily range of 0.1%-0.5%, you are trading purely noise. Being a software developer, I created an internal statistical analysis system to build price movement distributions. They are so close to white noise distribution you will be surprised. As for stocks, movements have clear signals in them. Yes, there is still a lot of noise when you are day trading, but just look at higher timeframes too see the difference. I would personally prefer stocks, I plan to convert my first product to stock trading simulator in the future. Forex is a good way to learn initial trading experience as long as you trade penny accounts, but I would stay away from it if I decide to get back to trading again.

No trigger on long GBPUSD, pulling Buy Order. God Bless.. WP

Learning is the only way you can be successful in this business. There is no other way or system which can make you rich within a few days.

Guess I would add to have a trading journal. Which helps you have a better understanding of the other rules and help closing out emotions.

Hi, welcome to the forum! I can recommend you the Introduction Topic Have fun and hope we can be at your help!

It depends on the person that how he can manage his skills with trading and learning the basic with a demo or any other way. We can suggest them but after all, learning is the procedure which takes time.

You can't reinvest everything you make. Eventually, you will need to take money out of your trading accounts and pay bills, take your family on vacation, etc. But how often and how much should you transfer from your trading accounts to your personal accounts? Should you take out a fixed amount each month or a percentage of your earnings? What if your accounts are currently sitting lower than your opening balance? Should you wait until you move above that point before you reward yourself with a salary?

NZDUSD reached its profit target. Best, AT

Are you serious with this post? Name one institution that trades with MT4. MT4 is a joke that is used by beginner forex traders for two reasons: 1) it is free, and 2) it is very simple to use. Institutions that are managing large amounts of money use custom platforms that are tailored for their needs, especially if these institutions are banks trading currencies with each other. MT4 doesn't even meet the standards to be called a serious retail trading platform. Comparing MT4 to something like Sierra Chart, Multicharts, Tradestation, etc., is like comparing a plastic tricycle to a Ferrari. I am going to go ahead and call you out on this - if you really think MT4 is the "best platform" you've ever tested, you have only used MT4. Tradestation and Ninjatrader and others like Sierra Chart and Multicharts are used by a large amount of professional traders who trade various markets like futures, stocks, commodities, forex, etc. MT4 is simply used by beginner forex traders. I'm sorry, but MT4 is one of the worst trading platforms out there. You won't find any serious professional trader using MT4... if they are using MT4, they are usually a beginner still new to trading.

No matter how you say it, he's a top bloke. Those were good days on this forum back then. Who says all good things must come to an end???? With kind regards, MK

I think this might be off topic but for some strange reason, all I can think of is "Must catch moose and squirrel."

I'd strongly suggest to anyone who is serious about trading to think very carefully about whether using a mobile phone app for trading is a good idea. The interface, speed, reliabilty and security issues make it something I personally wouldn't do. If you have a position and you absolutely must leave, either make sure you have a way of getting through to your broker's execution desk quickly or close the position out before you leave.

I do not know if this is the right thread to post this in. If it is not, kindly move it to the right one. Attached are .txt files of the data from many of the chapters of the original course and the course available on this forum. All of this had to be manually done, looking at the charts(usually with magnifying glass), reading the text, internet searching holiday dates and trying to determine the accurate D,H,L,C,V. The dates(D), on all bar & volume charts should be accurate. The P&F chart data is based on intraday data which, to the best of my knowledge, is not available, but the charts in the course show the months along the bottom and the end of each daily session with circles around the "x". Some of the P&F files have dates included, but those dates are obviously not from the 1930's, I just used those dates to import the data into my charting software, so that I could plot it. Also, on some of the data I entered false data at the beginning of the files so that some data would plot in the beginning of the chart, so one doesn't have to work right on the left egde of the chart. Chap9_PnF.txt Chap11_BS.txt Chap12_US Steel P&F data.txt Chap13_NYT1929PNF.txt Chap16_Anaconda.txt Chap16_AnaconPnF.txt Chap17_DJU1936.txt Chap17_DJU1936PF.txt Chap17_ElecP&L.txt Chap17_ElecPnF.txt Chap17_NYT1936.txt Chap21_ATT1932PnF.txt NYT 1930-1931.txt Chap16_NYT1934.txt

I agree with cuttshot. Once you have a sizable account I find it necessary to remove all profits for the week from your trading account. Take physical delivery of that money and go cash it at the bank, touch it, hold it in your hand, and then deposit it into your check, savings, and investment accounts. I think this process is important because it makes what we are doing tangible and real. Perhaps its mostly for psychological purposes, but if you leave the profits in your account, they are "at risk" of the market. Removing them each week keeps it structured more as a business.

The problem is Tradewinds, when people start out they really are not in the position to make a sensible judgement on whether or not their strategy is effective and viable. You'll get a younger guy maybe being a bit rash or perhaps an older person who's been successful in other pursuits come in thinking they will figure it out. Well that just isn't the way it is generally. Good point about the commitments and responsibilities btw.

Hey, So I am not being discouraging by saying this. But, if you are dealing with such small intervals and tp and sl 3 pips, it is going to be very wise to break down price further. I am getting ready to set up a tick depository and plot the results vs a milisecond time graph and monitor the rates of change between ticks, I think the most important thing before you start your research is to determine what market conditions are conducive to this type of trading style, because we know that there is no one system that can trade all markets. So it is important to make sure you find a time and place where your system will succeed. In my own opinion and from my scalping system I am building, I think range-bound markets are the most conducive for scalping type trading. A range is characterized by a failure of higher highs and lower lows, and looking for price swings almost like a sin wave. of course it doesn't always look like that but with what your looking to do, i think it would be wise to take a range bound indicator and then try and predict short term price moves by using a combination of time series analysis and using rates of changes of different intervals to look for price movement in different directions. because with your current setup the only recommendation i can make is to make sure you use oanda as a broker to keep your spreads as small as possible.

Young John had just completed high school in the bush, and was off to the city to college. He had a faithful cattle dog, 'Bluey', and insisted on taking the dog with him. Of course, the attractions of city life were quite new to John, and during his out-of-college time, he spent-up rather big on enjoying it all. Eventually, the money ran a bit low, and John was a bit short. He decided to ring his father for a little advance. "Hello ... Dad? You will not believe what is happening here - Bluey is learning to play the piano." "Go on, son. You're kidding me!" "No, Dad, honestly - you should hear him. But the dog teacher had to be paid, and I am a bit short" "No worries, John. The cheque's in the mail." Well time went by, and John again got a bit short of money, and he decided to ring dad again for some money. "Hi Dad. Bluey is so advanced that he is now playing the piano and dancing at the same time. He is a big hit down here. But the extra lessons are not cheap." "Don't worry son, the cheque's in the mail. It's a good thing you got going there with Bluey." John was happy until the day came for him to go home. He knew he had to face the family with a dog that could neither dance nor play the piano. The day he got off the train, Dad was waiting there to meet him. "Where's Bluey?" said Dad, "I was hoping to watch a performance." "Well Dad, Bluey became so advanced, that he began to talk. We used to have long conversations about the things we've seen and done. One night he told me about you and that little red-haired sheila down at the pub, and he told me what you and her ..." "Crikey, John," interrupted Dad, "I hope you shot him!" "Yes, Dad, I did. I sure did. "

I would like to make some comments here concerning how Taylor would have seen the price action today by Richbois count being an SS day. Finally, what he most likely would have done. Today was a failure to penetrate early in the session. However there was an immediate decline so why not short this decline?? Taylor says you have to recognize such action and trade on it even though it is a difficult trade to make many times it is very profitable. The key is knowing when to put out the short sell. This requires some tape reading skills. But in this case one would NOT short on 2-5-09. Why? First, I take a few quotes out of his book concerning failures to penetrate the objective. "In the beginning it might be well to study these failures to penetrate and the results of them before buying or short selling but you have got to recognize this action and trade on it, for while it is a most difficult ‘play’, at the same time many of the most profitable moves take place from failures to penetrate at both tops and bottoms. The failures to penetrate Buying or Selling Objectives are not exceptions to our method of trading, for a little study of the past movements of stocks and commodity futures will reveal that this action takes place approximately 40% of the time on an average, at either of these points, therefore, this movement is a very definite part of the method as a whole." "When a stock makes a high FIRST on a Selling Day with a penetration of the Buying Day High, then reacts and is selling nearer the low of the day at the close, the indications are for a lower opening on the Short Sale Day. Should the lower opening occur, after the decline the stock or future will make an attempt to rally, in most cases, and this rally will penetrate the—High of Selling Day—if the immediate trend is higher, however, should the rally fail to reach this Objective and at the top of this rally the activity dies out and the trading narrows down to a few transactions at about the same price, then begins to ‘sell off’, we would ‘put out’ a short sale on this declining trend and J-U-S-T as it starts." Quotes from p 46 The Taylor Trading Technique. Now a quote about price action on an SS day "We try to make all short sales on the high made FIRST on penetrations of—Selling Day Highs—‘This is the most favorable action for your play’—we would not ‘put out’ a short sale where the stock or future opened down and declined future, without a rally, for this action would carry the implications that rally, should it start later in the session, may cause the closing price to be up near the high of the day and this would be making the high LAST on a Short Sale Day, indicating a 46 future rally, and an up-opening but where the stock opened at the same price as the previous close and declined early in the session and then rallied higher than the opening price or for a penetration of the Selling Day High—we would ‘put out’ a short sale just as this rally began to exhaust itself after the penetration. This action is not as favorable to our trade as the above." P 39 The Taylor Trading Technique. In summary, when there was no decline followed by a rally that failed to penetrate it is best to pass by the short. While one "could" have shorted and come out ok today in many cases one would get caught in the cross currents. Thus Taylor would have probably passed by shorting today right after the open. Now taking the count as Elovemer did it was a buy day. First, some Taylor quotes from his book The Taylor Trading Technique "The Short Sale Day Low is our point to watch and we watch for it to be reached or for the price to sell under this point, since this is where we buy our long stock." p28 Since today was a buy day by Elovemer count then yesterday 2-4-09 was an SS day. It is very important to watch the close oin the SS day to judge where you will probably be buying your long at on the next day. In this case the low close on the SS day 2-04-09 indicated a further decline on the next day 2-5. So one wouold be expecting to buy probably go long on a lower low than the previous days low made on 2-4. "Now, we go back to the close of the Short Sale Day and we find that it was a ‘flat’ closing, then from this indication we expect a lower opening on the Buying Day and so far this would cause the low to be made FIRST and is a stronger indication when made early in the session that a rally would start from this low and hold the gains for a strong closing" p28 "On a Buying Day when the stock rallies from the low and the gain in points is sufficiently large, we sell out on the same day."p27 "The Buying Day—for our long stock provided the decline ends at or near this low but we can with reasonable certainty figure whether this low will be our buying ‘spot’ or if we may not expect further concessions to buy on and we get this indication from the way the stock closes on the Short Sale Day. We get this indication by watching the close and whether prices are up or down, that is down from the high of day or up from the low of day, weak or strong. Remember, we are watching the prices on a Short Sale Day trying to anticipate the coming point at which we can buy or go ‘long’" p 27 What would Taylor have done on 2-5-09 if the count said it was a buying day? First, he would have taken note of the close on the previous day (ss day) and seeing it close weak he would have expected the decline to continue on down after the open on 2-5. Therefore, he would have waited and as the tape indicated the decline was stopping he would have went long. Within an hour or so of the opening he would have been long and probably flat by the close today 2-5 with a good gain.

Eiger, presume you meant "No Supply" on D & G bar rather than "No Demand"

In this post, I explained to the OP that following your system when things are not looking good is easier said than done sometimes and thought I'd explain further. Today (Dec 12) was one of those days where if I told you the end result of my P&L you might say, nice day. Ending P&L: $779.89/ct after commissions Not the greatest, but acceptable. Now, allow me to take you through how this day progressed and you can see why it's easier said than done to follow your system 100% and not lose faith. I am currently focusing on 3 markets to trade - ES, EC/6E and ZN. The main reason being that I am trying to be more particular in my setups and instead of forcing on the ES only, I find it easier to be patient using 3 markets. ES trades for Dec 12: +1.25, -2.25, -2, -2, -1.5, -1.75, -1.5, +5.75 = -4.00 on Day EC trades for Dec 12: -13, -12, +26, -9, -9, +6, +36 = +25 on Day ZN trades for Dec 12: +21, -4, +19, +10 = +46 on Day As you can see, not the easiest path to get from point A to point B. We know that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line and while it's much easier having a day where you start at 0.00 to +1,000 with no losses, that's not entirely realistic IMO. But if you were to look at starting at 0.00 and ending at $779.89, it'd be hard to argue that was a bad day. I posted this b/c in the other thread the OP is showing some solid faith in his system and following it. Once you know that your system makes money, then it's a little easier to do this. Of course you need to get there, but once there, you can do it. In the end this business is first about knowing that your system makes money over time and then doing it while minimizing emotional impact. I still get frustrated at times but days like today remind me of how important it is to keep doing it. I had no idea going into the day that the ES would be so rough today. I had no idea that the EC would make money, but only after a few losses. And I had no idea that the ZN would be like taking candy from a baby. And I have no idea what tomorrow will hold. I just have the faith that I can do the job and follow the plan. As soon as I stray from that, then I am subject to P&L fluctuations not planned for.

Trading by price -- and "volume" -- requires a perceptual and conceptual readjustment that many people just can't make, and many of those who can make it don't want to. But making that adjustment is somewhat like parting a veil in that doing so enables one to look at the market in a very different way, one might say on a different level. One must first accept the continuous nature of the market, the continuity of price, of transactions, of the trading activity that results in those transactions. The market exists independently of you and of whatever you're using to impose a conceptual structure. It exists independently of your charts and your indicators and your bars. It couldn't care less if you use candles or bars or plot this or that line or select a 5m bar interval or 8 or 23 or weekly or monthly or even use charts at all. Therefore, trading by price and volume, or at least doing it well, requires getting past all that and perceiving price movement and the balance between buying pressure and selling pressure independently of the medium used to manifest or illlustrate or reveal the activity. For example, the volume bar is a record of transactions, nothing more. The volume bar does not "mean" anything. It does not predict. It is not an indicator. Arriving at this particular destination seems to require travelling a tortuous route since so few are able to do it. But it's a large part of the perceptual and conceptual readjustment that I referred to earlier, i.e., one must see differently and one must create a different sense of what he sees, he must perceive differently and create a different structure based on those perceptions. As long as one believes, for example, that "big" volume must or at least should accompany "breakouts" and clings to this belief as ardently as he clings to his rosary beads or rabbit's foot or whatever, he will be unable to make this perceptual and conceptual shift. If you can work your imagination and use it to travel in time, you will have a far easier time of this than most. Imagine, for example, a brokerage office at the turn of the 20th century. All you have to go by is transaction results -- prices paid -- on a tape. No charts. No price bars. No volume bars. You are then in a position wherein you must decide whether to buy or sell based on price action and your judgment of whether buying or selling pressures are dominant. You have to judge this balance by what's happening with price, e.g., how long it stays at a particular level, how often price pokes higher, how long it stays there, the frequency of these pokes, at what point they take hold and signal a climb, the extent of the pokes, whether or not they fail and when and where, etc., all of which is the result of the balance between buying and selling pressures and the continuous changes in dominance and degree of dominance. One way of doing this using modern toys and tricks is to watch a Time and Sales window and nothing else after having turned off the bid and ask and volume. But this wouldn't do you any good unless you spent several hours at it and no one is going to do that. Another would be to plot a single bar for the day and watch it go up and down, but nobody's going to do that, either. Perhaps the least onerous exercise would be to follow a tick chart, set at one tick. Then follow it in real time. Not later, but real time. Granted this means a lot of screen time and only a handful of people are going to do it. But those few people are going to part that veil and understand the machinery at a very different level than most traders. Once this is understood, the idea of wondering -- much less worrying -- about what a particular volume bar "means" is clearly ludicrous, as is the "meaning" of a particular price bar or "candle". If it is not understood, then the trader spends and wastes a great deal of time over "okay so this volume bar is higher than that volume bar but lower than this other volume bar, and price is going up (or down or nowhere), so...".

Lets get real. The CCI does provide the basis for working trading if its used properly. First: what is required? People trade with the trend or countertrend. Lets say that trading with the trend is easier (longer moves, and more forgiving because if you get your exit timing wrong the retracement frequently won't reach your stop before the move continues, although obviously a trend will finish or do a larger timescale retracement at some time). When you trade with the trend you either hang on trailing stops or you exit at targets that (for most people and strategies) should be at least twice as big as your planned losses. So, can Woodies' use of the CCI help with this? Yes. Its a trend following indicator (its just the current price minus a CCI length simple moving average divided by a normalizing factor (so that reaching 200 is similar to reaching the 2sd bollinger band ... similar)). If you wait until its above zero for a while then the chance is you have an up trend. If you wait for a pullback to zero or a little below you have a pullback of sufficient magnitude to feed liquidity into continuation. So you buy. Then you have to exit. How? When it hits the 2sd bollinger (200cci) or when it pulls back from that perhaps? etc etc So basically Woodie has taken standard reasons for entering and exiting a trade and framed them around a 14sma and 6sma based indicator. They can work. Do most people succeed with them? No. Do most people succeed with any trading method? No. Is it the best method? No. Most would do far better understanding trend, support and resistance, and price action (and where it and volume action are relevant) than messing with the cci. But is it that wcci doesn't work? No. So what has to change? Study price based methods and yourself. In simplicity and understanding lies the holy grail.

Welcome. There is more than one definition for No Demand. In the book the base definition is given as a narrow spread bar closing up with volume less than the previous two bars. The Trade guider definition, also in the book, is a narrow spread bar closing up on volume less than the previous two bars AND closing on the middle or low of its range. Joel Pozen would define a No Demand as simply any bar closing up with volume less than the previous two bars. Or a bar closing equal, on volume less than the previous two bars with the previous bar higher than the bar two bars ago. Still others would include any buying bar (a bar with a higher high, but not a lower low than the previous bar) that has a narrower range and with volume less than the previous two bars is No Demand. If it closes either up from or equal to the previous bar. The underlying element is volume less than the previous two bars on equal or up closes. Note if the close is down and the we have a buying bar with the close on the low, the we have a hidden Upthrust in the form of No Demand. Sorry, I don't think I have really answered your question. I guess the reason is, the question you should be asking yourself is "How am I comfortable defining No Demand within the context of market behavior and amidst the various possible elements set forth?". I have added this beautiful pic from Monday. Note the two No Demands on the right of the Dotted line. The first one obviously closes on its high and has a smaller range than the previous bar. Plus it has volume less than the previous two bars and is a buying bar. The second one has a greater range than the previous bar and closes near its low. It has volume less than the previous two bars. It is a buying bar (positional relationship), but the low closes signals no real buying going on. This is a Hidden UpThrust in the form of No Demand. TG software would NOT pick up either of these.

Hi Gordon G, remember weakness apppears on up bars not down bars, you have marked all down bars with volume less than previous two not up bars. so simply put,. down trend looking to go short look for weakness in up bars up trend looking to go long look for strength in down bars regards sheptrader

Depends on your speed of learning and passion. You really need a thick skin to go through the massive pain in the early development stages. I suggest you get a mentor. That will reduce your learning curve.