tawe trader

Perhaps seeing Brownsfan having a go at VSA has made me want me to show another successful VSA trade. Who says VSA doesn't work ??? Here's another trade from last Friday morning, back-to-back wins. Hopefully everyone here on this thread can learn from each others wins or losses and experiences, instead of being just plain negative with their comments. This trade was a bit short-term for me as I tend to look for the longer swing of pts, but it worked out ok. After seeing some very high volume coming in on S1, I went for a 'bounce' trade. I went long the FTSE at 5906 and got out at 5926, less then 10 mins later. I banked 20 pts from this. Tawe

Here's a trade from last Friday morning. I didn't know it at the time but the mkt was giving a 'clue' that bad news from GE was coming. The first FTSE chart is 15 mins, the first upthrust had a high on R1 and resistance. Later on the mkt made another upthrust and there didn't seem much demand for the upside. The second chart is a 5 min, I went short on the bar that was looking weak and just sitting on the trendline. I was lucky in this trade, due to my timing. I am normally slow to enter, this time I wasn't and it went in my favour, very quickly. As you can see the mkt plunged and I bagged 69pts. I was a bit too quick in getting out (another weakness of mine) as the mkt continued down further to S1, before some volume and support came in. Tawe .

I have a weekend away from the computer to give my eyes a rest and there's a whole load of turmoil on this excellent thread. Constructive criticism is fine, we can all learnt from that, but for people to keep having a go at VSA'ers I find quite sad. I don't hang about and post on the indicator threads slagging off MACD, CCI or Stochastics !!!! I personally think that VSA is the 'best thing since sliced bread' but there are obviously people out there who are not convinced, which is fair enough. Some may say it's a load of crap but it is a form of chart reading which is more art that anything else, which is where I believe Tradeguider (and any other VSA software) struggles. Even experienced VSA'ers will have slightly different opinions, depending how they look at the 'background' for clues and trade off different timeframes. When I have a losing VSA trade it always because of ME and not a fault of VSA. It will be mostly due to:- incorrect reading of the chart, impatience or greed. Regards Tawe

I get your meaning now.

Sledge, Don't you mean wall of SUPPORT around 1.9705 ? Regards Tawe

DB, thanks for the advice. You are correct in saying that the hard part is in the doing, not the knowing. I had a bit of a idea beforehand of where to exit (around S2) and/or previous resistance but I didn't get out there and this time I was lucky to come away with something. Another lesson learnt (hopefully) for me. Cheers Tawe

As I haven't posted for a while, I thought I would post a couple of charts from this weeks FTSE Future, if only to show how I nearly messed up a good trade. The first chart is the daily chart and as you can see the FTSE has had a good rally recently but the volume is poor, there was a no demand bar last Friday and the mkt rose again on the Monday on ever so slightly higher volume. The next chart is Monday's 60 min, as you can see the mkt closed up again, finishing with a wide spread up bar on high volume. After seeing this I decided to go for an overnight short trade. The last chart is from yesterday and the mkt did indeed fall and my trade went into profit. My mistake here was not taking the good gains and exiting near the lows of the day (S2 support). My greed emotion had kicked in and I held on, in the hope for (wrong I know) a bigger swing of pts. By the close I had given back a fair few pts. Later on in the evening with my FTSE short still open I watched the US mkts during the FOMC minutes announcement. The FTSE trades pretty much in parallel to the US mkts and as you know the ES declined down to support (and dragged the after-hrs FTSE down with it) after the FED minutes were announced. After seeing the high volume down bars on the ES (which Eiger has explained in more detail on his post #930) the mkt looked quite bullish, so I decided not to risk anymore upside and I exited my FTSE short around 7.30pm last night (2.30pm US). This turned out to be the correct decision, as it was pretty much the low of the afternoon US session. I think the lesson here (to myself and anyone else who struggles with exits) is that even though I was correct in my mkt analysis and entry, the hardest part is knowing when to exit. In this case due to the greed factor, it could have quite easily gone from a very good, profitable trade, back to a breakeven trade. In the end in turned out ok, thankfully. Regards Tawe .

Nvesta, Even an expert chart (VSA) reader is not going to be correct 100% of the time. All we can do is 'try' and read a chart to the best of our ability and put the law of probability to work. If we can't see a clear indication, them maybe it's wise to do not anything until a low-risk or clear situation/setup appears. http://www.probabilitytheory.info/index.htm Eiger it is indeed something that a Brit would say....... like that was a cracking game of football Regards Tawe

Hey no probs, erie. I suppose it's good to be afraid, just like in the mkts. Start everyday with the fear of having your account wiped out and then trade accordingly to prevent that ever happening. You never know, one day your spider may decide it's bored and go for a stroll around TLab, if it goes any where near my dog it would most probably be eaten, she is disgusting in what she finds and eats. :o Blowish - I also like the Robert the Bruce story. If nothing else, perseverance is definitely required in this game. Regards Tawe .

I have found Seb's trade / post on the original VSA thread. It is post 1346. The trade he has shown took place on the 18th Jan this year. .

BearBull are you talking about Seb Manby ? If you are, then he did post a 'real' trade he carried out in the original TLab VSA thread. It was a GBP/USD short and he even attached a copy of his trading account showing his trade details and his winnings. If I remember correctly he banked approx. 28 pips at around £50 a pip. Not bad for a couple of mins 'work'. I have never met or have any connection with him, but I though I would highlight this. .

Hello Mr erierambler, Any chance you could change your avatar ? your spider freaks me out somewhat I know it's not going to jump out and bite me from the screen but to us Arachnophobics it's a bit ................... You talk/write good stuff so I wouldn't want to skip through any of your worthwhile posts. Cheers from a spider-fearing trader than won't ever visit or live in Australia due to the above phobia !!

Hello Gordon I am not quite sure of your question but I did notice an interesting finish to the days action. Not long before closing (times are UK based) the was a very high volume down bar, very near to the days low (marked with green arrows). I have also attached a 10min YM chart. Could there be hidden buying in that bar by the so called 'smart money' # Pls ignore the blue lines on the chart, I forgot about my crosshairs when I took a screen snapshot. .

JJ, here's what I know. GBP/USD - 'cable' (in the 1800s, the pound/dollar exchange rate was transmitted via transatlantic cable) Out of interest with you being Canadian, do you know why the CAD is nicknamed the 'loonie' ? Regards Darren

Great call PP, from where your long entry point is the EUR/USD is well up over 50 pips. You should move to Europe for more sociable trading hours ! Regards Darren

tradproj, I have noticed that there is one for sale on ebay, have a look at:- hxxp://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=190188487740&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=009 If the link doesn't work, try changing the hxxp to http.

There is a chapter called Pushing through Supply / Support Lines in the book. 'If you observe a wide spread up bar on high volume, punching thro' the top of a trend channel / down-trendline (supply line) and the next bar is level or higher, then you would now be expecting higher prices. Any low volume down-bar (potential test) will confirm this view. I believe the opposite is true for pushing down through an up sloping channel / trendline. There is also the possible act of gapping through support / resistance. JJ, that seems a valid statement. I think the trick with VSA (like many others have said) is to look left on the chart to see where prices have come from, before acting on what is currently happening. Where has the mkt been ? and then compare that to where it is now. It is worth asking yourself this question on a continual basis. 'They' say that TA doesn't work, as past prices can't predict the future but it the case of VSA I believe that looking at the past is vital to making it work on the hard right edge. A wide spread high volume up bar after a rally 'could' be seen as bearish. A wide spread high volume up bar after a decline pushing through a trendline 'could' be seen as bullish, effort to rise etc and the start of a possible rally and change of trend.

Hello lote_tree, if you have read this thread you would see that I also trade the FTSE future and I have managed to bag some pts since I started posting my charts. Yes, in an ideal world we would like to have cash mkt (live) intraday volume to help us trade but until that is available I believe the futures mkt volume is the next-best-thing. There is EOD volume available for the FTSE cash index. I have also noticed frequent volume 'spikes' in the FTSE future which is normally followed by a good size move. I can only assume that the in-the-know traders have some advance notice of some important news and then they pile into (or go short) the FTSE future contract. The main difference between cash and future mkt which has been previously discussed is 'testing' where in the cash mkt it needs to be low to be successful, but if the futures traders see a successful 'cash' test they then pile in, which can lead to a high volume futures test. As somebody else suggested, (if it can be done) you could add the intraday volume of the FTSE's say 15 largest companies by mkt cap ie BP, Shell, Glaxo, Rio, Bats, Vodafone and the big banks etc. Just out of interest, why do you use a 7 min timeframe ? I usually have a range of various timeframes open, from 3mins to 60 min. Darren

PP - thanks for the clarification.

Hey it's nice to have this thread back online.........I have missed my VSA fix ! PP - you have confused me now (not hard I know) with your 'squat'. In my eyes it isn't a narrow range bar or am I reading in wrong ? If I was looking at the EUR/USD chart as a bar chart I wouldn't class it as a narrow range bar but do you because it is a candlestick with a narrow spread between open and the close ? Am I correct in assuming the Tom Williams determines the range/spread as the distance from the bar's high to low ? Cheers Darren

Yes zdo, it seems that some professionals / 'smart money' have very deep pockets. They accumulate while prices are falling and are then able to stomach prices falling even further without getting out or too worried. They know eventually prices will return back to their entry level and travel beyond to give them their desired profits. Which is the message that PP rightly tries to put across, just because we see wide spread down bars on increasing volume it is not a signal to jump straight into the mkt and go long. There is momentum at play (as we know one of Newton's laws) and it takes a while to stop a falling mkt (in all timeframes) even with large scale buying / demand coming in. Merry xmas everyone and hopefully this excellent VSA thread will continue in the New Year. .

Thanks chaps.......sometimes the easy part is getting in. Good trade Jwhite. I find the hardest part is giving the trade room and letting it 'run' when your actually in it. Time to sit on your hands and do nothing, a bit like what Jesse Livermore has said. Patience is bloody hard - but perhaps that is where the secret lies ! .

Here's a before and after 10 min chart of yesterday's Mini-Dow. In the first chart the mkt dropped pretty much from the open at 2.30pm UK time. From 4.40pm onwards there were wide-spread downbars on increasing volume finishing on a possible selling climax bar on very high volume at 5pm. From what we have learn from VSA - strength comes in (hidden) on downbars. I looked to go long once the yellow dotted line was broken with a stop under the lowest bar. The next chart is over 3 hours later. As you can see the mkt went sideways for a while before breaking above the selling climax bar and from this dotted line to upper dotted line there was at least 100 pts available if using wide trailing stops. Using this entry set-up it would have got you into the long trade a lot earlier than the trendline break. . YM 10min Mini-Dow_Tues 18th Dec #1.doc YM 10min Mini-Dow_Tues 18th Dec #2.doc

Yes I have made up the loss, a couple of trades on the Dow and S&P last week helped. Thanks for asking JJ. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a FTSE trade I've carried out this morning. I have gone up a timeframe due to something Sebastian said about mkt noise. I think the 10min/15 min timeframe may suit my trading style better due to the fact I prefer wider stops. This morning's 10 min FTSE Future chart is attached and I went long for a change !!! The FTSE was down big time this morning, due to Fridays poor session in the US and US futures were down this morning. Reasons for long trade - I was looking for a quick bounce of a possible 10 to 20 pts. 1. In the background (not shown) on the hourly chart there is support around the 6300 level. 2. 9am (green arrow) - ultra high volume down bar closing on S2 (at 6295) 3. The next bar at 9.10am makes a lower low but closes up and the close is higher than previous down bar with less volume (blue arrow) has the major supply dried up for the time being ? So now I assumed there was a fair amount of buying in the 9am large spread down bar plus we have hourly chart support together with S2 support. I was looking to go long once the high of the 9.10 bar was taken out (marked with a yellow dotted line). The high was passed and I went long in the FTSE cash mkt. As I was going against the downtrend I got out on the bar marked with the red arrow and I managed a 21 pt gain. This is more of a high risk long entry. I could have waited to see if there was a low volume test later on before going long but I think if you are not too greedy there are a few pts to be made on one of these bounce's. FTSE Fut_Mon 17th Dec - Long S2.doc

Hey JJ, I seen the upthrust on my YM chart but I didn't go short as it was Friday 4pm UK time and I had been watching / trading the FTSE since 8am and the dog needed walking. It would have been a beautiful short to hold until the close though. I was already long S&P (cash mkt) so what I did do though after seeing the upthurst, was use it as a signal to get out of my long trade at 1485.2 for a profit of 6.2 pts - not that far off the high of the day ! VSA is a great tool, it can be used to get you into a trade and it can also give you a signal of when to get out and take profits and bank more pts than a trailing stop.