jolee

I did this exercise many , many moons ago which I'd read about from some trading book. Sit down somewhere and play the heads or tails coin toss game for an hour or two. If you loose , you'll loose one coin. If you win you get two coins. That's all descretionary trading is about - except you can also cover the coin after flipping and not play which in trading is to get out of the trade before loosing the coin or you can win more coins by trailing stops. I can't imagine how after learning all about chart patterns , trendlines, support and resistance, breath indicators and internals and momentum, price action and indicators, market profile and price volume ladder, etc whatever- why we still can't enter a trade with a better than 50% chance win or no better than a coin toss.

Could you please give us a link to "courts stated that their bid/ask prices are "pretend" or make believe"? Thanks, Laurus I'm sorry I don't have the link and I can't remember how I got to the video showing the court documents - but I'm sure it's from that Heitkoetter chap from Rockwell Trading who had used the video to evidence and explain why he doesn't trade the cash forex.

I heard the cash FX market don't have a centralized clearing house and the courts stated that their bid/ask prices are "pretend" or make believe. So was advised not to trade cash FX but to only trade the futures currency market. Is this correct advice? Where do the central banks, giant corporations , hedge fund, fund managers etc. go to trade currency? Thanks in advance

Dr. Brooks daily updates and comments and advice available from brookspriceaction.com. Best of luck trading.

Here's Dr. Brooks chart and comments for today 092509BrooksComments.PDF 092509ESchart.pdf

In this case and all cases , you must know what you're suppose to be doing. If you had written in your trading plan as one of your setup/patterns to trade is " Trade pullbacks to the trend or 20 EMA" then you should have taken trade whether you see it as a L1 or L2. This is where we make the mistake of not being able to see the forest because of the trees and miss out on a good potential trade. Also this pattern is so important and fundamental that Guideline 29 of Mr. Brooks book says - " you can't make money in the markets unless you trade pullbacks off the trend" Best of luck trading.

I'm sorry, I don't have any factual hard evidence that Mr. Brooks is a successful trader. It was an assumption on my part. I know what people say when one assumes...

We must remember that Al Brooks PA strategies and set ups are based on his many years of trading sucessfully. He has integrated whatever relevant and significant chart info such as S/R , HOY, Open , etc along with his price pattern set ups when trading. He mentions these and others are the things to be mindful of in his webinar and book. The set ups themselves are not that complicated. Failed (bear - bull) flag , channel line, wedge, trend line breakouts are traded because they had failed to follow thru but reversed after the break out at support or resistance, thus you're buying near resistance and selling near support. His set up to buy H2s and sell L2s is the basic buy or sell the pull back of a trend/20 ema strategy. The trigger to enter all his trades is when price moves 1 tick above / below the prior set-up bar's high/low (entry bar need not close). This is just his preferred entry method. Just be mindful when he uses those setups.ie. from Al " At the open, price gapped down and it's a bearish bar. but I won't swing short because the bar is still above yesterday's low." So should'nt look at those price patterns alone as setups to enter trades. As I see it , it was clear that Forrester mentioned not to trade 1 min patterns. Rather his emphasis was on trading market logic, ie sell at resistance - buy at support kind of thing. In which case, a 1 min will provide the better read for entry. All of above easier said than done in live trading. Still banging my head.:crap:

Yes , I think mutiple day swings are great way to start and you can even practice live trading using Brook's methods with 1 to 50 shares as Wycoff suggested. You can get into options (with 75 - 80 delta) later as you gain confidence for directional plays. Although I study ,observe and utilize the SPY chart, I don't trade it, too expensive. Here is a list of Ultra and Ultra Inverse (when market slides can buy Inverse shares) index related ETFs. You can check them out for free at FreeStockCharts.com - Web's Best Streaming Realtime Stock Charts - Free. Leveraged_InverseETFs.pdf

Er... I think you replied to the wrong person. I personally think Al Brook's methods are brilliant because I'm learning how to anticipate the market bar by bar and also learn what action to take. The market definitly have become more tangible to me since last year. I can see the forest and the trees. Also my first name is Angelina ..... not - psych , LOL . Good luck to you and all

Trying to figure out what to anticipate for - I guess should still stay long but maybe be on a look out for channel over shoot and exit/stop below last bar. Then look for PA for short setup after overshoot. But won't short if L1. Wait for L2 or second entry short. Who knows at this point.

Appears that you want to learn how to trade quickly and to earn quickly also - so here's my suggestion. Read those books/items the OP recommended to get some understanding of the market. But don't have that limiting mentality of 5 books a few websites etc. In the future, explore whatever trading books (library books are free)/websites out there. After a month or 2 of reading/exploring go and explore trading. Since one can't learn to ride a bike or fish by reading a book, same with trading. So open some practice accounts - go and trade, invest paper account. forex, options ,futures, eminis- short term, daytrading, swing trade. Go join some trial trading rooms theres alot out there(usually a month for free). You find out the time commentment and work required real time. YOu find out where you're lacking and what you need to learn. Maybe you like it , hate it , or love it, or its not for you since it is a life style. YOu get to choose. You personally will find out how it might be and what kind of trader you prefer to be. Boils down to - "Must do the work!" After you find out what kind of trader you like to be , then the next step is learn how to be that successful trader - by defintion , a profitable trader. By this time you certanly will know which books will be pertinent for you.

I'll try .... I see...

Yeah, I hear you. I lost lots of money on breakouts. I think Thalestrader must have the knack of reading charts and market conditions so well that he picks the breakouts that work. I wish I had seen this webinar from the Money Show about Oliver Velez's breakout trade criteria when I'd started, gonna test it out also along with Thalestrader's breakout pattern. Al Brooks doesn't seem to incorporate breakouts- maybe he can elaborate why if he happens to drop by this thread again. (not sure if this webinar and material is allowed here but available from Money Show ) MoneyShowBreakOutSetup [ATTACH]12037[/ATTACH]

Mr. Brooks recommends buying H2s and shorting L2s as I see it in your chart (I must have missed a bunch too).

Al doesn't use other time frame charts which is hard to believe . However resistance in daily chart so looking to short first chance we get? http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=11845&stc=1&d=1246519980[/img]

I just checked the file ... seems okay size. Not sure why so massive for you. I'd used the free trial Camtasia recorder so I'm not sure if I'm doing something not right. I'm not an expert with it. I just use it to record my trade and voice comments so I can review my thoughts during a trade and of course to record webinars of interest. Here's the link to the software if anybody is interested. TL! File Share - Traders 1-Click Webhoster you will also need this...Camtasia key1.pdf

Zonetrader, here's a link to one of Al's earlier I-Trade webinars I just uploaded. He explains about the H&L counts and some variations. TL! File Share - Traders 1-Click Webhoster

In twenty years time I might be dead - I rather believe DB pheoniz saying "2 months to never" as being more realistic time frame to trade successfully. Also, I can't believe the twenty year time frame for Mr. Al Brooks to become consistently profitable as he had already stopped practicing medicine and was raising 3 daughters most likely from market profits. (Happy Father's Day to all the fathers). I'll just follow Mr. Brooks advice and stick with the 1 or 2 setups he had recommended for beginners and build from there. Should'nt take twenty years.

You at BW , also look to left at support prices - dont short bottom of trading range.

Food for thought - Lets say the market has opened for an hour. One time frame buying for the next 3 five minute bars follows. What will you do after seeing this?