Bearbull

Zeon, And ofcourse another ideal long setup, hammer, doji, dragonfly right at the support from left 1963, palm tree in florida (VSA mantra), all signs of strength. They talked about all the 9 principles of signs of strength and weakness in their seminars , however when somebody from the audience asked where is the entry and the stop loss, in short, how do you trade this. The answer was: it is up to the skill of the trader, all the 3 presenters claimed their style of trading would not suit everyone;)

Zeon, Hope you have gained more insight now , another illustration to reinforce what has been outlined in the posts here, NQ 1,2 : prices fall with increasing vol. to 1965 , and bounces off the up trendline, you then have the classic VSA signals, downbar on high vol, followed by tests on low vol, Go Long, NQ 3, however the traders had other ideas, the prices go down on low vol breaking the trendline because the demand is of poor quality. they do not tell you that in the VSA school. Had the market gone up from 1965, they would have come out and claimed how good VSA signals are. Have seen this countless times in their seminars, illustrations of setups which panned out. My final effort to provide you with the incentive to seek answers from the charts rather than from any outside source.

More charts here, Zeon

Once again understand your frustration which actually stems from the fact that the market is not behaving as per your expectation based upon a pattern or an indicator be it VSA or a price based derivative. or S/R or Trendline. 1. If you reflect on this with an open mind, the message is loud and clear, the price is going to do what it is going to do. It cannot be dictated just because something on our chart(RSI, CCI divergence, head and shoulder, VSA no demand and upthrust, moving average crossover, doji, engulfing bar etc) tells us that the market should go up or down. 2. For any indicator or pattern , there will always be two identical examples , one which panned out and other did not. This has to do with the inherent uncertainty and probability of outcome in the market. It is logical to ask why did demand or supply emerge at a particular location but illogical to expect it to emerge there just because the indicator or the pattern on my chart says so. It is like shouting out: what right the buyers or sellers had to come out at this price and time. and take the prices in the wrong direction:crap: 3. If you study Wyckoff's analysis (believe the pdf file is on this thread) of a year's price action, you will consistently note how he is detached from the outcome, the entry is taken based upon his reading of price/vol, then he looks for ongoing signals which will confirm, or contradict his trade or force him to modify as the trade is managed. 4. It is going to take a while to reach this stage of detachment where one approaches the market without fear or anxiety and allow the market to dictate your action. Hence the need for the exercise with 15min charts etc which I suggested. It is not a question of singing anybody's tune, I have gone through the same stages and finally it dawned that the answer is not out there but in the charts themselves. It will put you in the driving seat, in control, not of the market but how you manoeuvre, if there is a diversion, you follow that path without resisting, think Db posted an excellent analogy of being a passenger on a bus somewhere, worth looking it up. 5. You mentioned the 2 identical chart patterns, actually you are looking at different time frames, 5min and 1min, and that is why I directed you to look at both the setups on 5min, so the answer was there. We are all looking at the same price action, as you say what is in front, but interpretation is based entirely on what we have been taught/observed and what we believe and expect. Surely you can appreciate that. Anyway I will make another attempt via the attached: 1. NQ 5min (a) 2 arrows showing climatic vol, this has been the ongoing problem for the past 6years with VSA tutoring, and has been ingrained in many mindsets, wait for a no demand, upthrust, short and vice versa. In the chart the first trendline (black) is broken following just such a no demand and yes you could have shorted but then prices find support at 1970 , here the bars are narrow with low vol, then the market reacts up once again with low vol, NQ 5min (b), if there was supply, how could the prices go up on low vol, the demand must be of good quality, hence this was absorption . Hence you have to modify your stance and go with the flow of the market. 2. Once the prices rise above the swing high, the second trendline (blue) can be inserted. and price action read in a similar manner. (NQ 5min © (d)), prices rise after retracement on low vol, why? there is no supply in this instance, but yes there will be cases when it encounters resistance and prices will plummet, and VSA team will point out that as no demand , their ideal setup. 3. Now we move on the next day 7th May, the short around 2000 which has led to all this controversy. NQ 5min (e), again the black trendline is from previous day, you can take the previous days low and draw a new trendline (blue) after the prices break the previous day's high. And again a new trendline on the day (brown). Now compare the price action and the bar ranges once this trendline is broken to that observed around 1990, zoom into 2min or 1min and study, am sure you will find it a revealing and rewarding exercise. This is the best I can do.

No this is nothing to do with feelings, it is all to do with how price behaves with vol at various swing points, S/R levels and trendlines. I will try to get some charts together later, however it is imperative for a start to clear the mind of all the VSA jargon , i.e markets do not like upbars on high vol, the new slogan: principles create patterns, who is moving the price, professionals, syndicates, smart money etc. Focus on supply and demand, cause and effect. The Mantra should be Effort - Volume, what is the Result - price/range/close. Best to start the day with a 15min chart, note any previous support/resistance levels from past 5 days, later you can go to higher timeframe and longer time periods for other S/R levels. Now start plotting trendlines in realtime, get hold of Db-ebook . Just observe the various swings without thinking what you are going to do or would have done. Examine the price action at microlevels on 1min chart or even on 5min and observe how the price reacts on certain vol at various s/r levels. On the NQ 5min chart watch that retracement on the 6th around 1990 level and then the next day at 2005 level, observe the range of bars, go into 1min and carry out the same exercise. again without the VSA jargon. Remember market can go up on low vol and fall on low vol. just depends on the right context. Just because there is upbar on low vol, does not mean there is No Demand, THERE IS NO SUPPLY, again all in the right place. More later, have to get back to work.

Gary, having seen the videos, I thought the short trade setup should be taken after a buying climax i.e SOW, upbar on high vol, why did you choose to go short after a downbar on high vol. Also any particular reason why the first trade is on 10min and the next one , a long setup on a 3min.

Can understand your frustration. Attached 45min(prefer this timeframe, 9bars/day) and 1min chart, the support and resistance levels are evident on the 45min Yes on the 1min a trendline (demand) can be drawn but then observe the climatic action , followed by a number of upbars on no demand (VSA Jargon) and Lower Highs and Lower lows. You can scale out your long position , all depends on your strategy and tactics and then on the break of the demand line , consider a short , as the path of least resistance especially in view of the strong resistance around 2000. Careful study of the 1min chart after that rapid mark up in price on high vol will reveal all the price/vol principles . Once again a thorough study of Db's ebook is highly recommended, hasten to add if one is looking for buy/sell setups then one is going to be disappointed, however to gain knowledge on trendlines, support/resistance, price/vol relationships and context, it is invaluable.

JWhite That is pretty good assessment of price/volume action, Get hold of Dbphoenix's e-book, there are very informative sections on this aspect.

As I have not read the SMI course, what do you reckon are the main modifications to the original Wyckoff. Gary Fuller at ltg-trading , I presume employs the former as there are numerous references in his archived charts to "COB - change of behavior", "Jumping over the Creek", "Break of Ice", terms which Wyckoff never used.

Anybody attend the VSA weekend symposiums or the webcast, Sebastian stated here that they would be talking about exact strategies/tactics i.e trade entry, management etc using VSA principles rather than the eternal hindsight bar by bar analysis which was being read with uncanny accuracy

Perhaps you could illustrate with some charts with tradesetups. Joel Pozen who claims to be an expert at Price/Vol, and undertakes tutoring at enormous cost employs the 6 and 14CCI, he also has 2 moving averages which are employed to emulate 14CCI.

folks, have you got any preferences , trading forex or currency futures(regulated on CME), could you recommend any sound brokers. also do any of you use futuresbetting, understand the company based in Gibraltar, has gone into liquidation.

Your input in the VSA thread and also in the proposed Wyckoff thread by Dbphoenix and gassah would be very welcome particularly as you mention that your focus is much more on price action around significant support/resistance levels than indicators now.

Great idea, am sure it will prove informative and educational to quite a few who are interested in Wyckoff and avoid the unnecessary controversy and lengthy posts being generated for and against VSA or Wyckoff. This way folks can read both threads and derive benefit.

How about previous support , now acting as resistance. Now note the price action via say 2min or 1min chart at that level. Read post 927 and 942 by Dbphoenix for more info.on context.

Attached is the trendline on the same chart, now read post 941 "In Wyckoff's course he states "It (the trend) is the most important thing to know about the market or an individual stock." Since the intermediate trend is down I'm looking to short near the top of the range. The spring and the strong response to it the next day suggested a move to the top of the range. The rally hasn't been impressive so I don't see any reason to change the plan. If it does jump I'll make it prove itself more than I would a downside break because the counter-trend breaches are more likely to fail." Next go back to your current chart. If you trading off a 5min chart, your focus has to be on that, entry/risk/target, any tested setup/tactics on 5min is not going to work on 15min , both stop loss/target obviously will be different. However the intermediate trend can be determined from 15min or even 30min and then you can look for high probability trades on 5min consistent with the trend as per wyckoff (posted by gassah in 941)

It should be mutually beneficial, know that you have a good handle on Wyckoff principles and understand VSA, so your input is always greatly appreciated. It is heartening to learn that it is the pressure brought about on TG folks from the posts here that has compelled them to drop all those indicators on their charts during their recent webinar presentations and focus more on VSA principles which as has been stated previously are in part consistent with those of Wyckoff. Now eagerly awaited by the VSA trading community is the long awaited upgrade of their Tradeguider charting software, which they have been promising since 2002, hopefully after they have collected over $700k or more from the 3 weekend Webinars in posh hotels in Chicago, Las Vegas and London:rofl:

Well habi, you are not going to get these kind of details provided by Db on entries and trade management in any of the tradeguider webinars, bootcamp cd or in their books and it is freely given, with all the negativity directed , another guy would have walked away and not given a toss. This really is the essence of Wyckoff, take my word for it, I have studied both. You really need to pay attention to Db's comments on : once you are in the trade, then it has to managed via observed higher highs, lows etc along with demand, supply lines and finally vol on violation of these. There is no point going ga-ga on every twist and turn and forcing to inject meaning into every bar thereafter, the VSA experts are adept at doing just that in hindisight;)

Well, habi , you will be hard pressed to get a better explanation than what Db has posted. You do not have to manage your trade via 1min or tick chart, if you are comfortable with 5min , stick with it, the key is to be consistent, where you move stops etc depends entirely on your risk tolerance. You could adopt Tom Williams advice of moving the stop below a bar which closes above the previous close in case of a long trade and keep doing so as long as there is only one down bar, 2 downbar and you are out. Prices then may or may not keep going up. It all depends on how thoroughly you have tested your setup, entry, trade management, rewards/risk etc.

Come on folks, is this tick-tack on VSA/Wyckoff/Candlesticks really necessary, afterall they all represent price/volume i.e supply/demand pressures, albeit from different angles. There are some who have studied both Wyckoff and VSA and realise this, however there are others who wish to pursue the VSA path only, and if they are able to read what they post in hindsight with the same degree of efficiency/accuray in realtime, trade with realmoney and are able to keep their cash till ringing that way, fine, that is all that matters at the end of the day. But you will find that even at Tradeguider, they have difficulty reading the market purely on VSA, that is why their charts are full of other indicators , diamonds, H stops, trendlines, channels, moving averages on vol, volume thermometer, trend clusters (have a look at their archived videos) Hence if others wish to express their viewpoints via Candlesticks or Wyckoff, what is the problem, why not leave the egos on the mantlepiece for a change and make an attempt to understand other persons viewpoint, otherwise we are going to end up with another VSA thread with over 100 pages still with no clarity in sight, that is why in my previous posts I have requested the Tradeguider Experts to come in and sort this out, rather than make periodic appearances with a video here and there, merely to promote their products and webinars.:helloooo: Looks like James will have to consider opending VSA III, who knows like those Rocky and Rambo movies we could make it to VSA IX;)

Unless you study and assimilate the original Wyckoff's course and then also study Undeclared secrets, MTM etc it is almost impossible to point out/recognize/understand/explain meaningfully the glaring differences. As you can observe the whole drawn out debate ending with Db being told to get on his bike is due to the fact that reading buying and selling pressure via smaller time frame is being equated to scalping, this is a fundamental error and as I have said unless one has thoroughly understood the original Wyckoff teaching, it will remained misunderstood. He was not advocating taking positions via tick or 1min chart. If you wish to trade via 15min30min fine, however the smaller time frame allow a micro view into the price action, wave flows in that 15min bar, i.e how many times price knocked at the bottom or the top where it opened , how rapidly it moved to the high or low, how rapidly it was rejected etc, this then allows the trader to better understand the meaning of that 15min open/high/low/close in conjunction with the vol. We are all on the same path here, nobody is right or wrong, just different viewpoints and nobody is forcing anybody to adopt one or the other. The choice is ours for at the end of the day all that matters is what is in our account regardless of who says what on this thread or any other. HASTA LA VISTA;)

Then the obvious question is why is that after 7-10yrs of VSA being around, that vast majority are still engulfed in the fog, afterall you folks at TG are not exactly rocket scientists that you are in possession of such abstruse and esoteric knowledge that it cannot be explained and illustrated via charts, realtime trades etc in clear, concise, uncomplicated and logical manner rather than getting folks hooked onto expensive software and seminars and forever going around in circles with so many cutesy terms absent in the original Wyckoff's course from which VSA has been derived in the first place although never been acknowledged.

Price is indeed the Truth, have observed on countless occasions, especially in bull runs, prices crawling up all day long on low vol, previously used to look upon those tiny bars with low vol as no demand especially against some resistance to the left,, short it only to see price sailing past my stops on low vol, then it dawned that low vol is the reflection of paucity of sellers and rising price was that of buying pressure. As you keeping saying volume is not intent.

Here is the relevant chart, the commentary is in their archives

Looks like Gary Fuller & Co at ltg are also of similar opinion http://www.ltg-trading.com/20080318.pdf