DbPhoenix

So the NQ reached 25 after all (or, technically, 24.75). Apart from that, this is the gold chart I was referring to today:

As I suggested, it would be helpful if you were to post charts of successful trades as well, along with your reasons for why you believe they were successful.

Again, I'm not looking for an argument. I acknowledge your reasons for trading the ES and leave it at that. But as for the traders who are trading S/R not "being there", somebody was trading, and they prompted two reversals and two breakouts, all of which were worth trading. It looks like tomorrow we'll be opening again at another resistance level, which may make the morning, at least, worth trading. Won't know till then. If the volume is there at those levels, as it was today, I see no reason not to trade them.

Perhaps the suggestions made would be closer to the mark if you were to define the problem. "Improving accuracy" is inadequate, particularly when you say that you "do well" with your strategy as is. Essentially, your strategy is to trade double and triple tops and bottoms off of MP, Globex, and PD highs and lows. You will be more likely to receive useful suggestions if you provide charts showing both successful and unsuccessful trades at each of these levels. It is likely that your successful trades are successful for reasons other than you assume and that your unsuccessful trades share common characteristics that elude you.

Not looking for an argument. Just trying to understand the lure of the ES. Whether I do or not, though, isn't all that important.

That was last week. This is the end of the quarter, and we opened dead on resistance. Doesn't really matter what the range is if it isn't being traded. My point was and is that while the NQ was bouncing around from support to resistance on multiple levels like a pinball, the general consensus was that nothing was going on and nothing was worth trading. This may have been the case with the ES, but, again, if that's the case, why focus on the ES in the first place?

Today turned out to be an excellent one on both the long and short side, at least on the NQ, but all anyone could talk about was how boring and slow it was. Which makes me wonder (again) why people love the ES so much.....

I have responded to your email. As for Studies in Tape Reading, this is available for free as an attachment to the first stickie. Tape Reading and Market Tactics is also good, though not as detailed as Wyckoff's book. None of the books you've listed are "required", though I strongly recommend The Nature of Risk. Before spending money, however, I suggest you study the stickies to this forum as well as Volume Studies. If you do decide to spend money, Stock Speculation Classics includes Stock Market Technique #2 as well as Tape Reading and Market Tactics along with 22 other works for $23.95 plus $4 shipping.

You are not alone in making sense of volume only intermittently. Many people misunderstand it. Many others don't understand it at all. But this is not surprising since so much misinformation about it is circulated here and there. Volume is simply a record of transactions. It has no other meaning. It is not an indicator. It is not a predictor. It doesn't do anything. If volume is high, both selling interest and buying interest are high. If either of these is low, volume will be low. If, as you state, buying interest is "zero", there will no transactions at all and thus no volume. Again, the example which prompted this arc shows that both buying interest and selling interest have recently been very high, i.e., volume is high. The fact that buying interest could not prevent the continued fall of prices shows that it is not as strong as selling interest. Some traders will find these facts regarding the relative strengths of buyers and sellers to be important. Some will not. Those who are interested in pursuing the subject may find the attached pdf regarding "volume studies" informative: W VOLUME STUDIES (14M).pdf

Nothing more than what I said in my previous post. Is there anything in particular about Wyckoff's views on volume and on buying and selling pressure that you disagree with?

Correct re 1 and 2. As for 3, supply lines and demand lines are drawn over supply and under demand to show where selling and buying interest are coming into the market. If there's a trend, eventually they will show it, but that's not their primary job. Here, for example, in a blow-up of the charts I posted earlier, you can see that a number of supply and demand lines can be drawn within a trend, whether it forms a channel or not. What may be the chief value of these lines, though, is to show the trader changes in momentum, and to provide an early warning that there might be trouble: The supply lines to the far right do not show trend but rather changes in the trend.

No one is asking you to go long, Susana, nor is anyone suggesting that you short. You said that there was no buying interest. Clearly there is or volume would not be so high. It is also clear that selling pressure is greater than buying pressure or else price would not be falling. And while for every buyer there may be a seller (assuming a completed transaction), buying pressure is not always equal to selling pressure. If it were, price would never move. Once you understand that, volume will no longer be "unreadable".

Which one is that?..

"Buried treasure. Or buried truth. That is what Magee’s book is. The first edition in 1958 fell on deaf ears (or deaf and dumb ears), so in the day to day practice of his business, Magee did what comes naturally: ran a very successful investment advisory firm and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his more famous book, Technical Analysis of Stock Trends. The potential original audience probably looked at the title General Semantics of Wall Street and passed on by as quickly as possible. After all, if you can’t define it, why read about it? "Now, having reread it, I am consumed with regret that I didn’t read it for breakfast every morning during my 40 years of investing, speculating, gambling, and managing money in the markets. Coming to it now, like an old raccoon with many scars, it is like finding buried wisdom, the codification of all the non-technical things Magee knew about the market, and one of the books which every investor should read, preferably at the beginning of his career. "This book can prepare an investor for the mental game of Wall Street, that is, the inner game the investor’s mind plays with itself as he watches Wall Street whir around. It would be unwise to underestimate the importance of mental attitude and preparation to successful investing and trading. Be assured, the winning tennis player who has great conditioning, wonderful technique, great mechanical skills also possesses something the average tennis player does not have: a diferent mind and attitude. The same thing is true of effective traders. Through the careful study of and application of this book, in conjuntion with The Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, the average investor can become an effective trader." W.H.C. Bassetti

I should also point out that there are a number of real traders trading in the chat room, in real time, and they are more than happy to answer questions (though perhaps not immediately since they are after all trading). Just click "chat" in the toolbar at the top of your screen.

No need to search for a guru. Just stand still and they'll be all over you. But there's nothing particularly difficult about volume. Volume reflects trading activity. As trading activity increases, so does volume. And vice-versa. As for whether the volume is "bullish" or "bearish", i.e., buying pressure is greater than selling pressure, or vice-versa, just look at what price is doing. If it's rising, buying pressure has the upper hand. If it's falling, selling pressure has taken the lead. If they're more or less equivalent, price sits. That's pretty much it. The pdf I posted will elaborate, as will the other links I provided.

No course. Not necessary. There's an enormous amount of information right here, for free, Market Profile in particular. The most important element is practice, and that's entirely up to you.

Volume is too simple to warrant a book, though a number of people have attempted to make more of it than there is, resulting in books of questionable value. The shortest distance to your goal may be to begin with the stickies at the Wyckoff Forum. These will enable you to put what you learn about volume in a context. If you want to go further, look into the quickie overview of the Forum's content. If you're still hungry, you may find the attached chapter on Volume Studies from Wyckoff's original course helpful, particularly pp. 4-8. W VOLUME STUDIES (14M).pdf

There may be a fine distinction between not finding volume useful and finding it useless, but it may not be worth pursuing. What may be more pertinent is your concern with what the "successful traders" you've spoken with say. I've spoken with successful traders who can't live without it. But none of that is particularly relevant to your situation. If you don't find volume to be useful, then don't use it. But dismissing it without understanding what it is and what it can do for you, much less because of what other traders who very likely will not share your goals, risk tolerance, etc. are doing or not doing, may be short-sighted. As for gurus and ET and so forth, your thread there is over 500 posts long, so there must be something in it that encourages you to continue. What have you learned so far about trading price action?

Those who are new to this often have a natural sensitivity to the thrusts that price makes on its way through the day, and since they have not yet racked up the losses that will interfere with their judgement later on, they can be much more likely to act on what that sensitivity is suggesting they do. After they read all the books, take the courses and seminars, watch the DVDs, etc, they'll second and third and fourth-guess themselves so much that they'll forget they ever possessed that sensitivity in the first place and turn to something else less natural to guide them, e.g., a canned "approach", or an indicator or two or six. Therefore, though thinking about these questions may be beneficial, don't start doubting yourself. You may, for example, have had perfectly sound reasons for choosing a bank. You may have had perfectly sound reasons for choosing this particular bank. But you should get them out there and acknowledge them so that if all of this works for you, you will stand a better chance of finding something else that works as well once this particular stock goes into hibernation.

A trading plan encompasses far more than just selecting a stock and trading it, i.e., strategy and tactics, just as opening a restaurant is much more than just calling your supplier and ordering $2000 worth of "food". You say you are trying to "read the charts correctly", but to what purpose? Why stocks? Are you looking for something to hold for days? weeks? months? years? Or are you interested in daytrading? What kind of daytrading? Swing trading? Scalping? Trend trading? I ask because unless you answer these most basic questions for yourself, you will very likely end up trading the wrong stocks at the wrong time and thus lose your capital. Using your first choice, you selected a bank. Why? You also took a macro view, from monthly to weekly to daily to intraday, which is all well and good, but, after all this analysis, you seemed prepared to settle for only a few points profit. Why? You also acknowledge that when I reflect back, I notice that there was no definite trade plan in my mind at the time of entering the trade. I tried to develop one as and when the chart developed. There was no definite holding period (i.e. whether to take intraday trade or delivery trade) nor the exit method was fully satisfactory. Now I am asking myself why did not I wait for the break of the trendline or for the formation of lower high pivot? These are all good questions, and I suggest that you stop trading with real money until they are answered. There are traders who can take a trade simply because it seems like a good idea, and you could very well be one of them. Only your brokerage statement will tell. But if you fear that you are not, then developing, testing, and implementing a consistently profitable trading strategy will be a necessary prerequisite to putting your money at risk with "real" trades and real money.

An interesting thread, but a bad beginning. If you believe that discretionary trading is all guesswork and hate guessing and if you think that volume is useless and if you believe that useful trendlines can't be drawn in real time (and, it follows, are therefore useless), then you are virtually guaranteeing your own failure, or, if you prefer, the failure of anyone else to "prove" the value of trading price (i.e., that which is created by the "market" and not by the trader, such as MAs, trendlines, pivot points, Fib, and the vast array of other indicators). In short, if you're genuinely interested in learning how to trade price, you can't expect to do so if you approach the subject with the attitude that it's all a crock. On the other hand, there's no particular reason why you or anyone else ought to feel as though they are morally obligated in some way to learn how to trade with price alone. Trading by price has no absolutely higher or lower value than trading with indicators. If you believe in your heart of hearts that indicators are the way to go, then stick with them and work it through. Only when you are prepared to address trading by price alone with an open mind will you be prepared to learn how to do it.

Same to ya. And thank you.

Here are updates to the charts I posted last week. Perhaps what I was saying about demand and supply lines will be clearer.

Not sure what you mean by "trading plan". I may have missed this, but what are your reasons for selecting these stocks in the first place? What is your primary trading goal (preferably something more specific than "to make money")?