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DbPhoenix

Market Wizard
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Everything posted by DbPhoenix

  1. DbPhoenix
    I agree. The issue is not the "philosophy" of VSA, and that's not what draws the "off-topic" posts. What draws these posts is the application side. So splitting the thread won't accomplish the objective, as a thread devoted to philosophy might have maybe six posts in it (after 2500 posts, what more is there to say?). I have no doubt that those who believe that they're posting real-time trades truly believe that that is what they are doing. However, it is not necessary for those who know that the trades are not in fact real-time to bring attention to the fact in the mistaken belief that everybody is too stupid to understand the difference. Therefore, if someone who happens to disagree with what's being posted for one reason or another wants to contribute something, fine. But if someone is posting for no other reason than to create an uproar, a deletion or two and a PM from the moderator ought to be enough.
  2. DbPhoenix
    While I agree that VSA writes a lot of checks that it can't cash, you're being somewhat unfair. What you're suggesting is analogous to all candle traders trading the same patterns in the same way with the same targets in the same timeframe with the same candle interval and coming up with exactly the same results. And that's nonsense. While I may think that any given "VSA trade" may be silly and completely extraneous to the VSA concept, this is not to say that every person trading VSA must trade it exactly the same way. One can't say this about VSA anymore than one can say it about candle traders.
  3. DbPhoenix
    First, it's not VSA. Second, what's to understand? You bounce off support. If it's serious buying, you get a V reversal, perhaps off a hammer. If it's not, you get a retest of the bounce. If you want to enter off the hammer, that's up to you. Wyckoff suggests that you wait for the retest. That's all there is to it.
  4. DbPhoenix
    . This distribution is how I arrive at the boxes I've been posting all over the place. The dots are where I'd enter and exit trades, assuming that other conditions (e.g. volume) are go. . .
  5. DbPhoenix
    In my experience, it's both. If traders are trading the value range, the better moves are from the extremes toward the middle, particularly since they usually continue toward the opposite extreme. However, if traders are working toward a new value range, as they did two days ago, the move can start at the midpoint of the then current range and take off to points unknown (that one caught me off guard). The best advice I've received so far is to plan your trading according to where you open in relation to the then current (volume) range (what you might call the +/-1SD range). If you open within that range, look to trade the extremes. If you open outside the range, look to the range to provide support or resistance, depending on where you are in relation to it. If you open within the range and try to trade one extreme or the other but break out instead, you have a real challenge facing you. Entering these breakouts is tricky, to say the least.
  6. DbPhoenix
    . This midpoint stuff sometimes gives me the creeps: . .
  7. DbPhoenix
    Don't forget about the bugs...
  8. DbPhoenix
    Given W's fondness for trading the extremes and for analyzing supply/demand imbalances in congestion zones and trading ranges for clues to direction and potential turning points, he seems to have been only a titch away from what is the essence of MP. He talks around it, but never really gets to it. Makes me wonder if there are notes buried under a floorboard somewhere that predate MP by sixty or seventy years...
  9. DbPhoenix
    That's true. But, even if one were able to obtain universal tick volume, it would indicate only the "busy-ness" of the trading, not share or contract volume. Whether one finds it useful or not depends on whether or not he's tossing virgins into the volcano.
  10. DbPhoenix
    RULE #14: The long run is longer than you think... Playing only the best hands can be frustrating... Anger and irritability can arise. The emotions can be severely tested. This is where Zen comes in. The only way to turn the corner is to get rid of marginal trades. It is ALREADY a very fine balance. If one injects a few marginal trades into the picture, he quickly screws up the Profit/Loss equation. Making the matter worse, doing so will create chaos in both one’s equity curve and one’s head. Just get rid of marginal trades, don't stare at the monitor the whole day, and learn to maximize profits WHEN appropriate. If we fail to take the responsibility for getting rid of marginal trades, we lose the privilege to trade. Provided one does have a good method, it’s meaningless to try to fix things any other way. Trade LESS, make more. (William)
  11. DbPhoenix
    Not everyone who contributes to the VSA thread "posts everything in hindsight". See MyBlog, below. As to whether a long wick signifies a dryup in buying or a rush of selling, that depends on whether the wick is above or below and whether all of this takes place at support or resistance or neither. If there is a long wick, then there has obviously been a shift in balance. If one wants to know who's in control, all he has to do is look at what happened to price as a result of all this effort. What SunTrader describes, assuming I understand his post, is what Wyckoff proposes, that the rally off what appears to be a bottom may be smart buying, stupid buying, and/or short covering. If the latter two, the upmove won't be sustained due to the fact that shorts are buying only to cover and the stupid will throw their shares back onto the market as soon as things begin to go wrong (weak hands). He therefore counsels waiting for the test of that bottom in order to find out whether or not (a) sellers are really done and (b) there are any real buyers out there.
  12. DbPhoenix
    RULE#13: Don't be impatient about patience... Your brain is telling you to play patiently while your emotions are saying, "What's taking so long?" These two must be in alignment. The gatekeeper of our subconscious keeps us from constant behavioral modifications, which means that if you are not a patient type, there is probably more work than just telling yourself to be patient. I think one might have a chance in two ways: 1) If you are an enlightened kind of guy, you can tap into your own innate essence for power. The power comes from your strong awareness. All your subtle self-talk and make-believes and all the games your ego plays will evaporate in the expanse of your wisdom. Just like an old man watching children play. 2) Change your internal self-talk. Bypass the gatekeeper and do some behavioral modification. There are two ways to bypass the gatekeeper: (1) use sheer will and persistence and (2) keep changing your self-talk on the conscious level. Eventually you will have nagged your gatekeeper to death. (William)
  13. DbPhoenix
    Where did all these balloons and confetti come from.....
  14. DbPhoenix
    It may seem odd to some TL members that anyone (me) who maintains a 5s chart would be interested in a daily chart, much less a weekly one, including S/R that goes back for months. But even if one trades off tick charts, he is excluding important information -- important in the sense that it may/will affect his trade -- if he does not consider the bar intervals and timeframes (these are two entirely different things) used by other traders. There are, for example, a hell of a lot of EOD traders out there, and every one of them is looking at the highs of this trading range. Though some may be looking at 1390 and some may be looking at 1400 (for the NQ, 1880-1900), the power behind any move through or away from these levels will include a great many of those traders. To ignore them is to ignore the elephant in the room. This is not to say that we can't fail here. But what are the probabilities? And that's where the relationship between price and volume provides the key.
  15. DbPhoenix
    At least one will be looking for those trades on the right side of the market, in this case, the long side. Rather than my getting into hindsight analysis, I suggest that those who are interested go back now and review the morning with an eye toward the long side and not the short. Look at what price is doing and look at what volume is doing in tandem. Set aside any notions of being tricked and focus on the flow of price and volume.
  16. DbPhoenix
    . Wyckoff counsels that in order to determine where one is going, he first has to determine where he is: This is what I call a "cusp". If the bulls are going to take back the reins, they need to get on with it. .
  17. DbPhoenix
    No, it will never be easy. And there are two more reasons why: hope and fear. Not exiting because one hopes that the trade will go farther. Exiting because one is afraid that the trade will reverse. Until one grabs hope and fear by the neck and wrestles them to the ground, it's going to be next to impossible to develop an acceptable management system, much less implement one.
  18. DbPhoenix
    And if any such trader tries to tell you what you ought to want, wave goodbye and head for the nearest exit. Which is not a surprise. But how are you going to do it? I've given you a dozen different ways of managing a trade. It's up to you to decide what you want to do.
  19. DbPhoenix
    Guess what? You and I aren't the same people. Why would you follow in my tracks and manage your trades exactly the way I do? You can't trade correctly until you decide what you want.
  20. DbPhoenix
    There are many options for managing a trade, and the choice of options one makes depends on how well he understands what's in front of him, what he wants for himself, how much he's willing to risk, and how many contracts/shares he's trading. If, for example, one is trading one contract, he should trade it as if he were trading four, taking the profits on that one contract wherever he'd be taking those profits, then trading the other three on paper, exiting each at a predetermined signal. If he tries to make the most out of that one contract, he will end up taking profits very quickly, if there are any, or letting the one contract come back all the way to breakeven just because he was hoping it would travel all the way to the next support or resistance level and it reversed instead. This approach requires a certain emotional maturity. If one can't view this as training for bigger rewards down the road and patiently keep his eye on the prize, he will very likely end up on a treadmill instead.
  21. DbPhoenix
    Although there's another option. Rather than cashing in some of your position at a predetermined target (the market doesn't care where you entered or what your target is), let the market tell you where to lighten up, i.e., however you've defined a reversal signal. This enables you to keep some in reserve in case the market decides to breach support and continue its declne.
  22. DbPhoenix
    You two are asking good questions, but I'm not sure that this is VSA. Nic (gassah) and I are thinking of opening up a Wyckoff thread in order to keep all of this from getting tangled. Yes, it's all about price action, but addressing several approaches simultaneously can be unnecessarily confusing.
  23. DbPhoenix
    While you're pouring over all of this, you must also consider what you'd be doing if you were or had been short, as you should have been. Is all of this enough to cover the short? Or would you be holding on for the next level of potential support?
  24. DbPhoenix
    I hope you don't mind a few quibbles, Bearbull. First, trading "trend" off a bar interval that takes one outside the day's timeframe is problematic with futures since one is either eliminating two-thirds of the trading day, which on the face of it makes interday trendlines meaningless, or one is including the overnight, in which case the trendlines are relatively useless. More important is the relationship of the opening price with, to start, the previous day's high, low, and close, though there may be zones in the previous day that trump all this. Using an intraday trendline such as the one you've provided will be far more reliable. Second, focusing on the 5m does not mean that the focus need remain there. As I quoted in an earlier post, The most important advantage of a combination of tape reading and trading for the longer swings is that it will aid you in increasing your profits by making your trade at the most favorable moment with a small risk, then letting your profit run into the probable distance indicated by the longer swings. (Wyckoff) In other words, get the entry off the 5m, if that's the preferred interval, then, once it's got gas, look to the larger intervals to manage the trade. To do otherwise is to be often limited to scalping. Third, the "Wyckoff" quote that you provided doesn't sound like him, except perhaps the first sentence. Could it be SMI instead?
  25. DbPhoenix
    It may be stupid. It may also be a ploy on someone's part to lure ignorant buyers into buying off what they think is a reversal. It doesn't matter since you're no longer ignorant and you're waiting for your spot. "No demand" is defined in different ways by different people. At its simplest, it means a lot of volume and price isn't going anywhere, in this case, up. Granted demand kicks in later, but you have no way of knowing that at the time. This is another reason why I suggested you stop trading until you get all this worked out. You weren't necessarily "wrong"; you may only have been early. Nail the entries first, on paper. Worry about stops later. There's no way in hell you're going to be able to place an intelligent stop if you're trading scared or as a defeatist.
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