Jump to content

Welcome to the new Traders Laboratory! Please bear with us as we finish the migration over the next few days. If you find any issues, want to leave feedback, get in touch with us, or offer suggestions please post to the Support forum here.

DbPhoenix

Market Wizard
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    3789

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by DbPhoenix

  1. DbPhoenix
    I agree, no contest. And I previously acknowledged your other post. I made the post above only because of the reference to my finding S/R based on activity in January. Good trading to you.
  2. DbPhoenix
    Actually, I posted the targets for today using yesterday's action in the RT thread: http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/31755-post94.html Turned out that they were pretty much exact.
  3. DbPhoenix
    Your questions are becoming more general, so my answers will become more general as well, which isn't going to do you any good. Plus I've lost track of all your shorts and longs, so I have even less idea what to say. If you want specific help, you're going to have to ask specific questions and post the relevant charts. Which is where a blog comes in.
  4. DbPhoenix
    No, it means that you have to be selective about the field on which you choose to play. I knew going in that today was going to be difficult since there were three distinct S/R zones and that there was a possibility that price would bounce back and forth among them like a pinball. And that's just what has happened. So I had a choice of trying to play all that or stand aside until the market decides just where "value" lies at this time. You have the same choice.
  5. DbPhoenix
    Patterns aren't so much the issue as what it is that traders are trying to do at each of these levels. The "pattern" at extremes tends to be a lot of trading activity (volume) spread out over a wide range of price in a very narrow window of time. This creates a lack of support at any given price level during that move. Thus those who for example buy on such an upmove will be the first to bail when things start to go wrong (the weak hands). This is what is meant by "sell strength", when what is meant is more along the lines of "sell apparent strength". If one has a lot of shares to buy or sell, however, he is more likely to find the opportunity to do so at a price that is beneficial to him if he trades where everybody else is trading, i.e., at the point or level or zone where the greatest number of trades are taking place. If one can get past the jargon and catch phrases and buzz words, this is what is at the core of any approach that trades via price action, whether the volume is expressed, as for example in stocks, or implied, as for example in forex.
  6. DbPhoenix
    If I'm selling R, my target is S unless there's a reversal signal in the meantime. Today, however, there are three distinct S/R zones from the previous day (and price in the NQ, at least, bounced off the first one), so the idea of reaching the bottom of yesterday's range is probably wishful thinking. As to your plan and how you execute it, I can give only general advice, bumper-sticker style. If you're looking for more input into that, I suggest you open a blog and invite those whose opinions you value to follow it and perhaps post to it.
  7. DbPhoenix
    Not if they did the prep. Price opened at the high of the range I posted above. Therefore, the initial tactic is to fade it and see what happens.
  8. DbPhoenix
    Tomorrow's going to be a challenge given that there are three relatively distinct "value zones" from today. We'll see where we are at tomorrow's market open.
  9. DbPhoenix
    . Given where we are with regard to past ranges, it may help to go back a bit further: . .
  10. DbPhoenix
    A discussion with zeon on the VSA thread regarding RT decisions prompts me to post the following: If one is going to make the best RT decisions, he has to prepare for them. The first of the following charts shows the prep done at the end of each trading day since the 29th. The second shows the prep for tomorrow. I don't trade the ES, but it seems to be the popular vehicle, so here it is. The boxes are drawn arouind those areas where the largest number of trades have taken place. They therefore almost by definition leave out "tails". The pink lines represent potential resistance, the blue lines potential support, the black dotted lines the midpoints (not calculated, just eye-balled). The significance of all of this for each subsequent day should be clear. . . .
  11. DbPhoenix
    Selling WAS over and buyers DID take control. Buyers drove price all the way back to the white line I drew. But this line will not likely be drawn ahead of time. You have to do it in RT after the swing low is broken to the downside at 11:20+/-. Whether or not you drew S at 128.5 is not necessarily pertinent to the action at the white line. By that time, though, you've got a TL to help you. Even VSA acknowledges TLs. . . Traders who are overly-concerned about "leaving money on the table" generally wind up doing exactly that. .
  12. DbPhoenix
    One question at a time. There's no reason to exit a short taken at "3" based on the information provided in these charts (the color-coded volume on habi's chart seems to bear no relation to the price bars, which is one reason why I dislike color-coded volume bars) unless one had reason to anticipate S at 128.25. IF he did, then there is justification for a long. But there is also justification for exiting that long and shorting again at 6. After that, yes, there's no reason to exit the short at all until the close or until there is a reversal signal. You don't "know" anything. But you're at R and you have a reversal signal. Why ignore this one and act on the rest? What's different? If you trust your setup, take it. If you don't, re-examine it. As for exiting too early or too late, stop fussing over it. Just follow your plan. Based on your resubmitted chart, here's where you should have re-entered the short, assuming that you exited the first one: . .
  13. DbPhoenix
    Since you don't have the numbers, lines, or Xs you refer to on your chart, I'll use habi's. Assuming that you have S drawn somewhere around 128.25 and assuming that bar 4 is considered to be a rejection of that price level and assuming that you go long somewhere in this area, you're still entering the trade, placing your stop, and then not continuing to read the action. Even if you were to take the long, there are also reversal signals at 129.00. Therefore, if you're focused on S/R and reversal signals, you exit and take the short. There's no reason not to. As for your initial short, there's really no reason for you to have been stopped out, but, if you hadn't, I suspect that you would not have taken the long in the first place.
  14. DbPhoenix
    In order to exit at 4 or 5, you'd have to see support at 128.25 (though not necessarily according to VSA). But even if you did, you do see that price is finding R where habi has drawn his red line, and, given the activity between price and volume, that would make a good re-entry since price may seek the next support level, i.e., the 128.5 level, and by then you have the trendline to guide you.
  15. DbPhoenix
    If I understand his chart correctly, he entered, correctly, on or below your bar 3. However, he should still be in the trade (at least as of 6m before the close), though perhaps not according to VSA (can't say for sure).
  16. DbPhoenix
    Actually, the monetary risk would be far less, but the other points I tried to make still apply.
  17. DbPhoenix
    Not sure what you mean by "overnight action" unless you're referring to the ES. But the ES didn't trade at that level overnight (it would help if you were to include dates and prices in your charts for reference). In any case, you're pinning all your hopes on a single bar that may or may not be reacting to S/R, assuming that you plotted S/R correctly. Once you're in, you set your stop and, for the most part, stop reading. Thus you're either exiting at the wrong time, like Friday, or you're not exiting at the right time. As for the "capitulation", you are, as I said in a previous post, focusing on an event rather than a process. Since VSA is based -- more or less -- on Wyckoff, I suppose I would not be out of line to suggest that you consider W's scenario: preliminary support, selling climax, automatic or technical rally, test (or retest, whatever), eventual upmove, though the last may take a while. That, at least in part, is the context, not just one bar. Incidentally, if you are in fact trading the SPY, you're being very smart. Smarter than practically anybody I've worked with since the tracking ETFs were first offered.
  18. DbPhoenix
    Traditionally, capitulation is defined as the final vomiting, when perma-bulls finally throw in the towel. However, as a concept, one can also use it many times a day for every instance in which bulls allow bears to take the lead and sell with little or no resistance from the bulls, until that point where the bears are done. Which is one reason why I find the term "capitulation" to be of less practical value to me than the process outlined -- and also detailed -- by Wyckoff. Therefore, I suggest that one look at the context, which is what you suggested at the outset, and follow the before, during, and after in order to know what to do next. A capitulation is too often looked at as an event. But bottoming is not an event. It's a process.
  19. DbPhoenix
    You probably don't want to hear this, but you are less likely to trade this successfully without context than you are with (the Joe Ross people regularly encounter the same problem). All systems (and I use the term broadly) provide a piece of the puzzle. None of them are all-encompassing. With regard to your example, if you try to trade this without regard to S/R, then you will likely make a misstep. Or several. Or many. Therefore, I suggest that you take what makes sense in VSA and add what makes sense in the other primary "trading by price" approaches and create something that is more catholic, preferably with as little jargon and as few catch phrases as possible.
  20. DbPhoenix
    If you can find the right chat room, that might be just the thing. So far (in ten years), I haven't found the right one for me, but you may not be as picky as I am. Or locate traders who you think are on the same wavelength -- needn't be a mob -- and organize your own. Though if they tend to chat rather than focus on the market, you're better off alone.
  21. DbPhoenix
    One more or less RT clue to the possibly "temporary" character of the August "capitulation" was the one to two-day break of the demand line, or trendline. Anyone following this in RT would have noted the short, sharp move, much like a shakeout, and the quick recovery, leading to a never-look-back resumption of the uptrend. And, of course, one is looking at two different trends here, one up and one down. "Capitulation" in a correction is not the same as capitulation in a downtrend. For example: .
  22. DbPhoenix
    . Did you notice this, erie? Test of previous swing low, fewer new lows, less down volume.
  23. DbPhoenix
    These were posted several weeks ago. Hinges have to be drawn in real time, of course.
  24. DbPhoenix
    The higher lows along with the lower highs and the decline in volume are characteristic of what Wyckoff calls a "hinge". All the major averages have been forming the same hinge and all of them have fallen out of it. While the bottoms of the hinges will likely be tested, this is not good news. .
  25. DbPhoenix

    The Nature of Risk

    DbPhoenix posted a topic in Books

    The Nature of Risk is a seminal work for anyone who understands that self-knowledge is key for success in the financial markets, particularly at market extremes. Rather than babble about risk in general, Mamis takes this engine apart and examines its parts, among which are information risk and price risk. He explains that as one's tolerance for information risk increases (the need to know why the stock is doing whatever it's doing), one's price risk diminishes (one is better able to jump in and take advantage of whatever opportunities for picking up cheaper shares present themselves). On the other hand, if one has no tolerance for information risk and must know everything about a stock's movement, his price risk will be that much greater because the price will likely, by then, have risen to an over-extended level. Therefore, having identified these components of risk (time risk is another), one must then balance them out in order to approach the markets rationally and unemotionally. An extremely important work, particularly for the investor who is plagued by doubt, confusion, and anxiety.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept