DbPhoenix

You will likely benefit from this more if you draw these lines in real time. You will then be able to determine where your entries and exits ought to be. Using hindsight lines as a guide gives a completely false impression of how this process works.

Fit yourself into the flow of the game... Some players approach the game of poker simply as a game, the way you might play Chinese checkers, or Old Maid. They can be observed playing their own cards and nothing else, staring hard at their hand, brows furrowed, never glancing up, strugglnig along. It's as if they are playing in a vacuum. Still others do the opposite, trying to dominate all parts of the game, force victory, muscle over the game with various aggressive maneuvers... Do either of the above two approach work? Yes, intermittently. A better approach - one that experience shows works more frequently - is to try to fit yourself into the flow of it... Larry Phillips

Well, first, VSA and Wyckoff have little to do with each other. Second, accumulation takes time. Weeks, if not months. An hourly chart isn't going to be of much use. Third, if you're talking about futures, there is no accumulation directly. You'd have to review all the most-heavily-weighted stocks, and the accumulation ship sailed long ago. You may want to post this to the VSA Forum.

No one is suggesting that a beginner put in "tons" of screen time observing price tick by tick. The purpose of observing a tick chart is to make the point that price moves continuously. This should not take more than an hour. An hour is not "tons". As to emphasizing the close and the range, you may be bringing this to the course rather than taking it from it. If the close and the range were as important to Wyckoff as you seem to think they are, why did he mention the close only 16 times out of 300 bars, and the range only slightly more than that? If you choose to emphasize these yourself, you are welcome to do so, but Wyckoff's emphasis is on the balance of demand and supply, the trend, and support and resistance, not closes and ranges.

What is preventing you from limiting your view to the daily chart and ignoring everything else?

This is the Wyckoff Forum. Its purpose is to discuss Wyckoff and Wyckoff's course. Indicators and patterns are not part of the course. In fact, he specifically cautions against paying any attention to them. Sorry, what was the question?

That's one of the problems with relying on trading rooms. In any case, since you've been daytrading for 2 yrs and have attended many courses and spent however much time in that trading room, it's probably going to take you a lot longer to learn this than someone who's just starting out. Look at this thread and see if it appeals to you. If so, everything you need to know about trading price action is contained in the forum in which that thread resides. If you're the independent sort. If you'd rather be in a room, I can't help you there. But after two years, you really ought to be able to do this by yourself.

So what happened with Kevin Hudson?

A note to those who are just browsing. If you're not aware of the fact that you're in the Wyckoff Forum, or you're aware of it but haven't read any of it, you may not know that Elliott, Fib, and all the rest of the indicators, patterns, etc are not pertinent. They serve primarily to distract the trader from the behavior of price and unnecessarily complicate the effort to understand it and act upon it. Those who are genuinely interested should look at the If You Can Draw A Straight Line thread (it's short), then return to this discussion thread if their interest is piqued.

I haven't followed this thread so I'm confused as to who said what to whom and who told whom to do whatever and who led whom and who followed whom. In response to your original PM to me I said that you should stop trading while trying to reconcile multiple sources of conflicting information. I also suggested that you give up the lines and candles and colors and indicators and whatever else is preventing you from seeing what's happening on the chart. I suggested further, after you provided me with your trading plan, that you find something other than the ES to trade since every professional trader on the planet trades the ES and you're not ready to compete in that arena. But if you insisted on trading the ES anyway, I suggested that you get your context from the ES, not from some other instrument -- like the SPY or the SPX -- which is only tangentially related to what you're trading. And that's as far as that went. Since then, I have made two suggestions: First, familiarize yourself with the auction market. You cannot succeed without doing this. I can guarantee you that each and every professional trader with whom you are competing understands it thoroughly. "Setups" will not save you. "Setups" are the consequence of trader behavior. The professionals are trading the behavior. The amateurs are trading the "setups", which is why the amateurs are so easily screwed. The 2B, 123, ACD, and every other pattern on God's green earth are nothing more than a distraction unless the trader understands what traders are doing to create those "patterns". And if he does, the patterns become irrelevant. Second, study and understand the dynamics of supply and demand. Again, you cannot succeed without doing this. The Law of Supply and Demand is a law for good reason: markets cannot exist without it. If there's no demand, there's no transaction. If there's no supply, there's no transaction. If there are no transactions, there's no market. There's just a bunch of people standing around wanting to buy something they can't get and another bunch of people standing around trying to sell something that nobody wants. Once you understand the nature of the auction market and the dynamics of demand and supply, you don't need to ask anybody anything, nor do you need to obey anybody's instructions. You don't need to follow anybody nor do you need to trust anyone, much less pay anybody for anything. Once you understand the nature of the auction market and the dynamics of demand and supply, the market will tell you what to do. It will tell you where to enter and where to exit, as long as you understand its language and are able and willing to set aside your ego and whatever emotional problems are interfering with your ability to hear. As to this "edge" business and missing an edge and not having a real edge, I have no idea what this is all about. Your edge begins with the knowledge you gain through your research and testing that a particular price pattern or market behavior offers a level of predictability and a risk to reward ratio that provides a consistently profitable outcome over time. Without it, one is just "playing" the market in order to have something to talk about on message boards. To get it, you have to know exactly what you're looking for and what to do with it once you've found it. Which brings us back to hearing what the market is telling you and listening to it. If you don't know how to do the research and testing, you can start with the guidelines provided in the Wyckoff Forum (some of which I posted earlier). These will enable you to translate the market's language. If you do know how to do the research and testing, then you needn't rely on anyone but yourself to develop a trading system that will do a better job of enabling you to reach your goals than anything you can buy or copy.

Given the mischaracterization by some regarding my views on T&S displays and tick charts and tape reading in general (one needn't spend more than an hour at it or, at most, a day; one certainly needn't make a career of it), and given the apparent inability of some beginners to click links, I'm copying this here in its entirety just in case a beginner -- particularly one who has a history of failure -- might stumble on this thread at some point in the future and wonder how to get started on a more productive path. Those who are searching for specific entry and exit criteria are welcome to visit the Wyckoff Forum. _____________________________ In order to profit from trading price and volume alone, one must forget nearly all of what he thought was true, and that presents an insurmountable obstacle to a great many people. If, for example, one insists on focusing on how he can make it "work" with mathematically-derived indicators (stochastics, MACD, CCI, OBV, blah blah blah), then he blocks the process through which he would otherwise understand it and profit from it. If he focuses on where and how to make mechanical entries and exits rather than understand the dynamics of demand and supply, then he blocks the process through which he would otherwise understand it and profit from it. If he focuses on setups and patterns as gimmicks rather than as manifestations of changes in the balance of buying and selling pressure, then he blocks the process through which he would otherwise understand it and profit from it. Hire yourself to do a job The job is just to sit there and watch the bars form, to watch the buying and selling waves, the pokes and prods and feelers cast by buyers and sellers looking for a trade, not to create or test a strategy, not to make money, not to learn the "secrets" or the "tricks", just to develop a sensitivity to buying and selling pressure. No indicators, no MAs, no nothing but price bars/points and volume bars. Make notes of what you see and what you think you see Don't rush to draw conclusions. Throw away your crutches and focus on what the auction market is really all about. The market is not out to get you. The market is not out to trick you. Buying pressure is buying pressure. It lasts as long as it lasts according to who wants what. Ditto for selling pressure. Rather than focusing on avoiding getting screwed, focus on the pressures and the imbalances between them. Don't trade. Don't conclude. Just watch. When you get tired, stop. Come back. Begin again. When you're done, review your notes. Look for those areas in which change took place. Formulate some hypotheses as to why those changes took place in those areas and not others. Don't force the Ah-Ha. Just let it come. Begin with what appears to apply to whatever market you're trading. If it's in a trend, focus on retracements and continuations (a continuation being the logical result of a successful retracement). If it's in a trading range, focus on reversals. And so on. Develop the strategy thoroughly, with all the accompanying tactics. Test it. Learn it. Get comfortable with it. Trade it But understand always that whatever you're doing may not apply to every trading day. If you decide to focus on breakouts, for example, and the entire day is range-bound, then you're very likely going to have nothing to do. This is not your problem. Use the time for something else. But don't force trades. Don't see what isn't there (many novices fall into this trap when they've been working on reversals and insist on seeing reversal setups where none exist, e.g., on trend days). In time, you'll have a variety of strategies to cover most situations. But the key words here are "in time". There is no inconsistency between tuning in to the buying/selling dynamic and defining setups with specific entry and exit points. A lower high, for example, says something about the balance of buying and selling pressure. Now at what point does the probability of a reversal become sufficiently higher than that of a continuation that the trader will go short instead of long (or vice-versa)? A drop of so many ticks? A break of a TL? A break of an MA of some sort (if he just has to use one)? And once one has determined that, how far does he allow the price to go against him -- if it does -- before he bails? And what is a reasonable target? And where is my pastrami on rye? Changes in the balance between buying and selling pressure manifest themselves in recognizable and repeated ways, e.g., double bottoms, lower highs, bull/bear spikes (hammers et al,, if one is into that), but whether any of these are worth taking will depend on the context, what one wants, what one is willing to settle for, how much risk he's willing to assume, whether or not he's willing and ready to fade himself, etc. Sometimes the changes in balance are so rapid and so violent that the trader might think that only a loon would get involved. And sometimes the changes are so subtle and so quiet that waiting for the trade to resolve itself would put most people to sleep. Therefore, the trader has to decide under what conditions he's going to trade and during what portions of the day (or year) -- if not the entire day (or year) -- he's going to trade. Which may be why so many beginners prefer just to buy when the green line crosses the red line and sell when the red line crosses the green line. The degree to which one experiences anxiety before and during the trade is in direct inverse proportion to the amount of preparation he has done; in other words, the less prepared you are, the more anxious you will be (many people start the day anxious and stay that way until the final bell). Trading according to buying and selling pressure entails looking for those areas which are most likely to attract attention and activity, which is why understanding the nature of support and resistance is important. Those areas where the most people traded the most shares/whatever in the past are most likely to ignite activity because all those people have something to gain or lose at those levels. Again, there are several levels or areas or zones to look at, the most obvious of which are the previous day's (week's, month's, year's) high and low, and if one does nothing but sit idly by until those areas are tested, he will likely save himself a lot of money. The opening high and low can also be a rich source of opportunity. I say "can" because one must also consider volume: if there's lots of activity, there's likely to be lots of opportunity. Targeting these opportunities in advance is simple. Sitting on your hands until the opportunities actually present themselves is considerably more difficult. But if one knows well in advance what he's going to do and where he's going to do it, and has some understanding of the nature of probability, he has nothing to be anxious about. A good friend of mine, Julian Snyder, wrote a book for traders called The Way of the Hunter Warrior. Recently I asked him about the use of such a metaphor for trading, and he conceded that it's total nonsense in the light of what he now knows. "You have to trade without ego, and any contest elevates ego," he said. I like to think of trading as sailing. Here you harness the forces that are there. You take into account the wind direction and velocity, the currents, and your destination. You've got your charts to guide you and you constantly adjust to nature's forces, sometimes pointing into the wind, sometimes running before the wind, sometimes tacking, but always in partnership with your boat, your crew, the wind, and the currents. Sure, storms can come up, but you can always let down the sail and anchor and wait out the storm. You work with the forces that are there, the forces that are much bigger than you, but you enjoy the journey, the day, the sport, and you're confident you can get to your destination, your port, your safe harbor. Ruth Barrons Roosevelt How Long Does It Take? Realistically, how long do you think it would take a beginner to go through the steps you suggest to study the principles, tactics, and develop/test a trading plan and acquire the correct mindset? I know this'll be variable, but from your experience what's the least amount of time someone has picked all this up in ? It's been said before that it takes 1,000 hours to learn something, maybe 5,000-10,000 to master it. What do you think, could a complete novice pick this up in 6 months spending around 8 hours a day ??? There are too many variables involved to provide anything approaching a satisfactory answer. If, for example, the novice were literally complete, had nothing to unlearn, had no preconceptions, was able to work without investing his ego in it, was curious, was able to concentrate, was reasonably intelligent, then he would be able to get it far faster than someone who was or had the opposite. But if you're asking in your heart of hearts how long it would will should ought to take you to "pick this up", that depends on how willing you are to focus on application rather than theory (since you registered more than two years ago, you very likely have had more than enough theory). Some members tire of my continually encouraging newcomers to this subject to open journals. But there's only so much theory. This thread, for example, has over 1000 posts (which is around 950 too many). The "theory" just isn't that complicated. When it seems so, the reason is more likely that whoever is trying to understand it is focusing on something else entirely (so and so says, or I read somewhere that, or I took this seminar once that, or this book said, or but the ADX says). Therefore, the sooner one begins looking at real charts, the sooner he is likely to "get it". This search for instructions as to where EXACTLY to draw the line is in large part what makes Pivots and Fib and Gann and MAs and so forth so seductive. One doesn't have to think about just where it is that price (traders) really react. All the trader has to do is draw the calculated lines. This search for exactitude also motivates the search for the EXACT stop and exact TYPE of stop that the trader should use, along with the EXACT trigger and the EXACT target. But if it were all that simple, one could package it into a kit and sell it (wait a minute . . . ). Many people can't get this. Maybe most people can't get it. They simply cannot trade without indicators, they can't trade without patterns, they can't trade without candlesticks, etc. And if they make money doing whatever they're doing, who's to say they're not right to do it. However, a lot of people also struggle with all of that and can't make money at it. They find instead that focusing on price is best for them. Unfortunately, by the time they reach that point, they have to unlearn an extraordinary amount of what for them is generally -- or entirely -- useless information (I've read that . . . People say that . . . I've been told that . . . ). This state of affairs makes learning to trade by price vastly more difficult than it would have been had the trader learned how to do it outright in the first place. But there's no going back, this side of amnesia, so wanting to is simply wishful thinking. The Go With the Force, Luke stuff only goes so far, true as it may be. But the individual who's willing to backtrack and learn a new or at least different way of looking at charts and price action may -- not will -- find that when he's looking at his umpteenth chart, the light suddenly goes on and he understands all those back and forth pressures which are propelling price one way or the other. All the babble about pace and momentum and trend and chop and all the rest of it will make sense. But there's no shortcut. One may have to look at hundreds of charts. Maybe thousands. And he may never get it. Which is why people continue to spend so much money on 4x Made Easy and Weekend Seminar (lunch included) and Profits R Us. The average man does not like uncertainties. He is not trained to cope with them. He will try to “sweep them under the rug.” He will use any device that will make it possible for him to feel “more sure,” for he is not willing to accept a “maybe” or an “I don’t know” as an answer. And so he will resort to averages, to market indicators, to complicated charts of intersecting lines designed to prove that “it” is either a Bull Market or a Bear Market. He will accept almost any kind of nonsense if it is stated with enough assurance. He will buy horoscopes to determine the trend of the market by the position of the planets. If all else fails, he will look for some authority who will relieve him of using his own intelligence, by making the either/or decisions for him. But he must have a straight, simple answer; otherwise it means nothing to him. Do you see how this way of looking at things is out of line with the facts? Do you see how it leads, inevitably, to frustration, anxiety, and demoralization? It is asking too much of reality. It is setting up a make-believe world, and then crying if the world isn’t exactly like the make-believe. We know, for instance, that trees “in general” are round. But you have seen tree trunks distorted by a cramped location, or by the trunks of adjacent trees, that are not round at all. It is useful to know that “tree trunks are round,” only so long as we understand that this is an abstraction, and the reality in any particular case has to be looked at, and if it is not round, that is that; the territory is the final answer, not our “map.” John Magee

No, sorry, T&S is not the only answer to anything. It is merely a device to show that price does not move in bars. Or candles. Or any form other than the continuous flow of prints. If there is any "value" at all to be "extracted" from what I've written it's that you have to develop your own method or system, not copy somebody else's. If that message still has not been conveyed, then you will be here two months from now, ready to start all over again.

All of which comes much later. And if you'd like to take Humbled under your wing and tutor him to the point where he can is able to do what you suggest, great. Otherwise, it's unlikely that he will be any less confused than he already is. What Humbled does, of course, is entirely up to Humbled. I've explained all of this in as much detail as I can, elsewhere.

If one trades live without a thoroughly-tested and consistently profitable trading plan, he'd probably get a lot more enjoyment out of his trading funds by withdrawing them all and setting them on fire.

So much of these sorts of debates amount to whether or not the wedding dress will incorporate bugle beads or sequins, i.e., who the hell cares? What matters is that it's a wedding dress. This post, then, without nattering about the details, should be read daily, before the trading session begins. If the wannabe doesn't understand why, then there's not much more to say. Edit: I should also point out that this sort of post helps to distinguish between those who trade and those who just talk about it, e.g., those who keep stuffing the Articles section with nonsense.

Which is another way of saying that one needn't know how sausage is made in order to trade it. All the trader need concern himself with is the aggregate. Or what Wyckoff called "the Composite Operator", i.e., everyone who is a market participant, including the shoeshine boy. To concern oneself with all the components leads to overanalysis, second-guessing, hesitation, self-doubt, and a lot of missed trades. The central question remains, again, whether price is going up or down. And only a tiny percentage of traders at any given time can answer that question. Which is why so many people fail. The market is as complex as one wants it to be. Or as simple as one needs it to be.

While I agree with much of what Steve says, here and elsewhere, particularly with regard to looking for opportunities as opposed to getting tangled up in lines and other assorted crap, this isn't even about charts. It's about (a) the ability to tell up from down and (b) why price is moving up, or down. If one doesn't know that, then he isn't even ready to begin. And few gurus/vendors/mentors are going to know how to fall back that far. Particularly all the non-traders who write all these stupid articles. Much has been said about Thales' daughter. He didn't teach her to read the tape. All he asked her to do was determine whether price was going up or down. This was such a simple task that she must have looked at him as though he were trying to trick her. But once an opinion was offered, the next question becomes whether the "up angle" -- i.e., the momentum -- is increasing or decreasing. And if one posits this in terms of buyers and sellers, many things become clear, assuming that the child has ever been to a store or even run a lemonade stand. A child can even then formulate some hypotheses -- make some guesses -- as to why price is moving up or down. Or why price was moving up rapidly but now isn't so much. Or why it's now falling. One can do this with a T&S display* (not the DOM, just price and volume) or with a 1t chart or with a line chart or whatever the hell else. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. Is price going up or down? How fast? Where did it start going up? Why? What were the conditions? What was the context? What were buyers and sellers doing? What did they want? If the trader has no idea, then why the hell is he trading? Why doesn't he just pay online poker? *a simple T&S display: Incidentally, there is a story here of wants and desires and thwarted efforts and disappointments. The wannabe who wants to understand this would be better off trying to understand that story than focus his attention entirely on where to enter and where to exit.

If you don't see the relationship between the one and the other, you should stop trading until you do. If you refuse to stop, remember that you have others' needs to consider besides your own. If you never see the relationship, you should quit. If the cheerleaders persuade you to Never Give Up and to Stay With It, keep in mind that they are not paying your bills, nor are they contributing to the support of your family. The solution to your problems does not lie in My Bars Are Better Than His Bars or Draw Your Lines My Way Not His Way or Don't Look For Your Zones There Look For Them Here. Nor does it lie "an assumption in that [a] method [will] be fairly simple to follow and would allow [you] to copy that consistency." The solution does not lie in bars. Or candles. Or candlestick analysis. The solution does not lie in lines. Or indicators. The solution does not lie in levels. Or anything having to do with Market Profile. Or VSA. Or "the Book". The solution does not lie in copying somebody else's method or system or approach or whatever the hell one wants to call it. Or in taking a course. Or in buying books or DVDs. Or in subscribing to newsletters or advisory services. Or in joining trading rooms. Or in taking somebody else's "signals". Or in following anybody at all. The solution to your problems lies in learning and understanding how the market works, in understanding how and why and where and when the forces of supply and demand move price. If you never achieve that understanding, and you never will if you don't even begin to try, then you will never succeed, at least to the point where you do much better than cover expenses, and even that is a crap shoot. If you haven't the least idea how supply and demand work, then open up the book you bought four years ago and never read. Or read Wyckoff's course. Or read Neill. Or O'Neil. Or Magee. Do something other than try to find somebody to copy. And please stop using all the "work" you've done as a rationalization for not getting anywhere. All that work is of no value if it hasn't moved you forward. But rather than move forward, you've done little more than move sideways from one guru to another, trying to find somebody to follow, some system to copy. Clearly that hasn't worked, and the method or system or approach that's just over the hill or just around the bend isn't going to do anything more for you than anything else you've tried. Study the market. Use The Trading Journal stickie in the Wycoff Forum as a guide, if you like. Or not. But study the market, not some message board bullshit. Take responsibility for your trading and its successes and failures. Develop your own method, your own system, your own approach. Move ahead and stop running in place. Otherwise you will go broke before you are able to reach any of your goals. The market is not complex. The market is extremely simple. As simple as a produce stand. And once you stop looking for somebody to tell you what to do, you'll be far more likely to figure that out. All by yourself. Then you might start achieving those consistent results.

I suggest you continue on that course, then, and re-evaluate your situation at some future date.

Instructed by whom?.........................

1. Approved Instruments SPX Cash Only via ES Emini Trades OK. Why? And if I seem abrupt, it's only because I want to get things moving, as I'm sure you do.

For years I've criticized people -- and not in a good way -- for neglecting to read a thread before they butt in with their redundant and irrelevant comments. But I'm going to do just that, partly because of time, partly because you asked for my help, and partly because previous posts aren't necessarily pertinent. I'm sure you've received plenty of good advice, but you're going to have to go deeper than that in order to turn things around. First, what is your trading plan?

Very advanced? Now that made me smile. It's as basic as one can get. Unfortunately, traders have been so bedazzled by all the bells and whistles that have been shoved at them over the past eighty years than they literally cannot tell up from down. Silence all of that and ignore virtually everything that one has read or been told and give reality an opportunity to emerge. It's a choice between the blue pill and the red pill.

It's not the "holy grail". It's just mean reversion.