DbPhoenix

Those who have read post 1 will of course be in a better position to understand the topic than those who haven't. Those who have been curious enough about it to actually work with it – or at least play with it – will be in a better position still. Those who have read it will also understand that the SLA/AMT is essentially an interday approach, beginning as it does with an examination of the weekly chart, through the daily, to the hourly. The examples provided in post 1 employ hourly "bars", or intervals. Applying the SLA/AMT to an intraday environment requires an understanding of the difference in dynamics: there are obviously many more trading opportunities presented and therefore trading decisions that must be made employing a 1m interval than when employing a 60m interval. The basic SLA/AMT presented in post 1 is a primer. Training wheels for the beginner. Rehab for the damaged trader. The beginner will learn discipline, patience, all the good stuff below. The damaged trader will, one hopes, find his way back to a disciplined and professional approach, assuming he was ever disciplined and professional in the first place. If he wasn't, then it may provide him with a reset and reboot. A way back. The damaged trader will find it vastly more difficult to start over. But it can be done. If one wants to be a winning trader (and who doesn't), there are certain characteristics that one must either have or acquire. Fortunately, the SLA/AMT addresses all of them. 1. Losses. One must accept the fact that he is going to incur losses, no matter what bar interval he chooses. The task is not to avoid loss but rather contain it. The SLA/AMT is designed not to prevent loss but to keep losses minimal. 2. Preparation. Doing nothing before the beginning of the session in anticipation of exciting, new experiences pretty much guarantees that those experiences are not going to be pleasant. No, one cannot know for sure what is going to happen, but he can know where he is with regard to whatever extremes are in his neighborhood, probably ranges. If he hasn't reviewed at least the weekly, daily, and hourly charts before his session, he has no one to blame but himself for what happens. If he has reviewed these charts, he will have a clearer notion of where and how far price may go, which may help him stay in a trade rather than jump out simply because price has gone against him a tick or two. 3. Planning. The SLA/AMT is its own plan. But if it isn't followed, if it's "tweaked", it can't be expected to function properly. Yes, there are minor decisions that must be made on the fly if one is truly reading price and not just being led on a leash, but as one gains familiarity with price behavior, these decisions become matter of course, like slowing down at a Yield sign. Larger changes, however, will most likely require at least minimal testing. Changing something just because "it seems like a good idea" is not likely to yield the desired result. As for ignoring the rules altogether, well . . 4. Discipline. Without discipline, whatever you do will result in failure. The SLA/AMT, however, forces you to be disciplined. If you keep fighting it, like hitting the snooze button over and over again, it will fold its arms and lean against the wall, waiting for you to pull yourself together. If you are a beginner, but especially if you're damaged, it is essential that you follow the rules. Yes, you will have to decide what, for example, constitutes a "break" of a line: a tick, two ticks, a point or two. But not five. Not ten. Not half your account (an hourly interval, of course, requires a bit more leeway than a point or two). And you must do this every single occurrence. Otherwise the SLA/AMT is no better than that trading plan you got in your mailbox from Profits 'R Us. 5. Patience. The best trades are found at the extremes, either of range limits or channel limits. If you're nowhere near one or the other, you have nothing to do but watch (and don't try to be clever and draw teeny-tiny ranges and teeny-tiny channels in teeny-tiny bar intervals to rationalize and justify your lack of patience). Learn to use inaction as a defense against your tendencies toward impulsive action, e.g., "revenge trading", or fear of "missing it", or "making up" for that loss. Don't get irritated or angered or feel like a martyr when waiting. Regard patience as a central pillar of your strategy. Don't assign it a secondary or lesser role. Don't be impatient about patience. One part of your brain is telling you to be patient while another is saying, "What's taking so long?" These must work it out and learn to live together. Begin by being patient, but don't forget to stay patient. The important thing is not whether you are controlled and disciplined at the start of your session, but also at the middle, the end, and all points throughout. (from Zen and the Art of Poker ) One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They can't just sit there and wait for something new to develop. I wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. Even people who lose money in the market say, 'I just lost my money, now I have to do something to make it back.' No, you don't. You should sit there until you find something. –Jim Rogers 6. Record-keeping. It is essential to collect and maintain records of your end-of-session reviews (you are of course doing end-of-session chart/trade reviews). If you do not keep track of what you did right and what you did not-right and the results of each, you won't be looking at early retirement any time soon. Avoid, however, the I'm A Useless Sack drama. Focus instead on what you saw correctly, what you missed that you should not have missed, what you missed that the greatest trader on the planet would have missed, which trades were made according to plan and which weren't (along with why, so that you can avoid the same behavior in future).

I'll take a look at your developing a plan [pdf]. I just got done reading the [SLA pdf] and understood maybe 80% of it. In the book you quote Richard Wyckoff a lot, i could read his book eventually. The O'neil book you recommended though it has stocks in the title can still be useful for forex and futures, right? I thought i could start with an hourly chart and 15 minute while paying attention to the trend in the daily and weekly and the support and resistance levels. I am a poor person so futures is not an option right now to start with because the required account size. I heard of a site called Nadex and thought i could start there so i already deposited a little over $300 there. I'm not going to trade with real money though until i know i'm ready, and i know if i can't make money in demo i won't make money live. Eventually i would love to make a living trading, but know that i can't do it overnight. You mentioned falling for bad courses and stuff so i thought i'd mention that i did find good reviews on a course by Chris Capre from 2ndskiesforex where he teaches price action. Based on your response i would guess you wouldn't recommend this. Trading seems complicated, but i imagine for people who have found the truth it is simple. I got sucked into the whole indicator thing and it wasn't doing very well so i'm glad i found this thread, because i want to start from scratch, because i feel like i know nothing. 1. The SLA is for those who already have a pretty good idea of what they want, or who have experienced repeated failures and have a real good idea of what they don't want. 2. O'N's book applies to any auction market. I urge you, however, to avoid forex. 3. If by "start" you mean what you're going to observe during the observation phase, I suggest you look at something smaller. There's a lot going on in even a 15m bar that you'll never see if you don't look at anything smaller. 4. With all due respect to Mr. Capre, there are no "price action traders" of whom I'm aware that focus on price action without the aid of indicators and/or patterns. I wish there were. Then of course there's the $500 each for his courses. You should also know that every "price action trader" of whom I'm aware -- including Seiden, Beggs, and Brooks -- derive everything they have from Wyckoff. This is not a personal criticism, just an acknowledgement of the work done by the real pioneers: Wyckoff, Livermore, Gartley, Schabacker, Hamilton, Rhea, et al. As for patterns, a surprising number come from -- of all places -- Oliver Velez (yes, the much maligned Oliver Velez; go figure). If you've already experienced failure, you're already beginning behind the starting block. Be very careful. Study the market. Determine for yourself where and when and how price goes up and down. It's not complicated. You don't have to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on books and courses. The charts below were annotated by a nine-year-old girl.

Hello dbphoenix. What would you suggest to someone wo wants to start from scratch, like a complete newbie? Things like books i should read, websites i should visit, things of this nature? Thank you in advance. There is a lot of deception in the world but when i read your post on this thread i feel like your honest and successful. I registered just so i could ask you this Well, I wrote "Developing A Plan" for those who are only thinking about starting as well as those who have thought about it and want to get on with the process of cobbling together a plan. This is also part of my book. Websites? No. Books? Other than my own, of course, about the only books I can recommend to a beginner are The General Semantics of Wall Street by John Magee (don't spend tons of money on this; try to get it from your library; you might also find a pdf of it floating around), The Nature of Risk by Justin Mamis, and How To Make Money In Stocks by Wm O'Neil (I recommend the first edition because later ones became increasingly obnoxious about pushing "Investor's Business Daily"). Avoid anything that claims to be able to tell you "how to trade". Granted mine offers a simple approach to trading price, but it is only one option among several that one has available after having gone through the process of developing a plan (one may, for example, decide after having gone through that process that his future lies with MACD divergences, in which case I'll provide him with a box lunch and my best wishes as I send him on his way). There are other things in it -- particularly the appendix on fear -- that will be useful to just about anybody. The best teacher is the market. Study the market. If you don't know what to look at, or for, "Developing A Plan" will be useful as well as HTMMIS. If you don't understand what you're looking at, much less what to look for, you'll be susceptible to every pitch out there: the books, the courses, the dvds, the software plugins, and all the rest of it. Above all, be skeptical of everything and everybody. Only the market can be relied upon. Only the market will not lie. Do not even think about beginning without a plan. To do so invites failure, and once that cycle begins, fear busts in and drives its hooks into your back. At that point, you've got a long, rough, and extremely difficult road ahead of you, all of which can be avoided by putting your eagerness to trade on the back burner and instead studying and practicing. As for the plan, you can put together a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable plan without spending a dime. Investing.com, for example, has free live charts that you can use to observe price movements in real time, though whether the feed is real-time or delayed isn't particularly important at this level as long as it's moving. NinjaTrader offers free replay functionality (which is not to say that I recommend NT as a broker; the onslaught of emails you'll receive are an unintended turnoff, and you may eventually decide to categorize them all as spam; even so, replay will enable you to test out your plan). If the study and the practice are intolerable, then you will very likely fail. They won't take forever. Perhaps, with replay, only a few months. Otherwise you may go on for two or three or five years or more without even being able to do more than breakeven, if that, and perhaps that only after having blown through several accounts. A few months of study and practice are a cheap price to pay.

When I say "find the range", this is an example of what I'm talking about:

On Tape Reading Linda Bradford Raschke Tape reading long ago referred to the practice of studying an old-fashioned ticker tape and monitoring prices, volume, and fluctuations in order to predict the immediate trend. [Today it is] monitoring the current price action and asking: Is the price going up or down right now? It has nothing to do with technical analysis and everything to do with keeping an open mind. Even the most novice observer has the ability to see that prices are moving higher or lower at any particular moment or, for that matter, when prices seem to be going nowhere or sideways. (Markets do not always have to be going somewhere!) It is also fairly easy to watch a price go up and then tell when it stops going up - even if it turns out to be only a momentary pause. I've known hundreds of professional traders throughout my career. I don't want to disappoint you, but I know of only two who where able to make a steady living for themselves with a mechanical system. (I am not counting the well-capitalized CTA's who are running a money-management program with "OPM" - other people's money.) All those other traders used some type of discretion that invariably involved watching the price action at some moment - even if just to move a stop up or down. If you can learn to follow the price action, you will be two steps ahead of the game because price is faster than any derivative. You may have heard the saying, "The only truth is the current PRICE." Your job as a trader will become ten times easier once you accept this. This means ignoring news, opinions, and personal biases. Watching price action can actually be very confusing if you go about it like a ship without her sails up in an ocean squall. You will get tossed back and forth with no sense of direction and no sense of purpose. There are two main tricks to monitoring price action. The first is to watch the price relative to another "reference point" such as a swing high or the day's opening price. These will have much more significance than those points involving some type of calculation. I like to concentrate on points that the whole market can see. When watching price, we want to know the following: how fast, how far, and in which direction. It takes two points to measure these things. One will always be the current price, the other a reference point. "The study of responses ... is an almost unerring guide to the technical position of the market." -Richard Wyckoff, 1910 The second main trick to monitoring price action is to watch for the market's response to a particular condition, in other words, anticipating a particular behavior. Do not watch price for the sake of watching price. Watch price with the intent to do something or to anticipate a certain response! For example, if the market has been at a very low volatility point and just begins breaking out of it's particular trading range, one might anticipate that the price would begin to accelerate in an impulsive manner and not run into immediate resistance. Or, on a directional play, if the price is moving in an impulsive manner in a trending market and then pauses to catch its breath on a mild reaction, one would expect it then to continue on in the direction of the trend. When there is a particular behavior to anticipate, it is easier to watch the price to see if it acts according to one's expectations. Tape reading is not watching every trade that passes by (a monotonous task) but rather keeping an eye out for unusual impulsive action, unusual volume, or just observing the way the price trades at significant levels. Each price swing has forecasting value as to what the next most immediate move should be. We then follow the price action to see if that move plays out. Tape reading is at the heart of swing trading. When looking for short-term moves, price-based derivative indicators will be too late to be of value. Ultimately, traders should feel a great sense of freedom when they can rely on simple charts to formulate a game plan or a conceptual roadmap in their heads - and the movement on the tape to tell them their game plan is correct. Vad Graifer The importance of tape reading is its ability to save us from making market predictions and arbitrary egotistical assumptions about the value of a commodity. What is important is where the shift of supply and demand for a particular issue in any time frame moves price. The market talks to us in its original language of price, volume and pace. We are not concerned with creating certainties in the market because the market is too unpredictable to achieve any kind of certainty. We are concerned with putting the probabilities on our side. An understanding of true market reality increases our chances for success. There is no Holy Grail of trading, but there is a window of truth into the market, and our tape-reading principles can allow this window to be wide open for your domination of the trading arena. Lawrence Chan By reading the tape properly, a trader can tell if the market is weak or strong. If you can identify the strength of the market, you will trade correctly 90% of the time. Alan Farley It's time for a rude awakening. The years you spent studying technical analysis may not make you a good trader, and all that hard work may not yield a decent return. So what did you miss when learning to play the game? You forgot to master the art of tape reading. Traders get a lot of mileage by studying the charts. But to carry your game further and trade like a pro, you have no choice but to master the ticker tape. And it's not easy, because there's no definitive book or formula on the subject. The reason is sobering: Reading the tape must be learned through personal experience and long observation. Accomplished tape readers spend hours staring at the numbers and watching the tempo of the market day. Richard Wyckoff But if we study the action of prices; the responses; the speed of the ticker, indicating urgency or the contrary; the intensity of the buying or selling, as indicated by the volumes; and the intervals when the volume is heavy or light -- all these in relation to each other -- then we gain insight or the design and the purposes of those who are dominant in the market situation for the time being.

There are several courses to follow, or paths to trod, when learning how to trade. A: Hear something on the news, read something in a magazine or online, hear somebody talking about it at a party or at work or at school, read a book, whatever, get the bug, open up a brokerage account, select a trading platform, subscribe to a datafeed, and start trading, possibly something micro, with no plan whatsoever beyond buy what looks "good", then lose all your money, refund the account, try again, lose all your money again, try again for a third or fourth or fifth time. Or more, depending on how much punishment you can take. B. Study the market. Learn how it works. Learn what moves price. And when. And how. And how fast. Formulate hypotheses to explain these movements. Test those hypotheses via back-testing, then forward-testing. Develop a tentative trading plan. Simtrade it. If it doesn't work as expected, go back however far you must and begin again, all at no expense whatsoever. When it simtrades as expected, THEN open up a brokerage account and trade it for real, in small amounts. If the plan develops holes, stop and fix it, then try again until you have a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable trading plan and the discipline to follow it, which you will likely do as it's yours and not something you copied from somebody, and as you have nothing to be afraid of, you won't have to waste a lot of time, if any, "controlling your emotions". Guess which path nearly all beginners take. There is no going back. While it is possible to unlearn, it ain't easy. And there are residues which can have an extraordinary half-life. Sometimes it's possible to learn something new and/or different that will replace and extinguish the old. Sometimes one has to be satisfied with the new suppressing the old. This will create problems eventually, but with continued success, those suppressed impulses may become nothing more than an itch. Fifteen years ago, the sort of things I talk about would not have created much hubbub. There was still a tradition of trading price, of reading the tape, and there were plenty of people who knew how to do it. Now there's almost no one, at least among amateurs (the professionals aren't talking). Back then, what we now take for granted was all new: digital charts, streaming data (even real-time, though it cost an arm), discount brokers, candlesticks, and tons of indicators. But by now, it's accepted among beginners that this is how it's done, that indicators are not only desirable but necessary. To suggest some other way borders on heresy. We have computers. We have Renko charts. We have clouds and bands and envelopes and so forth and so on. We have colors and plug-ins and coded this and that. And the courses and the dvds and the software bloom like crocuses in the spring. And yet the failure rate is pretty much what it's always been. Some of this is addressed in the pdfs in the stickies, but I delve into it a bit here because I don't want to upset anybody with what I have to say about support and resistance as it will be very different from what you're heard or read elsewhere, some of which comes from people who claim to be traders and really ought to know better. Support and resistance, I'm sorry to say, have nothing to do with lines (or bands or MAs or Fibs or "pivot points" or any other sort of line). The market knows nothing about your lines. And even if it did, it wouldn't care. The market has other things with which to concern itself, and you and your lines are among the least of these. Nothing personal. That's just the way it is. The universe doesn't care about you, either (sorry about that). The market doesn't care about anything that's in your head, not only lines but also settings for all those indicators to which you cling. Nor does it care how you display the information it provides, whether candle, bar, line, mountain, tick, red, green, blue, aubergine. One must therefore distinguish between what is in one's head, which is most likely irrelevant to the task at hand, and what is in the market, what requires no settings or drawing or futzing or anything at all from the observer. This can be tough, because hardly anyone thinks this way anymore, except for a relatively few professionals (the guys in Market Wizards don't lie awake at night worrying about their MACD settings). So. If support and resistance are not lines, what are they? Support is an area where buying pressure overwhelms selling pressure. More specifically, support is the zone or level at which those who have enough money to make a difference are willing to show their support by retarding, halting, and reversing the decline by buying. Resistance is an area where selling pressure overwhelms buying pressure. More specifically, resistance is the zone or level at which those who have enough money to make a difference attempt to retard, halt, and reverse a rise by selling. Or, put even more simply, resistance is that level beyond which buyers refuse to pay the ask. Support is that level below which sellers refuse to lower it. And, yes, that may be too simple, but it's an important hook on which to hang one's assessments when trading in real time: if other traders aren't willing to pay the ask, why should you be? So, having said all that, and hoping that I haven't shaken anyone's foundations too hard, look at your charts again, without the lines, and try to detect those levels at which the roadblocks are erected, at which the tide turns. For example, when I woke up this morning, too early, the first thing I noticed on the hourly was that buyers turned back six ticks away from the level at which sellers refused to lower their asks last Thursday (at which point they found willing buyers). Curious. I had said several days ago that the LOLR was down, and though the rally was nice, that didn't change the LOLR. So the rejection by buyers at that same level was something to take seriously. Not that I'm suggesting that anyone short that level yesterday evening then curl up for a good night's sleep. But there were other opportunities, more easily available to somebody in Paris, but available nonetheless. At 0415, for example, why did price reverse at 72? If one recognized this as a trading opportunity, how could he exploit it? And would he be willing to pay the Price of Admission? And if he missed that one, what about the rally at 0700? Why did it reverse at 64.5? Is that a trading opportunity? If so, how can it be exploited? (And no lines so far) What's the price of admission? All of which may appear to be completely irrelevant as the open is still an hour away. But, as I've said elsewhere, the trade must be approached. One must enter the pool from the shallow end and work one's way forward, not just cannonball into the deep end hoping to make a big splash and impress onlookers. The thought is father to the deed, and without thought, the deed is not likely to generate much applause. It's all old news by now, of course (17:06), but it will have to be done again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Learning a new way of seeing takes practice. And practice makes perfect. There are several courses to follow, or paths to trod, when learning how to trade . . .

I've been asked this question more than once over the years, so, having answered it again (the turnover among beginners is pretty impressive), I'm posting it again here: Is The Wyckoff Method or Volume Spread Analysis Legit? Just wondering if it's actually useful or not. Whether they are useful or not depends on what you're looking for. There are actually two "Wyckoff Methods": one is Wyckoff's own, the original course written in the early 30s; the other is the Robert Evans adaptation developed in the 50s and sold by the Stock Market Institute. The latter is what virtually everyone uses -- including what I call the "Wyckoff Posse" -- for a variety of reasons. I find the original to be of much more use, at least to me. But then I always seek out original sources, such as with Steidlmayer and what eventually became Market Profile. VSA came about as a result of Tom Williams' study of the Robert Evans adaptation of Wyckoff's course but was also influenced by the writings of Richard Nye. The original here was called The Undeclared Secrets That Drive The Stock Market. None of these use indicators, so that may exclude them from your consideration. Otherwise, Wyckoff's original course is available for free, so you can decide its usefulness for yourself (the Evans adaptation is still under copyright). As for Williams' Undeclared Secrets, there are pdfs of it floating around. As Williams is very much alive, they may not be legal, but not all authors object to these free pdfs as they provide free advertising. Whether or not you google it is up to you. If you are looking for work on pure price action, with nothing on the chart except for the price bar or the tick, then these might be right up your alley. These three -- Wyckoff's original course, Williams' first work, and Steidlmayer's Markets and Market Logic -- are about all there is. And, incidentally, though you didn't ask, if you're interested in scalping, Wyckoff's My Secrets of Daytrading in Stocks may be of use to you. This is also available for free. It focuses on tape reading and P&F. There is also Livermore's How To Trade In Stocks, also free, which is essentially the same approach as Wyckoff's, though Wyckoff's book goes into far more detail. The key difference between Wyckoff-in-the-original and the Evans/Williams adaptations is continuity of price. Wyckoff began as a tape reader, so he sees price as being continuous, which of course it is. The "bar" is irrelevant, a convenience for illustration as they didn't have tick charts in those days. The idea of limiting oneself to a "5-minute bar" would make no sense to him. Nor would he sign on to the notion of "noise". If one misses this, then there's little point in studying Wyckoff at all. Just buy somebody's software and follow the arrows. Or read someone who trades price "bar by bar", which means trading bars, not price (usually with an indicator or two thrown in). But those are the choices if one elects not to study Wyckoff in the original..

For those who are interested in trading price without indicators: The Secret Trading Strategy From The 1930s That Hedge Funders Don't Want You To Know About A couple of comments posted to BI: Markets are not a hobby. They should only be participated in by professionals who know what they are doing. Professionals who know the rules and know how to play to win by the rules. That's what these guys are doing. They know how to play the game. If you stepped on the court with Kobe Bryant would you complain that it's not fair that he's a better ball handler and shooter than you are? Of course not. You just wouldn't get on the court with them. You wouldn't jump in a pool if you didn't know how to swim. There is nothing wrong with this, it's the by product of professionals who are extremely good at their craft. --Nick The only difference between now and the 1930's is the computer. What used to take big operators weeks or months to accomplish can now be done in a matter of days (sometimes hours) if they so desire to do so. This is one cause of those 200 point daily swings, yet at the end of the week the markets have barely moved. --Paradise

The action of the whole market tells you when the selling is better than the buying and vice versa. You do not care why insiders are buying or selling, but you should care a lot about the action of their stock on the tape, for that is what tells you the truth. The action of a single stock is its own best forecaster. When you know how to read the tape and interpret the action of the whole market and of individual stocks, you will be "on the ground floor" with the insiders, without having anything to do with them. That is because the tape tells the real story. To become a successful trader, you must learn to judge by the action of the market. It is the action of the market which carries the greatest influence with insiders. --Richard D. Wyckoff

Interestingly, buyers have refused to pay the ask at the same level at which sellers refused to lower it last week. Asian traders -- and insomniacs -- catch a lot of the breaks.

I've been asked this question more than once over the years, so, having answered it again (the turnover among beginners is pretty impressive), I'm posting it again here: Is The Wyckoff Method or Volume Spread Analysis Legit? Just wondering if it's actually useful or not. Whether they are useful or not depends on what you're looking for. There are actually two "Wyckoff Methods": one is Wyckoff's own, the original course written in the early 30s; the other is the Robert Evans adaptation developed in the 50s and sold by the Stock Market Institute. The latter is what virtually everyone uses -- including what I call the "Wyckoff Posse" -- for a variety of reasons. I find the original to be of much more use, at least to me. But then I always seek out original sources, such as with Steidlmayer and what eventually became Market Profile. VSA came about as a result of Tom Williams' study of the Robert Evans adaptation of Wyckoff's course but was also influenced by the writings of Richard Nye. The original here was called The Undeclared Secrets That Drive The Stock Market. None of these use indicators, so that may exclude them from your consideration. Otherwise, Wyckoff's original course is available for free, so you can decide its usefulness for yourself (the Evans adaptation is still under copyright). As for Williams' Undeclared Secrets, there are pdfs of it floating around. As Williams is very much alive, they may not be legal, but not all authors object to these free pdfs as they provide free advertising. Whether or not you google it is up to you. If you are looking for work on pure price action, with nothing on the chart except for the price bar or the tick, then these might be right up your alley. These three -- Wyckoff's original course, Williams' first work, and Steidlmayer's Markets and Market Logic -- are about all there is. And, incidentally, though you didn't ask, if you're interested in scalping, Wyckoff's My Secrets of Daytrading in Stocks may be of use to you. This is also available for free. It focuses on tape reading and P&F. There is also Livermore's How To Trade In Stocks, also free, which is essentially the same approach as Wyckoff's, though Wyckoff's book goes into far more detail. The key difference between Wyckoff-in-the-original and the Evans/Williams adaptations is continuity of price. Wyckoff began as a tape reader, so he sees price as being continuous, which of course it is. The "bar" is irrelevant, a convenience for illustration as they didn't have tick charts in those days. The idea of limiting oneself to a "5-minute bar" would make no sense to him. Nor would he sign on to the notion of "noise". If one misses this, then there's little point in studying Wyckoff at all. Just buy somebody's software and follow the arrows. Or read someone who trades price "bar by bar", which means trading bars, not price (usually with an indicator or two thrown in). But those are the choices if one elects not to study Wyckoff in the original..

And for those in the advanced class:

As it turned out, the breakout was the way to go. The pdf uploaded to post 1 is the beginner-simple edition of the SLA. Given that there are only two people that I know of who are past that, I'd like to keep my posts at the beginner-simple level. This may be somewhat frustrating to those who are eager to rush ahead, but a content thread is not unlike a one-room schoolhouse: everybody is in the same room but working on different levels. Even if I could, I can't put blinders on people so that they can't see stuff that may be too advanced for them, so I'll have to leave it up to the individual to focus on what's right for him according to his self-appraisal. If he's untethered to reality, the market will let him know tout suite, and he can then back up to wherever he can find solid ground in order to begin again. So . . . As I posted above, at 0629, the market was telling you that 4535 was important. The market didn't lie (as is its wont). Price broke above this level at 0635, retraced, made a higher high at 0720, retraced again, and made a higher high at 0805. It then began ranging up to the market open at 0930. At that point, price breaks above the range high of 50 and travels all the way to 72.5. A demand line drawn across the swing lows on the 5m is broken at 63.5 (on the 1m it's broken a little higher, at about 70). And that's all that the beginner or the damaged trader needs to know: breakout, retracement, all the way to either 70 or 63.5 depending on the choice of bar interval, then out. Twenty points in twenty minutes. Those in the advanced class who know why price stopped at 72.5 may have elected to trade a reversal there, but that's not for beginners.

In many writings on the Stock Market since 1907 I have frequently expressed this thought: Correct interpretation of the Stock Market requires a study of the forces which cause advances and declines in the prices of stocks. These forces are constantly at work. They are of varying power, intensity and duration. They grow out of events, conditions and circumstances and acquire potency as a result of the acts of men, corporations and governments throughout the world. No one can anticipate the effect of these forces to the point of certainty, for no one knows when those now operating may be overpowered by greater forces. These forces are accentuated in various ways. News items, tips, gossip play their part, but these are of limited effect until they cause men to buy or sell stocks on the Stock Exchange. No matter how bullish or bearish traders become, if their ideas and emotions are expressed only in words, hopes or fears, they have no effect upon the market prices of stocks; but the moment orders to buy or sell are given, functioning begins, and the effect of these orders is registered on the tape of the stock ticker. The news may be bearish in the estimation of those who are selling; the bears may anticipate that their selling may make an impression on the market; but if at that moment there are other men or institutions whose brokers stand there with buying orders, ready to take whatever the sellers offer, then these sellers will have misjudged the probable effect of their sales. How are we to know in advance why and to what extent someone else is prompted to buy or sell? We cannot know; it is impossible for us to foretell what actuates all of those whose orders are poured into the vast intake of the Stock Exchange machinery during the day's session. But if we study the action of prices; the responses; the speed of the ticker, indicating urgency or the contrary; the intensity of the buying or selling, as indicated by the volumes; and the intervals when the volume is heavy or light -- all these in relation to each other -- then we gain insight or the design and the purposes of those who are dominant in the market situation for the time being. All the varying phases of stock market technique may thus be studied and interpreted from the buying and selling waves as they appear on the tape. From these we form a conclusion as to the balance of the probabilities. On this we base our commitments. --Richard D. Wyckoff

Remember that it's not about lines. It's about buyers and sellers and what they want and when they want it and how much or how little they're willing to pay/take for it. The lines are merely a map to point the way, just as the lines on a roadmap are not the roads themselves. When we become quite familiar with stock charts we shall find ourselves looking for various pictures and patterns formed by our charts, but if we are to be complete masters of our study and get the fullest benefits from our own analysis it is important that we do not entirely lose sight of the fundamental basis for the formation of those pictures and patterns. That fundamental basis is in actual stock market trading, and actual stock market trading is the result of individual actions by many thousands of people, based in turn upon their own hopes, fears, anticipations, knowledge or lack of knowledge, necessities and plans. It is the danger of losing sight of this human element in stock charts that we must guard against, and since this human element is basic it may be wise to fit it into the foundations of our study at the very outset. --Richard W. Schabacker

The SPX has clearly broken its stride and has been ranging for quite some time. The uptrend has changed, but has not necessarily ended. For now, it treads water. The NDX, on the other hand, is still in its weekly trend channel, hovering around its median. Figuring the odds of what is the "line of least resistance (LOLR)" at these "middles" is more difficult than assessing the odds of moving one way or another when price rejects either the upper or lower limits of the channel (this is all Auction Market Theory; see the pdf in post 1). However, looking at the daily and hourly provide some clues: Traders have been working their way toward equilibrium for quite some time, their efforts forming what Wyckoff calls a "hinge", with an apex of 4569+/-. Traders have already sought trades 60pts upward and a little more than that on the downside. We rebounded to 4535 on Friday, but there are many signs of weakness here: the failure to hold a higher high on the daily, a drop back into the daily range that's been in place for months, and of course the lower low. There are no guarantees, of course. We could rally all the way to 4700. But at the moment, the LOLR looks to be down. By tomorrow morning . . . (All of the above was posted last night on another site)

About Richard Wyckoff Richard Wyckoff (1873-1934) was a pioneer of technical analysis. While Dow contributed the theory that price moves in a series of trends and reactions, and Schabacker classified those movements into chart patterns, developed gap theory, and stressed the role of trader behavior in the development of patterns and support/resistance, Wyckoff contributed the study of the relationship between volume and price movement to detect imbalances between supply and demand, which in turn provided clues to direction and potential turning points. By also studying the dynamics of consolidations or horizontal movements, he was able to offer a complete market cycle of accumulation, mark-up, distribution, and mark-down, which was in large part the result of shifts in ownership between retail traders and professional money. Wyckoff sought to develop a comprehensive trading system which (a) focused on those markets and stocks that were “on the springboard” for significant moves, (b) initiated entries at those points which offered the highest probability of success, and © exited the positions at the most advantageous time, all with the least possible degree of risk*. His favorite metaphor for the markets and market action was water: waves, currents, eddies, rapids, ebb and flow. He did not view the market as a battlefield nor traders as combatants. He counseled the trader to analyze the waves, determine the current, “go with the flow”, much like a sailor. He thus encouraged the trader to find his entry using smaller “waves”, then, as the current picked him up, ride the current through the larger waves to the natural culmination of the move, even to the extent of pressing one’s advantage, or “pyramiding”, as opposed to cutting profits short, or “scalping”. *Risk is minimized by (1) focusing on liquid markets, (2) monitoring the imbalances between buying pressure and selling pressure at those levels of "support" or "resistance" where price is most likely to reverse its trend, (3) entering on reversals (or, if necessary, retracements) rather than breakouts, and (4) getting out when the market tells you to. Continuity of Price: Wyckoff began as a tape reader. By the time he incorporated daily charts into his trading, the continuity of price movement via the tape, tick by tick, had become so ingrained that he could see price no other way. Even though he might be looking at a series of daily bars on an end-of-day chart, he saw price as continuous. Thus the bar itself was irrelevant to him, and he was just as comfortable using line charts as bar charts. The line chart, in fact, more closely conforms to this continuity. "Setups": There are no "setups" in Wyckoff, at least insofar as we commonly use the term. He did not say that if price does this, you buy and if price does that, you sell or short. Rather he stressed that the trader must be sensitive to imbalances in buying pressure and selling pressure, particular at levels where these imbalances might most likely result in profit opportunities, e.g., reversals. Therefore, the "trading signal" is not, for example, a "double bottom" or a "higher low" or a "climax bottom"; the trading signal is provided by the imbalances between buying pressure and selling pressure, and if one does not view price as a continuous movement and is not sensitive to these continuous shifts in balance/imbalance, he will not understand what it is that he's supposed to do. About the Straight Line Approach Wyckoff's magnum opus was his Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique (links provided above in the first stickie). The course was in two parts totaling over 500 pages. While some traders have consumed every word, others have had considerable difficulties with the course, partly because of the language (it was finished eighty+ years ago) and partly because there is much in it that for most traders is "dated", such as drawing one's own charts. But those who have studied it understand that much of what we consider to be "modern" had its beginnings in Wyckoff's work, particularly his course. The accumulation-distribution cycle , the "hook", the "1-2-3", the "Trader's Trick Entry", the "2B" and much else had their origins in Wyckoff, along with group and sector and intermarket analyses. The notions of support and resistance originated with Wyckoff. Not too shabby. For seven+ years, I encouraged traders, new and otherwise, to study the course, without much luck. I then looked for various ways to "translate" this material into forms that were more approachable. There were some phenomena whose influence I underestimated, largely the phenomenon of fear. Be that as it may, I eventually developed an approach -- the SLA -- which took Wyckoff's assortment of lines (supply, support, overbought, etc) and distilled them into trendlines and demand/supply lines. This appeared to have at least some resonance with interested traders. At minimum, it helped them to distinguish between up and down and to stay on track. It also helped them to distinguish between trending and ranging and to avoid chop. The pdf attached to the Trading Price stickie above explains the Straight Line Approach as quickly and briefly and I hope painlessly as I can. And if that is as far as one wants to go, fine. There is more, of course, primarily the synergy between the SLA and Auction Market Theory, something which Wyckoff was only one small step away from codifying, and how all of this can be applied to intraday trading. But that is addressed in my Trading Price book, which is considerably longer (about 400 pages).

1. Not studying the market in order to find out how it works. 2. Not developing a trading plan to take advantage of what he has observed. 3. Not following the plan that he has created.

If by "technical movements" you mean price movements, read this pdf. As for Dow Theory, Wm Peter Hamilton was a colleague of Dow and wrote a book entitled The Stock Market Barometer, available for free online in pdf form. Rhea was a student of Hamilton's. His book, The Dow Theory, is also available for free in pdf form.

*bump* ..............

See the post above yours.

How much you're up isn't pertinent. No reason to sell until the trend is over. Bull markets can last much longer than this one. If it keeps you up at night, just put stops underneath what you own, remembering that buying back is not necessarily a walk in the park.

Explanation

No intention to offend. Many LT investors trade solely on the basis of fundamentals and have no interest in charts. Think they're nonsense. There were a lot more of these people before 2000 and 2007, but one never knows. In any case, you might be interested in this. It's less than 20p.

HNT shot up from 65 to 77 in one day last week. Now it's back where it started. To wait until the move is nearly over is not the best course. To find an entry, look at the 2nd. Ditto CNC. Short the failure. Don't wait until it's already down 20%.