zeon

Ok, point taken. I didn't realize you only looked at volume by price, and not the "normal" volume... My point about pivots and fibs was that I don't believe they could provide resistance. Sorry if I didn't quite make that clear. I tend to look at swing points primarily. Like yesterday price tried to go higher but failed twice at a level where it had already failed before (1347-1349). The other place are the lows, around 1332-1335, as price first made a potential selling climax there and later reversed of there again (but not very far) it would be my guess that these levels are important. Perhaps I've completely misunderstood the concept of support and resistance, but that's what I used to do last year and it seemed to work fine then :\

But what's the alternative for drawing s/r by yourself? How else would you determine these levels? I've counted on s/r to guide me through the day, as they used to be levels where I could find nice entries in the past. Lately though it seems as price couldn't care less where there's s/r... They are just lines on a chart I agree. Trading without them would be like trying to find the keyhole blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back and the key in your mouth. Eventually you might succeed, but not before you've bumped into the door several times.

Sorry, not trying to be the proverbial pain in the ass here, but... I'm seeing price go through that level as if nothing is there, about 5 times in last two days. I agree the "sideways volume" there is noteably higher than elsewhere, but that's about it... See my chart, the pink line is where you and dbphoenix have resistance, the blue lines is where I would mark them. That, and the bigcharts volume by price chart. The only thing that strikes me is that 1340 happens to be the middle of yesterday's action. But why would a calculated point provide s/r anymore than for example pivot points or fibonacci levels for that matter?

It's been suggested that the price level where the greatest number of trades takes place, should provide important S/R in the future. So I tried plotting volume by price on my charts. However this results in having the zone 1335-1340 as important, but when I see other people's S/R levels, that one doesn't quite add up

Why 40? I see the line comes from the left on your chart but there's nothing there, except for the the high in the middle of your chart. When you look to the right 1340 doesn't look like it provides any sort of S/R, price just goes straight through it. So where does it come from? Perhaps you could attach a chart from the ES, because the one you posted with those numbers is a different one. For example, where does 48 come from? I know I said 47-49 myself the other day, but that was strictly speaking only from the overnight. Erie said 46 yesterday, so I guess it's all around the same place yet we all have slightly different numbers. As for 30, I'm clueless where that comes from. Price spent some time around 32-34 yesterday and reversed twice of that level. I would think these levels would be obvious S/R? See attached chart.

No offense meant, but that's easy to say now that the markets are closed... How did you evaluate this during the day in real time?

Thanks for the suggestions. Moving my stop to breakeven is usually something I do after price has moved closer to my target. However in this case, the 'signal' to move the stop was just missed, if it went a bit higher I'd have move my stop. I definitely use this strategy, because it's very frustrating once you see a profitable trade turn into a loser. I've observed the TICK for some time and I've also noticed dbphoenix employing the TICK for the NQ, but according to what I've read the tick can sometimes invalidate a good setup, or at other times confirm a bad setup. For the time being I think it's best if I keep it just to price & volume because the signals already seem to be confusing enough... If I'd add another layer I fear I might have tick saying go long, price saying short and volume saying stay flat... if you know what I mean.

All of my posts from today were in real time brownsfan. I'm not hoping on much real time comments as other people are probably trading their own stuff. I appreciate anybody who's willing to help me explore this further and help me out in gaining a better understanding, because so far this would be the 14th losing trade in-a-row...

I take it you mean "support" when you said resistance? And no, I didn't exit because the plan is to ride the trade till the next resistance level. Doing anything else would mean I'm just greedy and taking profits quickly. I'm sorry, but I don't know how much worse this can get now. :shrug:

I wish that was the case. Here's what happened next.

What the ****? 12300 right now... it just broke lower like nothing.

Thanks for a very informative post. I only mentioned Eiger because he asked me to post some charts, but I prefer posting charts live then get some older charts where hindsight analysis might be easy to do. In this case, I had no knowledge of what was coming after the "long entry". Your contributions or those from other people are certainly appreciated. It looks like finally I might be getting somewhere. I agree that waiting for further confirmation comes at a disadvantage: a higher entry and less potential for profits. But so is the case in trading, the longer you wait the more convinced you are, but the less potential. Also, you seem to agree that a re-test of resistance in this case is likely, so this is where my target would be. It remains to be see whether we'll get there, because at the moment price is back at 370 and not exactly in a hurry to go higher by the looks of it. :\ Finally, I'm also thinking this intraday action last couple of days is building up for another move higher. Glad to see someone think along the lines of what I'm thinking for a change

It looks like that was exactly what happened, another shake-out and then up went price. But at least price went up, which gives me some consolation... My target would be the next resistance level. After two "selling climaxes" during the day, surely the pro's have been buying at the low prices and are ready for the mark-up? Unfortunately as I'm typing this, price has just come down again, approaching the entry-point hmm.

Eiger, two days ago you asked me post some charts explaining what I meant. Right now, there's a very good example of what I was talking about then. This is decreasing volume, on support. So is this strength (no sellers left?) or weakness (no buyers left to pick it up)? This is where I'd take a long trade. Given the odds of my trades, this will probably go down now.

Okay, fair enough. I can definitely see price reacting to that level: there's a rise in volume and the bar closes off the highs. But this probably happens all the time when price approaches resistance, because it's very likely that other traders are seeing this area as resistance too. If I may ask, do you focus only on the ES? or do you look at other things to?

Yes I can see why support is NOW at 1332... after price reversed from that level it's easy to say. But before the day opened I hadn't written this level on my map. Instead I was focusing on price action around 1337-1339... as for 1346, how come you suddenly have that as resistance? couple of hours ago you asked me where I got my 1347 from?

Before the market opened today, I identified various support and resistance levels. Like I said in a previous post on another thread, support was at 1337-1339. These are the horizontal blue lines drawn across the chart. Price opened above support and just went straight lower, like a knife through butter. It stopped around 1332 before going back to the support area, which should now act as resistance. I'm observing how the volume drops off gradually, so this looks typically like a low volume retracement after a breakout, right? Then there's a volume peak that pierces the support level but the bar closes right down, and this is the 'shooting star' short signal I was looking for. The volume is much higher then before, so everything is according to plan. However - and I can't get my head around why this is happening so often lately - price continues higher. I would almost get paranoid, but this would have been the 14th losing trade in a row. I stopped trading for real after 7 though. Perhaps I need to go short when I go long and the other way around. Certainly looks like that could work I posted this chart elsewhere to, but as other people asked me yesterday to post it here, I did so because it looks like I might be getting more feedback here.

Like I said in a previous post, support was at 1337-1339. These are the horizontal blue lines drawn across the chart. Price opened above support and just went straight lower, like a knife through butter. It stopped around 1332 before going back to the support area, which should now act as resistance. I'm observing how the volume drops off gradually, so this looks typically like a low volume retracement after a breakout, right? Then there's a volume peak that pierces the support level but the bar closes right down, and this is the 'shooting star' short signal I was looking for. The volume is much higher then before, so everything is according to plan. However - and I can't get my head around why this is happening so often lately - price continues higher. I would almost get paranoid, but this would have been the 14th losing trade in a row. I stopped trading for real after 7 though. Perhaps I need to go short when I go long and the other way around. Certainly looks like that could work

1347 to 1349 is the high of a congestion area from pre-market yesterday. Also, late last night it peaked into that area up to 1349.50 before reversing sharply. So I guess you could say 1349 is the level to beat, but I always define "zones" instead of fixed lines. I hope the difference in eyesight doesn't spoil things for me again... -> Question: given the premarket action at 1344-1345 (price reversed after hanging around there for quite some time), would you now consider that level to be resistance? It's awfully close to 1349 though :\

Thanks, great post. But why, within the context of the last couple of days, doesn't the "low volume" on the downside equate strength? There's hardly any real selling going on, and after a 500-point rise up to 12600 some kind of pause or consolidation was to be expected. So, with all due respect, I believe we are going back up to 12600 at least.

my levels for today: 1347-1349 (given yesterday's action) 1358-1360 (obvious resistance) 1337-1339 (yesterday's low) 1323-1325 (from the 15th and the 19th) Why as low as 1320 erie? and where does the 1332 come from exactly? and do you take the overnight action into consideration when analyzing a chart?

I suppose don't need to answer that one... Okay, we can continue this tomorrow or later then. Thanks again for taking the time.

True, but - as I posted in my "minute-by-minute" analysis - I had more elements to support the long case than not. And given that price reacted to my line at 1342 in the first place, it was a confirmation of support. I've found that hard to do when trading. Easy when you're not trading perhaps and just standing aside, but when you're actually putting a trade on and you're focusing on elements to contradict your trade, one can always find some. If I look hard enough, there'll always be signals that invalidate a trade, but by doing so, I probably never put a trade on. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with the chart, but I gave it a try... but I'm not sure if this even comes close to what you had in mind.

It now looks as if this: "(3) at 1409 there's decent volume and a wide spread bar but price closes in the middle, looks like there is still some supply in the market left that prevents price from rising" was some sort of rejection from resistance. If that was a rejection, than the candles that I named a "re-test" look like weakness and no buying... :\ But then again, if I remove my "support", everything starts to look different.

Starting from the selling climax, this is how I observed price. Thoughts and feelings included in the analysis (1) the next bar was an up-bar, as mentioned on lower volume and going straight up... => no supply (2) at 1400 there was the news, the high volume on this bar is ignored (3) at 1409 there's decent volume and a wide spread bar but price closes in the middle, looks like there is still some supply in the market left that prevents price from rising (4) next candle, reasonable volume and price goes down... so I'd expect price to test the support again (5) next candle, price tries to rise, but fails to do so and closes at the low, but still not lower than the previous candle: looks like there's already some buying coming in, supports the hypothesis (6) the 're-test bar': higher volume than the previous two bars: but small spread => all the effort from sellers is apparently being absorbed by traders who are buying at this level, otherwise the high volume would see price fall further; instead price hardly moves and the candle closes off the lows, hypothesis very likely (7) at 1421 there's an upbar, on the lowest volume of all... here we go: lift-off: no more supply left and price rises becauses there's no selling pressure, hypothesis confirmed (8) at 1424 sudden rise in volume and wide spread down bar... what the hell? (9) ah, another low volume upbar, perhaps sellers weren't quite flushed out completely in the previous bar and price will rise now, starting to feel some fear... (10) what? how can this happen? wide spread down bar and it goes below the low of the potential selling climax... my stop was there so I'm stopped out... hypothesis apparently incorrect