ACS

Are those spikes real trades or just bad data?

My understanding is that you must know what the background of the market is. Is there supply or demand? If there is a rally with demand in the background then a pullback on light volume means lack of supply on the dip. The buyers already have established that they control the market, it is up to the sellers to change the background by showing supply through range expansion, increased volume and follow through. The converse is true in a bear trend.

Are there more of Brand's articles available?

The FED is a creature of and a servant to the big banks. Understand that and everything he and his predecessors have done makes perfect sense.

If you want to spend the time there are some great posts about Market Delta trading on Brett Steenbarger's blog Trader Feed. He stopped new posts last year but all the old stuff is still available. http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/

Wrote these to trade ACD system. Someone may be able to translate. ACD.zip

If you are in the US then please check the rule for "pattern day trader" before making plans for that account size.

Am I the only one who thinks it is insane to trade 4 ES contracts with a $10,000 account?

The only thing that makes sense to me when testing strategies on past data is to use two sets of data. The signals should be from adjusted data since each contract, which is what the signal is based on, does not have gaps. The results however should be based on unadjusted data since that is what you will have to deal with when holding a position into a rollover.

The last 2 presentations, how to trade wedges and how to trade the open are now on view at the I-Trade show. It would be great if someone who has the ability to tape those could do so and share them. Thanks!

I agree about your first point. Sometimes the setup bar is referenced and sometimes it's the entry bar. That's easy to see. About the second point I'm going to differ. With no trend established, you are looking at a trading range where countertrend entries are taken at the extremes of the range. Bar 2 in 1.18 is a reversal bar H2 at a new swing low and therefore a good candidate for a long trade.

Actually the bar after bar 2 was the H2, bar 2 was the setup bar for the H2. This is the most popular topic here and you need to go back to page 1 of this thread and read through. There is a lot of discussion on Highs and Lows. You will come across links to several of Dr. Brook's presentations. If the links are still good, save them and watch them. The first presentation "Short Term E-mini Strategies That Work" is particularly good on the subject. The method works in all time frames and the book has a chapter on daily, weekly, and monthly charts. Good luck!

This is not a mechanical system that can be reduced to a simple set of rules. It is a highly discretionary methodology that requires constant evaluation of subjective criteria such as how "strong" a trend is or how "good" a setup appears. Dr. Brook's writings constantly stress that you should be looking for the very best trades and avoiding anything that is not. I'd go so far as to say that the most important thing to learn is not when to trade but when not to.

Like much else, with time it will become easier. If you are not sure then simply skip the trade; there are many other opportunities!

He answers that question in the seminar. It's an L1 variant. Think about the price action intra-bar. The market went up into that doji bar, dipped down to the low of the bar and then rallied up to the high of the next bar. Up-down-up. Even though the price never went below the low of the previous bar, it would have on a smaller time frame chart. That is a two-legged correction which is what you are looking for.

That is so true. Anyone who watches markets for a while will quickly realize how dramatically the configuration of a bar/candle can change in its final 30 seconds.

Besides the problem of cherry picking smaller time frames, there is another reason for using 5 minute charts that is alluded to in the book and lectures but not stated explicitly. Based on magazine articles, blogs, web sites, etc, the 5 minute time frame seems to be one of the most popular. If you are looking for setups that trap other traders then wouldn't you want to be looking at the same chart that they are trading?

complain 1.To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment. 2.To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge. We must be using different dictionaries.

He could have easily gone the route of a paid website/chatroom, tutoring, DVDs, etc but instead decided to go back to just trading his account. He says he wants to trade institutional size which he describes in the book as 100 contracts. I wish him luck and hope he changes his mind enough to just post end of day charts; something that will not interfere with trading during the day but would be of immense help to the many people who bought the book.

Anyone who has spent time with Al's book knows Wiley did an awful job of editing and proofreading. There are many typos in the book. Some are just grammatical and do not affect the content value but there are some that do. On his web site Al says he will correct them in any second edition. I feel that IF there is a second edition it will only be because people bought the first edition and they should not be penalized for doing so. Therefore I am listing the known errors I have found so far and encourage others to add to this list. Page 34 3rd Paragraph: “not the Bar 6” number should be 8 Page 123 3rd Paragraph: "but Bar 17 was a bear" the chart was mislabeled Bar 17 should have been the bar before Page 158 1st Line: "but at least its close was above" should be "above the midpoint" Page 205 2nd Paragraph "bar 10, was above" should be Bar 9 Page 238 “Bar 12 was a bad bull reversal” should be bar 11 Page 245 2nd Paragraph “countertrend bar (bar 9)” Should be (the bar before bar 9) 2nd to last Paragraph: "bar 3 in figure 9.24 was a huge bear trend bar that followed four " last word should be three

I took the L1 off the first 5 minute bar and it turned out to be a good trade. I'll admit I wasn't thrilled with the size of the tails, had they been even a tick bigger I would have passed but since I was selling after a gap down I decided to go with it. In the book Al says to only use 3 minutes for with trend entries in a strong trend. To me that means you would not be looking at the 3 minute chart until at least a few 5 minute bars had already passed, you knew the market was in a strong trend, and you were not seeing any 5 minute entries. Just the 5 minute is challenging enough for me!

Using the methods described in the book, the first trade of the day was an L1 short at 1008.25 off the 1st bear trend bar. The next trade I saw was also an L1 short at 1004.50 off the 4th & 5th double bottom bear bars. Any trade around 1010.00 was before the first 5 minute bar of the day closed and thus was not compatible with my understanding of Al's methodology since it was too early to look at a lower time frame for setups, the market not yet having proven itself in a strong trend.

Looks like Al has decided to pull the plug on his web site. There is a lot of really good information there and it will be missed. I hope he changes his mind and just posts end of day charts that don't interfere with his trading but if not you should save a copy of anything that is helpful to you before it disappears.

That is my very basic understanding.

When the market is trending it will try to break the trend but most attempts fail and the trend resumes; that is a pullback. Sometimes the failure stops before it makes new highs/lows in the trend and it then reverses back in the direction of the breakout. In other words the failed breakout fails and becomes a breakout pullback in the new trend. Often there will be a period of uncertainty whether it is just a pullback in the old trend or a breakout pullback in a new trend until the market tips its hand by further price action.