firewalker

If you don't mind me asking, why were you surprised? A test of the June high seemed likely imo, although the pace at which we rallied off 1400 towards 1500 is something I hadn't suspected during summer "doldrums". The information about volume spread is interesting though. In a review of last 2 weeks, here's my 2c. We spent a week travelling sideways, building up for a sustained rally which has now reached the June highs. Legend on chart - double horizontal lines: rough larger areas of support/resistance from in the past (note this is my interpretation) - small horizontal lines: midpoints or smaller (yet not negligible) areas from intraday S/R - blue box -> 'rectangle'/base/build-up (see also what dbphoenix mentioned about accumulation) - red circle -> shake-out - yellow rectangles -> pauses before continuation

Actually, just by looking at your chart it seems to fit the principle pretty well imo. Yes, if it hadn't been for that 'anomaly' the volume declined would've looked more smoothly. And although the volume when price falls out of the hinge isn't spectacular, it's still noticeably higher than the previous 15 minutes. I'm a fan of hinges myself, but not that obsessed as atto (just jk). However, if this hinge exploded to the upside, I probably would've been more inclined to take the trade, since we were floating 2 points above decent support. But instead, price fell out of the hinge to the downside, and I don't like shorting price so close to support. That's, imo, hoping for a break, something which isn't very likely during lunchtime. Also, if you moved your stop to breakeven in time, you could've gotten away with shorting the break.

It's been a while since I posted a decent analysis here, so for old times' sake (and also to keep the mind sharp), here's a review of today including the why and the how! It's my personal perception, so don't take any of it as 'true' or 'right'. Comments are welcome. Attached is the NQ of today, 1 minute candle chart. It's been pretty lackluster couple of days lately, with price action at times so slow that watching paint dry has been more fascinating... this is also the week leading into 4th of July, so I'm guessing lot of traders are sipping cocktails on the poolside instead of studying their charts! Anyhow, before the day opened I had identified support around 1468-1470 (same level as previous days), resistance around 1508 and the previous day high (minor resistance) at 1492 and 1488 the midpoint. Incidentally, 1487.50 was the premarket high. So those were the areas I was looking to take a trade. (1) Market opens and rallies towards PDH and fails to show much strength. I wasn't following the TICKQ, but I assume there was a divergence somewhere there. And shorting here, in hindsight, was probably the best trade of the day. Price pulls back towards 1485, makes another attempt and then stalls minutes before the hour. Where it stalls is interesting, considering it's +/- the midpoint of the bigger range. However, I didn't want to get shaken out by the news, so I stayed flat. (2) At the hour there was a news report (CB consumer confidence), which explains the volume peak. But we already had signals that buyers weren't that interested in pushing price higher. (3) Price falls, and there is no reason to take a long trade, the trendline isn't broken until after we reach support. At 1630 we have what looks like a selling climax but price falls further in the next minutes. (4) However there's more interest from buyers (they clearly like 1469), and despite that price is stall falling, an aggressive long entry could be taken here... (5) And price reacts off support (technical rally after selling climax), but volume takes off rapidly and the demandline breaks. (6) And here price action is really zip at first... but if you zoom in it's actually a mini-hinge. Question is does it have potential, I like to evaluate where and when it takes place. (7) playing around with support here... but we're still in lunchtime (8) a bigger test, notice the higher volume. It's outside of lunchtime hours, but more importantly, it shows a poke below 1468 which immediately gets rejected and buyers rush to push price higher. Long entry here with 2pt stop (green dot). (9) volume drops off after the reaction... it's like everybody stopped caring (notice the gradual volume dry-up almost to zero). It might be hard to see because volume is so tiny, but after a successful test, volume often dries up, in anticipation of a continuation. (10) the rest of the day is just following the line of least resistance. The first 'target' would be the high of the technical rally at 1477.50. (11) And by the time we get there, there's not much time left. So what you do here is up to personal preferences, but I called it a day (exited at purple dot) and started typing this. Finally, I added some letters (A,B,C and D) to annotate volume peaks which I didn't pay much attention to. Partly because they didn't make sense to me, but most importantly because I couldn't relate price action to the rise in volume. Most of them occurred during lunchtime hours anyway.

Yeah, Fraser Publishing has been an excellent resource. And if you buy 'distressed copies' (which actually just look as brand-new to me as any other book), you're doing a real bargain.

I found this post on "CouldaWouldaShoulda (The Wyckoff Forum)" interesting and have nominated it accordingly for "Topic Of The Month June, 2009"

If you would be so kind, I'd appreciate the analysis of the setup for that trade. I'm more interested in the reasoning behind it than the actual trade. Also: how many trades does your approach on average have per month? Good luck.

Hi there... I'm afraid you're bit late this thread isn't active in a while. Most of the people who joined here ceased posting or have joined the TL chatroom to discuss live trading. Good trading, fw

And so we continue following the path of least resistance. Like I said to TOG today, wait for the EOD rally... we closed at an interesting point. Despite what all the indicators say, we're not yet into overbought territory if you watch the channel.

Or... you can just compare Rollo's interpretation with those of others (for example the one I did this morning) who haven't read anything else, other than the original work, and see how it adds up against what happens in the market.

Back on topic with your first trade, going short on SPY, I actually disagree with what you're seeing in the chart. And I also wonder if Wyckoff would be the person to short this kind of obvious uptrend. Even if momentum is temporarily weakening, I think there are plenty of reason to stay long until the market shows otherwise. Regardless of what is 'right' or 'wrong', mine is also just one of the potential interpretations of current price action on the S&P. I left out volume for the time being, because like you said yourself the primarily element is the trend, and after the V-shape reversal that took place at the beginning of March, we have been making higher highs and higher lows, moving along the channel (see chart). Yes, it's true the last swing high failed to reach the supplyline, but the last swing low also failed to reach the demandline and held above 860. I think that, if you trade according to the Wyckoff method (I'm not talking about intraday plays), that a short trade would not be initiated until more weakness presents itself. And as for that upthrust you perceived, afaik an upthrust is a quick move above resistance which fails to find interest, and consequently falls back below resistance. I don't see any such thing on the ES, all I see is a break above 860 and a test, which (on Friday), offered another long opportunity.

I admit I'm not familiar with Bob Evans' adaptation of the Wyckoff method, but from what I've read in the last couple of posts, it seems this 'version' has a lot in common with VSA. I've seen comments about "an hourly bar that closes poorly on wide spread", references to a "no demand bar", and talk about an upthrust. All this sounds to be like focusing on single bars, which, again if I understood Wyckoff correctly, is somewhat different than focusing on the buying & selling waves.

If you want to post real-time trades, I suggest the chat-room is a better place to do so. Later, or at the end of the day, you can then explain your reasoning approach and include some charts of the setup.

Well so much for a converging point. Here's the updated picture: sorry Hlm, I have to take back what I said earlier, the line of least resistance is still up I guess.

I should've posted this together with the previous chart, but the top supplyline crossed with R on Friday from couple of months ago (see chart).

Did you see the DOW Transport chart I posted? It looks almost exactly the same as your DOW Industrials. I'm also looking at that congestion and it seems we are struggling there. You haven't posted an NQ chart, but we are up +30% from the lows in a short time, so it's definitely been an impressive rally. I don't like how the ranges are getting smaller and volatility is decreasing, but we seem to be working towards a converging point, and - as you said in a previous post - new highs don't seem to exceed previous highs by that much. Perhaps this supplyline is one reason of the problem:

How ironic the market finally makes a decent move in a short time at exactly the moment I am not around! So we did break resistance around 1340 finally. But... which was the game plan for today, we already had a test of that from the other side premarket. You say we only got +/- 20 points higher yesterday, which is true, but at least the range from LO-HI was a decent 35 points. Recently I'm beginning to find the premarket moves rather predictable while the intraday action can be slower and more erratic. Just look at the ES, it's gone straight up from 854 to 865. :\

For TOG, who likes channels

The picture on the NQ is becoming more blurry for me. Whatever is in between 1285 and 1340 seems to hold only for short-term S/R, and I'm beginning to wonder what I'm looking at. You said 1300 was important, but I don't really see price reacting to that level, yesterday we reversed off 1294 in the end of the day and had premarket S around 1305. Anyway I was just wondering how the other "Wyckoff"-traders perceive this current price action.

Yes, it's been more enjoyable to trade the last couple of days than the week before. Jason doesn't know what he's missing

Shame about the test happening premarket. We're already up to 816 now so much for planning :doh:

Interesting channel, I hadn't paid notice of that lower line to be honest. I did had 1268 as a potential support point, and that's pretty much where we stopped. Funny how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together nicely. Today turned out to be pretty much same as yesterday with a mid-day pause, building up for an EOD "rally" (or something which looks like it). As for how I did, well I shorted off R around 821 ES and long off 812 ES, most trades got out for BE and I ended up throwing in the towel before the real move started. And the NQ trades, well they were posted in the room. I'll leave you with ES chart (important S around 800).

Levels of interest for today: 1285, 1295, 1305, 1315, 1325. Hmm, strange coincidence

What do I win for guessing the answer?

How about... an edge?

that's starting to get freaky. next level today formed at 828. 7 higher as well. Is the market speaking to me :question: