firewalker

Just for the record, I don't recall saying fundamentals are crap... all that was said is basically in the thread title: you don't need funnymentals to trade. You don't need MA's to trade, but some manage to do fine with them. Does that mean MA's help people become a better trader? Perhaps for some, but would you say it's a necessary requirement to be a profitable trader? Nope. Honestly, from my point of view (which is an intraday trading one), I'd really like to see how anyone can improve their results by using a fundamental approach. I am not putting my head in the sand by choosing to be blind to anything that deviates from my opinion. On the contrary, I am very open to suggestions, but only two weeks ago we had some people around here, claiming that FA are the tools of the professional and how they ignoring it is being a fool etc etc... Unfortunately when it comes down to actually pulling the trigger, none of that information helped. As for the live trading part: several people have been calling where to enter and where to look for an exit before they put on a trade. The market is not moving 100 points in 1 minute, and it only takes 3 seconds to type "short here" or "long now". The chatroom is ideal for these kind of things. Many traders have been doing it and indeed explaining their trades. As for the rest of the comments, atto has done a pretty good job of answering those so I'll leave it at that. One last thing example regarding news: Last Tuesday consumer confidence showed a record low of 38, well below the expectation of 45 of economists surveyed. Yet the market somehow choose to ignore that, hold steady and start moving upwards. How was that already priced in? Hypothetically speaking, if you know it was going to be that bad, wouldn't you want short the market before the number comes out? Whatever explanation people like to give for this, the fact is price was trading near or at support and there were enough buyers around that level to keep price from falling. There might be a dozen other approaches, but a wise man once said "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." Which is why couple of min after the release I took a long trade (ES 872). I hadn't even looked at the CC number, I just traded what I saw instead and I mentioned a potential price target of 886. Seven hours later price eventually hit 886.25 and the high of day was 888.75. Another example: on Wednesday, dbphoenix mentioned there the odds where higher that the NQ would travel all the way to 1225 after reacting off 1200 early in the day. The high of day turned out to be 1224.75. That makes me wonder, what extra benefit could FA offer above this? PS: as for the chart you attached, it's too small to really see anything on it...

The problem is that a lot of the people claiming you can't trade without having knowledge of the fundamentals, fail to translate their knowledge about fundamentals into a profitable trading strategy. I know you might be an exception, but declaring that a trader will never really progress, is - at best - a joke. Wasp knows next to nothing about any news, atto doesn't follow news at all, and if you read this thread you'll know where I stand. I have yet to see any of the fundamentalists around this forum put on a trade in real time, without the usual mumbo-jumbo and with some solid straightforward reasoning behind it. I'd love to see some real-time examples of how to trade the news, but given the recent exchange of thought on this topic, this is a better place to do so. Next week brings a load of interesting numbers, so I'd say give it your best shot Happy NY.

http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2008/12/trading-news-when-bad-news-cant-keep.html Great post from Steenbarger in his blog: "Markets that cannot rise on good news and that cannot drop on bad news provide useful information for active traders. It's not the news itself, but the market's response to the news that is most important to track. "

No argument, just an exchange of thoughts... I agree there were good enough opportunities to trade, but the same can be said about last week. Which prompts the question what makes this week different from then, when you considered the market more random than normal?

Perhaps, but I did see a couple of good trades last week too, especially on Monday and Tuesday. What difference does end of quarter make? As for opening dead on resistance, I don't see it that way... Imho, 1178 was potential support: (a) we had the PDC, (b) we had the lows on the 26th where price reversed and © we had two reactions there on the shortened trading day on the 24th. But I guess this isn't about what I saw... With all due respect, despite the lack of real trades, there are still people looking at the charts all day like that_one_guy. Although I can't speak for the rest, I mentioned the possibility of going long after the news around 872 with the eye on resistance at or around 886. As it turns out, price spent three quarters of the day in a tight 5-point range, but did eventually reach the destination. Personally, I don't like that kind of dullness, but that's just me. End of day, it was worth 15 points and I should've taken it instead of just talking about it. I agree the NQ provided more opportunities from both sides today, but the same can be said about last week. Some people didn't like it then, some people don't like it now...

Because most of us don't like trading when the volume is next to zero. Here is a blow-up of a couple of minutes, only just after the open: The volume here is lower than last week, where if I recall correctly you said you would stay out of the market all week because the moves were more 'random' than the result of trading behaviour... The range of the old lady today is actually worth more than the whole range of the NQ, in terms of absolute value. Just for the record, I trade all e-minis, and have no real preference towards one market in particular.

"Wall Street - Main Street - And You"

It's a pity Bassetti doesn't offer more free letters on his website, and the mentioning of 'the holy grail' does give it that typical commercial flavour... Have you, by any chance, read Magee's third book (which seems pretty hard to lay a hand on these days)...?

Thank you for creating and hosting one of the best trading communities I know. My best wishes to you, and everybody else on this website. Happy holidays.

So if locals, institutions and brokerages have all been buying this early in the day, then why is this market only going downwards? And when does the rally start? Only 45 minutes till the close. Could the pro's be wrong? :shrug:

Ehm... I think you'll see that a number which is less negative than expected means better news, not worse. The forecast was -40 so this is actually better than analysts thought. I'm wondering if people like you interpret the numbers incorrectly, how on earth can simple beings like myself even remotely attempt to figure out what these news reports mean let alone how they are going to effect prices?!

I'm sure it would enlighten all of us if we could get a glimpse of the inside knowledge today, so that we can take the right position before FOMC. In the spirit of x-mas, I encourage all those who possess outside information to kindly share it with the rest of us humble, ignorant traders. Thank you.

I must have missed this, because it should be clear - especially for struggling traders which is after all who this thread supposedly is aimed at - that there is at least a third option: 3) Avoid taking trades prior to an event And a 4th: 4) Move your stop closer in case you're in a profitable position

I'm as much surprised as you, perhaps you can show me some references where Wyckoff himself used "a squiggly line". I'm positive that there will be at least someone in this thread that will point me towards the correct literature PS: as far as I know, Hank and Max were born after R.D.W. died. Do you need a tachometer to switch gears or have you learnt to rely on your car's engine sound to determine the optimum moment to shift?

True, but I would have several reasons to stay away from shorts: (1) we were still around the end of lunchtime, so some sideways action is not unusual (2) plus it's a Friday and we'd already gone up considerable amount of points (3) consolidations after breaking R often happen after a break of the demandline (4) we are still making HrH's and HrL's (5) if you take the overnight into consideration (where the upmove basically started), we're still above the trendline All this obviously says nothing of the validity of your trade, I'm just trying to improve my Wyckoff understanding and take only the highest probability trades. It's just that this kind of short seems a-typical and countertrend. But wouldn't you consider you the TICKQ as an additional confirmation element, rather than as a factor on it's own? I'm not that familiar with TICKQ, I only track it occasionally, so I don't know how reliable it is on it's own... If one wasn't following the TICKQ all day, would the two purple dots be logical scale-outs per Wyckoff? That'd be nice.

But, unless I'm mistaken, you are now suggesting a short after we broke - quote "strong R at 1200"... would it not be more logical to look for longs on the pullback then? I mean, the potential of a short around 1208 is around 1200, because at that time there were no signs (unless I'm missing something) that price would fall back below 1200. I do remember yesterday at that time, after price broke down below 1200 (at 13:26 on high volume) you mentioned a re-test (from below) which did provide a short opportunity. Obviously we don't need to agree upon each trade, but I'm curious as to why you would take a short after breaking R.

Your marketing definitely has an effect... Hakuna (who seems to have a healthy sceptical attitude too) informed me he'll also be joining in next week. Well I guess I'm just saying out loud what most of us are thinking... They have indeed. And although it's not been updated in some time, there's also the "all you need is... a chart" thread from a while ago.

Nice to see so many ppl in the chatroom these days! Perhaps it would be fair to also allow the new guys to post in here? Just a thought...

For sure there are dozens of types of participants with each possible different motivation. My question is simple however: is there a way to identify the goal of each of these participants in real time, and if yes, how can one profit from that? If I understand correctly, Steve is trying to tell us some things about the motivations of different market participants, which might help form an extra layer, but rather then dwell on the theoretical, I'm all ears to see this turned into a practical (preferably real-time) example. My economics professor lifted a couple of veils too. However, it didn't assist me in improving my trading

Some questions in general. Not directed at anyone in particular, but just some things that came to mind reading the latest dozen posts or so. Does professional money position itself before the news, or does it take advantage of the public's initial reaction after an event? If professional money is "in the know", is everyone "in the know" at the same time and does that automatically mean they will all act in the same way? Does professional money all over the globe has the same time horizon? And do they have the same goal/incentive? Since the markets are almost open 24/5, with futures trading overnight, news reports are being released through the whole day&night. I think it would take a lot of study to predict what the market will do based on just one report, let alone develop strategies for a whole week where dozens of reports come out...

Nice long on the test of 855-856, which was my re-entry for a long as well (as posted live in the chatroom). Out of curiosity, where there any elements other then technical that persuaded you in taking that trade?

Steve, couple of questions if you don't mind. You seem pretty convinced that 'outside information' (not in the chart) can help a trader improve his performance and although I'm not saying that combining FA+TA isn't useful, I am still not clear on what kind of 'information' it is you are referring to. I've gone over several of your latest posts (not the whole thread sorry...), and I could not come up with anything other than: I respectfully disagree, and I think that anyone who tries to link economic news & business results with the reactions of the market is going to have a hard time putting a & b together. Especially since he (the trader) will automatically try to interpret whatever he hears/reads in a certain way that it confirms his bias. This is an interesting point, and if there were elements that could help pinpoint 'when' something is going to happen, I'm sure a lot of traders would benefit. If I knew in advance when price was going to approach my levels (where I trade from) then I would not have to sit around and wait for trades each day but just go to my screen at the time the trade will be there. So please, enlighten me As we are now in your thread, it's no longer off-topic and I'm sure it would benefit everybody if you answered that question publicly, rather than in a dozen PMs... If you only act when you see a sign of professional money, does it matter when it's after lunch hour or not? It might be me, but I'm not sure how compliance regulations help me to determine when exactly to put on a trade. Yesterday we opened strongly and then retraced the move. I waited about two hours to enter a new long trade (from the same level) around 895 on the ES. But I didn't know when exactly I would get the signal. I acted when I saw volume coming in. Are you saying professionals around the globe all act at predetermined times in a predetermined fashion?

Sorry to bother but except for the first post, I still see everything twice Soultrader...

Nice work Head2k... couple of thoughts: 1. How do you reconcile (a) a selling climax in the beginning of May with (b) the start of a large scale distribution at the same time? 2. You seem to leave out June, which I actually found particularly interesting since price was making wild swings to both sides during that period. Politicians were talking about how speculators were to 'blame' for the violent rise in prices. However, I was thinking: 'big time distribution' (if it were re-accumulation would we see that much volume?) after such a sustained rise.

Do you approach "holiday periods" differently then other days?