JEHs

A great book with a cheesy title that would make you never consider buying it: How I Made $2, 000, 000 in the Stock Market: Nicolas Darvas: 9781614271697: Amazon.com: Books A chart is a chart. I position trade off weekly and daily charts. Mostly ETFs. You can not make a living this way unless you have a ton of money, but it is a good way to manage a small investment account and get the hang of getting to know price action and watching the charts. An hour or less in the evenings would be enough. I enter using a stop order if markets break through a certain price. Usually I like to be there at the open though to make sure market is not making a crazy gap or something. I also trade off daily and hourly charts. This requires looking in a few times a day and you have to realize that you will just miss some here and there because you aren't in the right place and time, but it still helps to learn the price action. That is the main thing. I don't know anything about mechanical trading... The main thing, if you are just starting, is top spend a lot of time just watching charts. Forget about trading.

I still pop back from time to time when I get a notice that a thread I subscribed to has been updated and looks interesting, (like now). I pretty much gave up on all forums for the most part and decided to go about this as a solitary pursuit... The interaction is sometimes interesting but takes a lot of time and the value is uncertain. :missy: What ever happened to the "Speculator King"?

I know this is blasphemy but I have to say, I thought "Trading in the Zone" was a ridiculous book. Every time I have read something by Mark Douglas or listened to one of his recordings I come away thinking I have just wasted a bunch of my time. I am not denying the importance of proper mindset and control of emotions or psychology or whatever you want to call it, but that book is not the place to get insight into the matter. It's a great example of someone making money off wannabee traders with books and speaking tours. my:2c:

Just for what it's worth, I have been using OEC for a few years and have had no problems...

If you open the account in both names, she, (or he), should have access to it the same as you. All my accounts are in both names. All my positions have stop orders attached, so as long as it's going my direction, the position holds, if it goes against me I am out, same as any trading process... I try to have an updated "in case" folder with this stuff in. It might take a while for her to pull it all together, but eventually she would at least get some sort of account statement and check into it. My instructions are to close any open positions, close the account and have the check mailed to her... John

It becomes second nature after being around these forums so long to just not trust anybody. I always assume everybody wants something and there is nobody here who genuinely wants to help others. I know that is not true, but that is the way I have come to approach things. (actually that can be said about almost all areas of life, not just trading). I wonder often why I come to these places at all. Mostly for entertainment, I guess. But there are occasional "lights come on" moments spurred by certain posters. We all know who they are. There aren't many, but they are here. Since this vender list has been getting compiled, it becomes a little unsettling to notice how much of the conversations here are started by or perpetuated by these venders. I have not been around all that long, so I don't claim to know the early days of TL, but I am guessing most of these forums are started by well meaning people for all the right reasons, but they and up being a "for profit" business. The forum is free so the only way to generate revenue is by selling add space and the only way to do that is to have a large and active forum and the only way to do that is to let everyone in and let conversations run... The profit wasn't such a big deal, I don't think, to the founder of this site, but if I were a buyer of a site like this for, say, 100k, I would be certainly looking for ways to make it pay, which means, the quality is almost certainly going to go down. I may be way off the mark there, but I have been in business myself and have a pretty good idea how things work... ...so, maybe, ultimately, we all come here looking for a friend... Many times we find it is a friend for pay, (prostitute), and that hurts, but it is the reality of the game. I don't know what the answer is, if venders should be labeled somehow or not, but it really is part of the learning process to have to learn how to fend for oneself in this environment. Or any environment...

Some frustration but some good news too. I wish I had gone with the Qs instead of the S&P but that's just how it goes sometimes I guess...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-GHDQFy4-A]‪Pat Martino - episode 30‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

On the other hand, I think "stupid" is a relative thing. Just because one can not trade does not make them stupid and if one can trade successfully, they might still be considered stupid in some circles. I remember associating with a guy a whiile back who, from all I could tell, (but does one ever really know?), was a successful trader, but, but his use of the English language and some of his reasoning's, you would assume he was stupid. I have been continually amazed in my near 50 years on this planet, (a very short time indeed), that everybody has something to learn from everybody. Time and time again, I come to think I am smarter than some person and they turn out to surprise me in some way. I'm sure there are people who make a living trading, that, if I were to sit and have a conversation with, I would consider stupid. And I'm sure there are people who could never be successful traders that I would consider to be very smart. I think everybody, stupid or not, has their area of expertise, weather it be an auto mechanic, plumber doctor, or "artist" or trader or whatever... If we can become a successful trader, does that make us smarter than someone else who can fix a leaky faucet efficiently? ...after reading this, I see that I am way off topic from the original post, but after a couple beers i figure, what the heck, I'll post it anyway... John

Well said. I am a small business owner and people think I sit around and the money just rolls in. They tell me they want to do what I do. I say "go for it". Anybody can do what I do... but they won't. Trading is like any other business. If you are going to do it, then get off your butt, roll up your sleeves and get to it. Even then, you might fail, but you will have learned something...

I think this is important to realize. All trading courses, books, website and forums, (yes including this one), are really just avenues for bringing fresh meat for slaughter. The numbers would have to be skewed about 90/10 for this to work out at all for the few that get there.

Now it becomes a question of management... the hard part...

Actually, I've always heard it was 95%. I doubt if there is any statistical evidence to back up specific numbers like this, but I think it would be safe to say that "most traders" fail. Just as in any other business... most fail.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxKjg6Yy23Y]‪Tommy Emmanuel‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

I entered a long here on Thursday. (Of course I waited to see if it worked out before I posted it here...:rofl: ) I was able to take half my position off yesterday on the jump up. Actually this is the only trade I have made since that last QQQ trade. I have just been watching. I have not had time to do any daytrading at all, so this might be my destiny for a while... just trading off the daily's. The trades are few, but you get plenty of time to think... (That's not always a good thing...)

Question on current YM chart

I think on the shorter term charts, it becomes just trading the "Ross hooks", (for lack of a better term), which I had never really considered on a range chart before. We are really just doing what any system does, trying to have an educated guess on the market intent and then figuring out a setup formation and a trigger. And then, of course, everything works and everything doesn't work depending on the user of the "system". The faster charts, to me, are more what I am used to and I really only can trade right now for about an hour or two a day, (less these days lately because I am very busy), and I would like to have a setup that has a probability of happening in the short times I am watching. But this isn't your problem. You don't have to take the time to look at faster charts and see if they work. You have done a great deed here in laying out a easy method that actually works and we are all just sitting here trying to tweak it, (which is why most systems don't work for others because we just can't leave it alone). ...and you are probably right, you probably said 5 points not 5 ticks... thanks, John

It was a ten tick YM. But I have certainly seen similar action on the 20 as well... At one point in an earlier post you said you would go with a 5 tick on the NQ. Maybe I read that wrong, I will have to go back and look...

A chart with some comments and questions. Just thinking out loud here... Forget the time-frame and trading vehicle. this is just for discussion... The question is, guess, recognizing congestion and what to do with it. I guess my rule is when you don't know what is going on, do nothing, but the trick is figuring out when that is...

Many of us have been at it a lot longer than that. I don't think 2 years is a reasonable effort. If you want to do it then keep at it.

After the 3 bar signal from the top, there is a green bar. I don't know if you call the three red bars the "formation" or if you include the green bar that bottomed out and closed higher. If you go with the three red bars and look for a close below the low of that third bar, then the "A" bar is the entry. If you are going with the 1st green bar as the tip of the signal move down, then you need a close below there. That 2nd green bars goes lower but closes even with the bottom of the 1st green bar so no break yet. You would have to wait for the "B" bar for the entry. Those are the type of fine tuning questions that are going to come up. I'm glad you are bringing them up for us. From what I understand about your process, the "B" bar is the entry bar, but i would not say that with 100 % certainty. Thanks, John

Problem is you usually don't know your in consolidation right away. Yes, the way to deal with consolidation is to sit aside, but recognizing the consolidation early on is the issue here I think. I believe there were some ways outlined in some earlier post to this thread that might help answer the question... A legitimate question, none the less...

I think the most important idea in the original method outlined in this thread is the idea of "market intent". I realized as I was looking over these charts that it is what I have been slowing coming to realize in my trading, I had just figured a different way to define it using a moving average and just standard price action. Weather we intend to use the exact method outlined here or not, the idea of seeing the "market intent" is as important a concept as one could have in trying to trade the markets. I know this has probably been said a million times in these forums, but I am just getting it now.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luDgb5vVHuA]‪Led Zeppelin-Going To California‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]