TinGull

Here's a 2 bar reversal that just popped up. I am not in this trade as it's not part of my strategy, but wanted to note one as close to real time as i could. This would be a long at 390.

Very nice, PP. I always love your analysis. You're the reason I started to pay attention to volume and then see what price is doing

Got Heini's in the fridge...

HA! Yea, today it sure does. Ah well, tho. Im still alive and kickin, so that's all good.

I can deal with the couple uber slow days after the 30min range posts. Just stinks to come back to one after having not traded for almost 2 weeks.

One phrase...if something works, don't fix it.

Yup. And for a guy who trades the 30min opening range....this just sucks. HA!

Slowwwwww day today

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f34/the-2-bar-reversal-2387.html#post18193

In this thread : http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f104/candlestick-analysis-and-different-timeframes-2346.html#post18174 brownsfan019 was asking about the 2 bar reversal. It's an old school strategy that my coach taught me about. Potent? Sure is. By its name you can tell it's a reversal strategy. Alone, it's a fine reversal indicator, but coupled with VOLUME it's a fabulous one. When you have a bar that is DOWN and then it is followed by a bar that is UP and closes inside the upper 2/3 of the range of the previous bar, you've got a 2 bar reversal on your hands. What you want to be sure of is that this reversal is happening at the bottom of a down trend (be it a micro trend or macro trend) and then if volume increases on the UP bar you've got yourself a fabulous signal. Here are a couple of pictures from a few days back on a 5min YM chart. This sort of thing can be seen on many charts on many time frames. All it is showing us is that there is more attraction to the higher prices than there was to the lower prices, there for the path of least resistance is....drumroll please....UP!

What exactly would you like to see more defined?

And that second highlighted candle isn't bullish...it's bearish. That's why brown said that if you took all the signals there, you'd have been 2 for 3, but if you stuck with knowing it was in a short term up trend, and only took bullish signals, you'd have been 2 for 2.

In the spirit of sharing, here's a chart of my trades yesterday. I've been using some principles of VSA in my trading and love it. Here's 1 trade that was great, and then the first trade that was not so great, just to illustrate some VSA things to look for. The first trade, there was a wide range candle on bigger volume that extended outside the opening range. For my setup, I'm looking at a close outside the range on larger volume to signal a breakout potential. So, since this is my setup I went ahead and took it. When there wasn't any follow through to it, one would get nervous, but seeing what looked to be just a little long covering (no real supply looking at volume) I held it. Then came the sellers, and stopped me out. Also, this wide range candle happened not at the bottom of a dip, but at the top. Should I have taken this trade? In hindsight, nope. It fit my setup though, so I did. Second trade was a bit better. Note the excessive volume on the 2nd red spinning top to the left of the big blue hammer. This is pretty much the exact same thing that happened on my breakout trade...only I learned from that stop out. A close outside the range on bigger volume....so, the next candle was in the lowest of volume category for the day and if there are no results from that effort to push lower, then what is the path of least resistance? UP! I waited for a confirmation of an upmove and got it with that big blue hammer. I entered long at 99 and it was a drawn out process to get even 20 points. I trailed it up and eventually just got stopped on my trail for that 20. Here's the chart.

Im posting now PP...

Hmmm, interesting questions. Money, to me, means freedom. I dont need a lot of it for me to live, but would like to make a big chunk to be able to donate to various non-profits that me and my partner have worked with in the past. Deepest fears about money? I guess my deepest fear is that if I had too much of it I'd turn into a lame person and just sit on my yacht all day drinking champagne and wastefully spending money on trivial things like that. I don't think that'd ever happen to me, but that's a fear I think about from time to time. My hopes for money? I hope money will give me the freedom that I want from having someone over my shoulder trying to push me to earn money for THEM instead of me pushing myself to earn money for ME. I hope money gives me the ability to give back to the communities that have enriched my life growing up thus far. How do I see myself in the world of money? I see myself as someone different. Someone who would have a million dollars in the bank but still live in a 900 sq ft house with my girl and 2 dogs, still use just one car to get around, still grow our own food, still be exactly the same as I was when I was struggling hard...just without the "Oh crap, how will we pay mortgage THIS month?" feeling at the end of the month. "Having it all" means having someone to love (who loves me back) and doing good with what I am able to create for myself. Whether that be monetarily (giving to foundations and other non profits) or by teaching others what I know (either with trading or preferably with music). I will have a sweet recording studio again someday where I can host artists who want to be inspired by the natural beauty of the Maine coast line.

Market Profile has been instrumental in my learning and trading, too. As you mentioned, I use more of the thought process of it all and not trading off of value areas and POCs. VSA is really simple at it's core, I believe. What sort of issues were you finding in trying to apply the concepts?

Abe, if you haven't been trading for that long then you don't have any bad or good habits yet. Feel free to do what you want and disregard what we all have to say here. I know I've already asked countless times about your plan and what setups you use, but you haven't given a list of what you're looking for so we can't help identify any problematic issues. At this point, I'm finished trying to help because you don't seem to want to give the effort to learn from what I've got to say. Best of luck to you.

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f34/vsa-volume-spread-analysis-1369.html I would suggest you read through this thread. I was doing the same thing as you trying to find the "next best thing" and then I found this....I've been using VSA principles in my trading now and the market seems so much clearer to me. I only use a 5min chart (I flip between 1,3,5,10,15 and 30 on that chart) and no market internals or anything. I use market cycle terminology to see what phase the market is currently in to decide which direction a hi odds trade should be placed. VSA is awesome. It'll make things clear to you once you begin to understand how the market is structured.

Happened plenty of times to me, too man. I absolutely HATE it when it happens!

Plus, Abe, people like Soultrader, John Carter and Hubert...they use TS for CHARTING not for their actual broker. For that they are using Infinity, and Introducing Broker for TransAct.

Abe, in my opinion, I wouldn't trade, even paper trade, until you have the money to get a coach. Trust me, the coach you choose will LOVE you for having done that so they don't have to unwind bad habits you're building right now. And, with Leroy, the first session is a free one to make sure you two are a good fit for eachother. So, with that being said...you've got really got nothing to lose by getting ahold of him for a little coaching. I think other's might offer a free intro session, too, so you can make sure you get the right fit for the way you want to trade.

holy crap, did I seriously write that much? Damn

In this business you MUST have a plan of attack and you MUST follow that plan to a T. If you wanted to open up a grocery store and made a business plan to show a bank and they ended up lending you 300k to start up a grocery store, but you ended up using that 300k to open a night club, do you think that bank is gonna be after you? Absolutely! All of us who are giving you the advice are the bank screaming because you're not following the plan that you set out to do. If you lose 200 dollars, stop, because something OBVIOUSLY isn't working. When Im in the game and I lose 40 YM points, I sit the rest out unless something SERIOUSLY pristine comes along. Now, I've been in front of the charts and active enough and have stuck to a plan long enough to know when I have a SUPER high odds of getting back on the money wagon when I'm at or near my loss limit and trust me, it's not easy for me to want to get back on, but a few times the past 2 months I've been at that 40 down to come back and end up + on the day. Now, that may be seen as not sticking to a plan, BUT...I've got certain setups that I KNOW have a proven track record and can earn me money. If I lost those trades because the probabilities weren't working for me, then I'm HAPPY AS CRAP because for every loser, there's 5 more winners coming down the pipe. Today for example, I lost my very first trade. Was down 23 points. I watched until 5 minutes to 4 and didn't see anything that was worth the risk to me because the environment was extremely low volume and choppy. My setups don't always work the best in low volume environments. Is this in my trading plan? You bet it is! I've got a whole section on market environment and market cycles for which direction to look for the high odds trades. And, the loser I took home today is one of the best losers, because it was a perfect setup executed as PERFECTLY as I could have imagined, and it ended up losing. This particular setup has had a 78% win rate over the past year, so guess what tomorrow's gonna bring? MONEY! Why? Cause the probabilities of this setup are going to play out. 4 out of 5 times I take the setup as it's shown I'll make money. I just happened to be on a little hot streak with this trade over the past...yup, 4 days. Today was the 5th day I didn't get the setup to work. Plus, having done my HOMEWORK with this setup, I know that Wednesdays are the highest probability days for this setup to earn its maximum potential. So, what I reallllllllly know you should do is get a coach. You need to have someone guiding you through all of this because your trades are haphazard. Again, I'm not trying to be a dick at all, so please don't read it as being that. You've got dedication and I admire that. You just need to focus SOME of that energy into designing a trading plan that you can stick next to your desk with specific setups you're wanting to look for and execute on those all the time (depending on environment if the trades warrant different execution in different environments). The coach I use is a partner with this board. His handle here is lrushing and his site is tradingeveryday.com. Listen, I've lost crap loads of money in this market trying to learn the ropes. If I had gotten a coach right at the get go, my account wouldn't be where it is right now...it'd be BIGGER! That's what we're all after, right? A bigger account? A coach will bring you to a place where you're confident in your trading because you will have a plan of attack that you can follow. You want to be successful at trading, right? Every pro player has a coach. Does A-Rod have a coach? Does the Rocket have a coach still? (and Clemens is like almost 80 years old jk hahahaha). Did Emmit Smith have a dance coach on Dancing With the Stars? Of course! No one cared that he happened to have some of the fastest feet in the NFL during his hayday...heck, even with his fast feet back then he STILL had a coach. I think you owe it to yourself, Abe, to sign up with Leroy or any coach for that matter and see what they have to offer you. You might not like what Leroy has to offer, and you may find someone else's style fits your personality. Leroy happens to fit mine perfectly. Do it...do it.....do it..........this is a subliminal message to you Abe.....do it......get a coach..............today...............not tomorrow.........today.........do it.......make money..........and give 50% of your earnings to me............do it.............

200 dollars? Why didn't you stop when you hit (200)?