jonbig04

Wow I'm getting somewhere. It looks (LOOKS) like I am able to spot a RET pretty consistently. Not every RET by any means, but when a certain amount of my specifications are met it turns out to be a RET the VAST majority of the time. I'm far from finished though and the results could end up very different, but it looks like I'm finally gaining some ground, albeit not very much. It's a start.

Yea pen and paper. My actual journal that has the numbers and raw data in is a notebook. Old school. Takes a long ass time though. Appreciate the advice. Unfortunately my childhood ended when I was 18 and started as a mortgage broker. It was pretty lucrative while i did it (I got out before this mess). Even if i decided to take the elevator down to 16th street and walk 2 blocks to a club and order a drink, my mind would still be here. I can't escape it, it never leaves. I used to fight it, but now I embrace it. It was like this when I was a broker, then a developer, and now a wannabe trader. Honestly though I've never attacked anything as aggressively as I am throwing my energy on trading. I don't think.

I'm now using the common characteristics I've found in RETs together. I've printed out around 20 charts and will note the conditions under which at least 2 (I have 5) of my characteristics come out in the chart. For example If X and Z happen, did that turn out to be a RET? What percentage of the time? What if Y and Z happen did that turn into a RET? What percentage of the time? Hopefully I can come up with some common conditions that occur before/during a RET a good percentage of the time. Replay from NT was pissing me off so basically I have a chart on paper and I'm using a piece of paper to slowly uncover 1 bar at a time. Low tech I know. It will be a long night. Sad activity for a 21 year old in downtown Denver on a Saturday night huh? Oh well.

I found this post on "Re: My First Journal a 20yr Old's Venture into the NQ" interesting and have nominated it accordingly for "Topic Of The Month August, 2008"

I love this....

I agree 10,000% I think "indicator" is just a loaded word. In my view an indicator just indicates something. As long as you understand why and how its doing what its doing, its just a time saver. This is my point of view exactly.

Does T/A keep anyone else up at night. Its all thats in my head.

That makes a lot of sense. Really I was looking for a way to enter my own discoveries into the computer, creating my own indicators if that makes sense. Who knows though. I will check out the ones you mentioned.

It seems like it would be complicated. I have not the faintest clue about writing, but it would be nice to let the computer do some of the recognizing, but I suppose it will be good for me to do it all manually first, i just hope everything doesn't slip away in the time it takes me to figure out where everything is at. I just discovered replay on ninja which is pretty badass. I'm sure I will be using that tomorrow. Thanks for the help.

I'm finding a lot of interesting info. It's slow work, but the results have been pretty interesting. Basically I'm finding a few things that happen 50%-60% of the time before, or during a RET. I haven't yet cross checked them together, but I soon will. I guess I'm just glad that there seems to me a method to all the madness when you really sit down, concentrate, and manually and methodically sift through all the info that's there in the PA/V for you to see. Maybe I'm getting somewhere. Maybe not. haha Is there someway I can create my own indicator without being a computer super genius...based on VOL and PA. I.E. price does this with vol doing this along with this etc and indicator lights up...something like that?

Awesome, I will check it out. Thanks for your help.

Hey, sorry I didn't see your earlier post. I'm using NT w/zenfire if that's what you mean?

Thanks for the info. I've seen them before and essentially it is what I'm doing, I just would rather determine all the information myself. May sound strange but I don't want to attempt any shortcuts and definitely don't want to become indicator dependent. If I detect a pattern myself and find out later that an indicator does the same thing then I'm sure I will use it, but for now I would rather do most (I am using one indicator for momentum) of the work myself. If that makes sense. thanks.

Right now I'm in the process of studying the actual retracement. One thing I'm doing (not the only thing) is going through chart after chart and numbering with a pen every retracement (and reversal) I see. I then can assign specific attributes to each one and hopefully find some common denominators (and hopefully attributes exclusive to reversals). Now I'm focusing on the retraced amount as a percentage from the trend. So basically I'm looking at these 50 or so RETs (now shorthand for retracement) and calculating the difference between the point it left the trend and the point at which is started back towards trend; then converting that into a percent as to make apples to apples comparisons between RETs, reversals and just small fluctuations in price. This will help me do a couple things hopefully. If a RET has gone way beyond the typical percentage it may actually be a reversal, and I can decided which fluctuations are in fact RETs I can profit on or if they are too small. I havent done this much math since....ever. haha.

Ok I think I am getting somewhere. When I say getting somewhere I don't mean I've necessarily figured out the problem or solved it, just that I'm one step closer. I think (I'm still testing, I wish there was some kind of computerized way to do this) I've found a way to identify the trend direction, and its strength. This goes a long way towards helping me with 1 and 2. firstly because I of course have to know the direction of the trend, secondly I need to knows its strength so I can assess whether to try to get in with it. This is especially important when trying to trade retracements as hey can of course turn into reversals a good percentage of the time. Not to get too specific, I'm first watching price only. When price does X (a certain number of times) I then look at a certain momentum indicator. If all is well I wait for a retracement (yet to be defined) and enter hopefully near the bottom (yet to be defined) if and only if the momentum is still on my side. If the probability of a reversal is too high I don't enter. I wait for the reversal or more momentum (from PA and the indicator) to show me the trend is solid for the time being.

Thanks bro, how long have you been at it?

Yes there are so many. I'm going so start with the HH,HL,LH,LL. Thanks

Thanks to all of you. I was up pretty late last night working on step 2. I don't know why I went out of order, but I quickly realized I wasn't going anywhere until I get step one taken care of. The problem I'm trying to get around right now is simply recognizing trend. When the market opens how do I determine the trend (of course there are 90 ways to do this) reliably and quickly. For example the NQ rose a little on open then dropped 20 points and rose 20 points and now appears to be in a downtrend. What I need is a specific way to measure the prevailing daily trend. I think I've gotten past my momentum problem, but of course that doesn't help with showing which way the trend is likely to go for the day. The NQ looks to be in a downtrend (with slowing momentum) but I need to know exactly what constitutes a trend and opposed to just what it looks like. I will look into that gann fann as well as the 3 higher lows (highs) and see if they have been reliable in the past. Another thing I'm unsure of is whether to post the specifics of what I'm doing on here. If I knew if was just you all (the people tha have been helping me) I would mind, but I'm a little leary about posting exactly what I'm doing for the whole world to see. I'm not sure why exactly.

Thanks I will make sure I do that. There seems to be 456,000 momentum indicators haha. Geeze.

Thanks. It is pretty tough, but I'm taking it one small step at a time.:missy:

I will check them out. I'm being careful not to get indicator dependent. But momentum is important because I am looking for retracements which of course turn out to be reversals quite often. My logic is the stronger the trend/momentum the lesser the chances of a reversal.

Since it SEEMS the steeper the angle the stronger the trend, would be it be ridiculous you measure the anlge using a protractor or something? I'm googling now since it seems like i wouldn't be there first human being to contemplate this. I also posted it around other forums to see if anyone else does it. Example, if you were going to trade the trend (in some fashion) you may want to say the angle of the trend must be greater than X for me to get in with the trend. Just an example/idea...

There is just so much to do it helps to have some sort of organization of what to learn/study. The above was just breaking down what I need to concentrate on. I'm thinking of what you said about extremes. I think that will come into play when I decide the minimum percentage of retracement from the prevailing trend. This way I don't get whipped around so much my ultra-small retracements, if that makes sense. At any rate, I'm on number 1 right now

This was a lot easier to write than it is to do. :missy: :crap: :missy: :crap: :missy: :crap:

You are right, I haven't factored those in yet. Thanks for the advice. I will address those issues as well!