djohnsonhot

Hi, no I am not part of that group. Is it working for you? I have found that many oscillators are lagging the market. DJ

l looked at your Obsidan PDF and the buy and sell area seem to be reversed??? Am I reading that incorrectly?

Did not want to brag though, but that comment made me LOL! No one does that! But, the other points were well taken. I was trying to say that WITHOUT getting rid of the extra material things, the things that many Typical Americans (and Europeans, for that Matter, as we have lived there as well)....love, the Cool Cars, and Bikes - - in the end, once one wakes up - - - are just extra's. I was lucky to have found a partner in life, My wife of over 30 years, that was also not materialistic much anyway, but has made the same discovery: the extra's were extra work and a money sink. Down the drain we were going keeping batteries alive in a Ducati, or KTM or other under-utilized item....much of the time, I was running the bikes to circulate oil, even though I absolutely loved the freedom, and air flow, the power, etc. I have been bike-free since 2009. Wow. And, the house, nice but modest and had good curb appeal, was just simply work work work. Painting, gutters, water pump failures, septic tank failures, driveway work, and the bills to cover it all: what a freaking waste. This section will cause some folks to wonder, how can we get along without the castle??? Well, we have no kids. We love to travel and we can stop for long periods and stay with others on their land. We have loads of friends who want us to house sit. But, we love it doing this....we are in Cannon Beach, Or right now. I trade options in the mornings and we walk to town every single day and ride our bikes on other days. The freedoms from home ownership allow us to live very frugally...the Diesel Pusher is older and paid for...car is older and paid for. It is such a release. You young guys and ladies here: the sooner you realize that debt and ownership are a TRAP, the better you will feel and the release from all that stuff is incredible. It sounds trite, I know, but it is real and I cannot express how much better we are doing being out of the house and walking and biking and enjoying the lack of pressure to get a newer house, or cooler Mercedes or Infinity or Lexus or Audi.....it is unreal, and I hope I can reach at least a couple of young minds to convince you that this American Dream thing became a nightmare. We still have many folks ask, "how can you do it?!!!" Easy as cake.

OK, everyone, I am older likely than the rest of you and I have to reply. First, when I was in college in the last Century, driving a '62 Chevy with a bad starter, etc and paying my way thru College AND barely surviving, I was MISERABLE. In the meantime, I worked in the Silicon Valley, and sold my home and moved to the Mountains. Ran a couple of businesses...had 4 motorcycles, a Tractor, acreage, mountain lakes, Whole house generator, luxury cars and SUV's....you name it. My conclusion: once we woke up and SOLD THE STUFF STUFF STUFF, with now even more money in the bank, I cannot be happier. I have a bond portfolio paying our bills, we live in an RV full time and travel continuously. I could not be happier to have a enough money, and way more than most (no brag, just fact) AND no debt! So, the happier I am is directly connected to LOW or NO DEBT, NO EXTRA's (vehicles, bikes, snowmobiles, junk), and CASH. It cannot get better. The ONLY thing in my way: HEALTH.

I actually really enjoyed this post. It shows that the author is DEALING WITH THE PSYCHOLOGY of trading - - -which, from my experiences - - - is the most difficult to master. I think of his word, "meditation" and apply the one I use: "ZEN-LIKE" or as "robotic" and distant from my view of a particular MOVE in the market that might be offering me my specific set-up (range failures is my specific set-up, based on several very hard rules). I do something that is very helpful for me personally: I try my best to pull back from a setup, and give myself another candle to decide if a very fast-moving bar appears....those are often lures that grab a sucker's attention and cause an emotional mouse finger to tap on in! Instead, I TRY to toss out that feeling, "MAN, I am MISSING a trade" whilst reminding myself that there will always be another tell or another trade that will appear. Pulling back from the small picture (say a 5min chart or a tick chart) and reminding myself where we are in the context of a move is KEY to finding range highs, lows or pauses in trend. Big picture analysis is a key to some of my most successful trades. Finally, the less that you require to make a move, the better. I am sure many if not most of us who have been in the Futures or Equity markets for over 20 years can attest to the fact that many oscillators are backward looking and latent in their usefulness. Toss out unneeded SMA/EMA's, Volume Profile, MACD's, STOCK and work to find PRICE action setups instead. In the end, my analysis and experience tells me that price tells all and understanding candlestick formations is a true fundamental foundation to making progress. Thanks for the post.

Actually, the OPEN of a bar is far more important to me as a "gap trader." No, of course not, I do not trade gaps exclusively but I use GAP opens, meaning a tick or more opens beyond the previous bar's close (5 or 15min charts) and IF I am inclined to trade in the direction of that gap, it is a strong indication of a continuation pattern. I trade on a 5 min chart primarily and look for "hinges" in price action - - - where one sees a key pivot level broken (not a pivot point, but rather a change in direction, or a turning point leading to a new exhaustion area (a top or bottom of a good range run). I will WAIT for a hinge to BREAK AND HOLD, not just break and that means I will definitely wait for the hold to occur and enter my trade based on my primary entry rules.

You guys will laugh (and Ladies); I have finally talked my wife into trading options..I will train her. She is very smart and unemotional.

Tim, Same with TF....I have been trading it in the summer as it trades easier than the ES, and generally better anyway.

There are people who do watch charts for Price Action but use extremes in the $tick (NYSE Breadth) for entries: high ticks, sell, and vice-versa during the Session only trades.

Forget about it! Penny stocks trade for a reason at a penny or nickels: they are worth no more and are heavily manipulated and is the last place a newbie would want to start out. Better to buy 100 shares of a great company, that is liquid and has a history (Blue Chips, paying a dividend) than to buy a penny stock that is nearly worthless and usually for good reasons.

There is a fella named Michael Jardine, at his website, Enthios Economics | Real world markets, live commentary by Michael Jardine, and he posts his Market Profile high and low value areas almost daily (he travels and works, and thus for days he may not get on the computer and do his work). You can see for yourselves how well this works. My observations of his trades is that he is stopped out quite a bit and his winners are in ticks, and not points. And, he wrote a book on the subject. Now, if his trades are limited to ticks, then I am guessing his scale is quite large compared to most retail traders

Hi, Dude....actually I was trying to say that Vol Profile can be taken into account more like a support or resistance area - - esp. if those levels coincide with Pivots, or your normal support and resistance areas...not by themselves....I have watched them for years and at times, I see no price action alone and watch the action pass right through those profile areas.

Would you all consider a point here for discussion about Volume profile? It seems rather obvious to say that MP (or VP) cannot stand alone as an entry tool. The reason I am saying this is because I tracked a "professional" trade VP exclusively, using Keltner tools to enter and exit) and he is at less than 50% in his winners. What I am pointing to is that one must use a tool bag to trade: a) Let's say we know the key POC, VAH and VAL's. We market them on our charts with horizontal lines. b) We are away of the Pivot Points for the day. c) We know where the key levels are from the previous day's price action, and weekly mid-points, etc. Those are our key RES and SUPPORT price levels. Those are marked. d) We observe where the consolidations happened in the previous day sessions and where we might be in the stages of the market (Market Stage theory). AND FINALLY: e) we have pure Price Action: candlestick formations, higher highs and lows and lower lows, etc - - depending on the OVERALL and DAILY trends. Are we getting the picture. Well, traders or wannabe's. It has taken me years to determine the various chart techniques to watch for BUT I STILL FIND MYSELF on the WRONG side of many trades, and then either use proper Money Management skills or I do not and let a loser run which puts me in a hole early in the day - - my worst days - - which I then chase with more contracts or rather stupid entries...you name it. The point: it is really difficult to remember to look for MOST of those chart indicators for entries and knowing when a trade is broken. I have recently started a whole new approach: Ambush trades or what one would consider Half-Way Back trades on longer term and short term micro-moves and I will be back here to report whether it works. I am trying to simplify. I am really working at this. Weekends, nights, as this is my chosen profession and I am still under water after over a two-year period of great trades at times and lousy throw-it-all back to the professionals types of trades. It has been painful.

The word Elitism stills makes me pause today, after reading "The Irony of Democracy" in college over 40 years ago. It is a "club" of Elites, making a nice warm wonderful bed and we are heading towards a Meritocracy which leads to a total break-down for the middle class, and the jobs that are a result of the opposite actions of this elitist regime. Good luck, America. Bernanke is a puppet of the Class.

Steve46, I would be interested in that article and any other input for this trader. I am getting chopped around lately and would like to read and learn. Yours, DJ, djohnsonhot@yahoo.com

I do not trade short-term charts...only 5, 15, and 30 for day trades and longer term for options. What are you seeing?

I think that "through the price" can be better explained. If you are closing a long position, I believe that your SELL has to reach the bid price and if you are closing a short position, your buy (to close the trade) has to hit the ASK price. Sell at the bid Buy at the ask. Someone needs to verify this. I know what you are saying though, because I have seen the price action hit my exit and not fill. Therefore, we are really saying the same thing: we need our price, on a buy, to penetrate up to the BID price. I use ALERTS all the time on TOS and the price will touch, but the alert will not sound (with email sent, as well) until the price achieves the bid or ask on either side (alert if at or above or at or below)..... DJ

Sim trading, if you take any heat, is just simply not the same. Anyway, most traders including myself will then push the threshold and try then for 6 ticks and then 8. It gets to be that way. Recently, I have returned to my earlier trading plan: I am trying for at least 6 to 8 ticks on the ES and my exits are rather quicker if the price action touches a retracement against my long or short for more than so many ticks where it was points. I am also entering on tighter rules and looking for a particular set-up, called an ambush trade which is similar to an Al Brooks' pullback trade on a 5 minute chart, with three other indications of a continuation of trend or a reversal of a primary trend. If I sound confused, then I probably am as I took a couple of terrible losses last week on some whipsaw action and am re-thinking this thing.

Be careful with SOME free Ghost feeds: they may not be real time, but delayed and it will definitely throw you off if you are comparing to another platform that is live.

The negotiator is right: one trade is never that important. It, that terrible trade for example, is very important if that particular trade is one of many that one analyzes and finds, after the analysis, that it was the "same mistake all over again." GUILTY! There was a time that I could NOT seem to get it in my head that taking long break-out trades at key resistance levels would never work. Those types of trades tend to be shook out by strong longs that have not scaled out or gotten out completely. Those long commericals will grab all of your stops and keep on trading higher until THEY decide to go short. The point is that I was entering long and getting taken out on 4-point stops. OUCH. Over and over again. Same thing for shorts. So, I would get terribly angry with myself for taking those trades when I could not see a trend if it slapped me in the face with the back of its hand. I have finally learned. I keep track of the 3 to 5 day ranges, determine key price levels (daily closes, two-day mid-lines, key support and resistance levels around those, the open price - - all which are pre-drawn before the open at NY time)....I trade those areas with RESPECT. Sing it. Therefore, as an example, if we have a run-up that I missed, and that gobbles up a good part of the daily range, I begin to look for signs of weakening price action: doji's, minor pull-backs with minor new highs, all signs that the move may be over. Then I look for ONE MORE Stab higher. This sometimes causes me to miss the short or roll-over points. OH WELL, too bad, I did not short at the top..but, wait! NO MARKET ACTION MOVES IN ONE DIRECTION without some pullbacks..not normally anyway...and if I see a stacking 15 minute or 30 minute candle form (or a GAP lower or higher after the prev candle close), and not much of a pullback or none at all, and I respect the range (in other words, in a 12 point range, we have only covered 25% of that possible range despite a contraction or expansion), then I will take the trade finally. I will suffer 3.75 point pullbacks but NO MORE THAN THAT. Anyway, the point is that I am trying my best to elevate my patience levels and live with no-trade days. Still a work in progress so I am working options trades these days. If I take any long, I look for dips and buy....shorts have been limited lately. Trade with the trend, look for strong support levels, and the go long until this thing finally begins a 30 to 50 point pullback (ES). Dave

Ninja has the best charting hands down but it'll cost you over a grand. PFGbest has a very solid feed and they will give you competitive rates.

VERY interesting post. The key to overcoming fear is to get your arms around your $ risk tolerance. When I started, I was only willing to give up 4 ticks. Then that moved to six ticks (ES) and then finally 8 ticks and I still was getting stopped out all the time. Now, I have NO hard stops. Enter; watch; apply my arsenal of indicators (I do NOT mean MACD, but rather the Price Action breaks, support/Res levels, Pre-session MARKING UP of my primary chart, the 30-minute, and so on.). I trade ONLY long term charts now. 30 minutes seems about right for me. I will not go into how I trade but 30-minutes is support by pre-indications from the 2, 5 and 15 minute charts. Finally, I got better at drawing consolidation boxes and exhaustion areas based on range and precise reading of Candles. I use standard candles, not Heiken-Ashi's. I tried those. I look for RANGE bars going back two days. I respect those ranges and mark their mid-points...they can be coupled together to show you AREAS of anticipated Price Action based on their ranges supported by VOLUME. VWAP, MP and so on play into the decisions but I cannot trade JUST those indications but rather the overall picture. Then, pre-session and the night before, I mark up the entire chart with TEXT pointing at support and resistance lines and then trade those areas (RESPECT THEM, is the best way to put it). I then enter and my mental stop is 4 points. I will sweep it up or down based on WHEN my best trade entry is broken. That can be two to three touches to a price level and then if it breaks, against me, I will stop out as fast as I can...normally that level is points away, not ticks away. There you go.

Hi, guys: Volume Profile, as has been said, it just one tool that one can use. Quite often, POC's are ignored, blown right through, or simply do not apply. I follow Enthios.com and that guy is an expert at MP and uses a method for trading reversals. Today's action saw a short at 1286.50 on the ES that held nicely but was breached up to 1288, thus blowing out ES Retail traders with 2 point hard stops. Thus, one should trade ranges, major res & support levels along with that interplay with the POC and work trades that are triggered from a confluence of different indications for an entry. I have been trading the ES full time now for over 5 years and have never blown out my account but got close in the early years. I think that the key to success is to work very high probability res and supp areas...understand when the daily mid-levels from the previous session work in your favor once a top or bottom is put in for today's session. Look at VWAP, and Gann levels....mark up your chart with everything you have in your arsenal in the hour prior to the open and starting with some homework the night before. Analyze every trade to determine what you missed REAL TIME.....there are always misses in analysis looking back but everyone has the ability to hide the right side of our charts and using the bottom progress scroll tool to watch YOUR past trades to determine what you missed. If you did not but entered in your direction based on everything you had, then the market just took it away from you despite your best efforts and thus that is a good trade after all. The key to your broken trades is to them immediately exit when your arsenal failed you and minimize your losses. What I mean is that you know when you blew it and most of the time you can protect yourself say to a $200 loss in the ES and draw that line.

That is a solid strategy, sir. I would also add that IF a trader is looking for a "roll-over" or change in the prevailing trend, and will take EITHER a pullback entry or a trade in the direction of the prevailing trend, one must look for three primary Price Action issues to determine a move in AND out: 1. What is your SIGNAL bar that tells you that you have bottomed, or topped in that day session (until a new resistance - - major, or support - - major, has happened.....)? 2. At what point is your trade nullified (your hard stop cannot be in just points, but rather based on SOMETHING that the Price Action is telling you)? 3. What is your ULTIMATE target level (your target cannot be in just points, but rather based on something that tells you that the run is over). I used the same language for both two and three above because my personal strategy calls for EXACT signals to enter a long or short, NO EXCEPTIONS, NO RULE BENDING, NO EMOTIONS. And, the stop and target (notice I mention stop first) are based on SIGNALS to exit my trade for maximum profits, NO EXCEPTIONS, NO RULE BENDING, NO EMOTIONS, Now, one more thing: one MUST have a scaling in and out strategy. When I first traded with a broker's assistance back in the early 90's (Equities and Options) we scaled out of 25% of our initial share count and we scaled in once a break-out happned as well. In the ES, my primary trade symbol, I scale in on confirmations. This means that with your 30 minute bar entry, that has ITS OWN RULES OF ENTRY and FAST STOPS, I will scale in on the next bar, especially if: 1. The open stacks (same price) as the close of the previous candle occurs. 2. The open GAPS on the close price of the previous candles. In this case, traders are piling on and the open price of the new candle is at least a tick lower or higher (short or long) and this shows momentum. Finally, stops are just as important. I would close a trade if a pullback occurs and the PRICE ACTION takes you back TWO candles of territory and the price hits ABOVE the mid-range of the 30 Minute candled that preceded the one you entered on. Easy as pie. Hard to stick with as each entry takes and HOUR AND A HALF of wait time in many cases and then the signal does not happen anyway. I have gone DAYS without an entry, but when I do, I put in 10 to 40 ES contracts, again scaled and we are in the money. Dr Dave, Trader Prince of Darkness (this part is a joke)

There is a website by M. Jardine, who wrote a book on the Subject and posts futures trades, in advance, once a day or so when he is not traveling. He will not post a trade he dislikes (naturally) but the point is more about set-ups in advance that he think will work. enthios.com