thalestrader

Not a bad idea, Cory. Just be sure to pick one and apply it consistently. The way Brownie is using these indicators here seems to be intuitively correct - first use S/R and PA to set you "bias", i.e. the direction you are expecting price to go, and then use the indicator to tell you when a pullback against that direction may be coming to an end (Optiontimer's thread uses indicators in just this sort of way, I think, though he applies it to daily charts - it may be worth a look for you). Like Brownie says, at some point, if you do it long enough and consistently enough, it should become second nature. But in the meantime, if "second nature" is not yet kicking in, let mathematics and technology help you until it does. Best Wishes, Thales

Why would that change what any time segemented bar would look like? 6:45-7:00 is always going to look the same no matter when you start your chart from, right? On a range bar chart, small changes will occur depending upon the starting point of the data. But on a time based chart with an exact start and finish, the data, once populated, should be stable, right? Or is there something I'm not seeing here. Sure looks strange to me? Who is providing your data? I'd send them copies of your two screen shots and ask them for an explanation. Best Wishes, Thales

Lose the idea of a BE for now - profit target one should get filled before the remaining is brought to break even for now. Best Wishes, Thales

This seems to me to be the simplest and most reasonable proposal. TL gets weighed down by those who have come to have a healthy distrust of those who vend to the trading hopefuls feeling a need to self-police the forum. Then we lose good long time members like kiwi when TL management makes a decision that seems, rightly or wrongly, to unduly favor the vendor over the long time community member. I suggested it myself. Confer "Commercial" status upon anyone who vends trading related material. It works all over the 'net. It will work here. Then this community can stop expending so much negative energy on stupid virtual slugfests (and I plead guilty of being stupid on more than one occassion myself), and driving away those who invested a lot of time and effort truly trying to help folks here without ever entertaining the thought of selling them that help down the road. MMS must step in and step up here, or the only people left posting will be vendors. However, we should all be cautious of what we wish for - because if MMS does institute a "Commercial" status and a vendor is duly identified as such, then we community members ought to then relinquish our right to criticize that individual vendor simply for being a vendor. For what its worth, I paid money for a Linda Bradford Raschke seminar that to this day continues to inform my trading for the better. I wish that she or Christopher Terry would actively participate here at TL. So not all vendors are evil and clueless ... only most of them. Best Wishes, Thales

That sounds very similar to what I suggested to you on June 26, 2011: And then we have this fine observation from another TL member: Recalling the second part of my recomendation from June 26, where I said So now you have three different people advising you to do pretty much the same thing; and even you are realizing that what you are doing is crazy. Now, get serious about taking some losses. It is the only way you will ever give yourself a chance to take meaningful profits. Best Wishes, Thales

Yes. Yes it is. Best Wishes, Thales

I know the focus of this thread was largely the 123. But if you are finding it somewhat difficult to identify which swings to use for a 123, you should not forget to look for possible 2B's, such as this on the EURUSD as the week opens. Your initial stop loss (shown) should be above the high, but rather quickly can be lowered to a tick or a handful of ticks above the actual high. Use S/R and fibs to find suitable profit targets. You can choose to take off all or 1/2 at PT1, or, use PT1 as your sign to bring your stop loss to breakeven, and then play for all PT2. In this particular case, there is a strong S/R argument to take at least 1/2 at profit target 1. Best Wishes, Thales

Congratulations! Now take the rest of the week off, end on a high note, and study your charts. Best Wishes, Thales

I can't tell exactly when you entered, but I can say two things: I like the entry, but I hate the stop loss - it needs to be above the highs, not within the 15 minute range. Best Wishes, Thales

The good news is that at least yesterday and today, your entries were much better than they had been in recent months. I took both myself (trading the 6e). Quite a difference in where we exited, however. Of course, going to a breakeven stop on the futures is much easier than it is with a bucket shop spot dealer, as that pulsating spread is a force to be reckoned with. But knowing that, and as you insist on trading spot, might it not occur to you that breakeven in spot is perhaps not really breakeven? Perhaps it is reducing your risk by 1/3 or even by 1/2. But going to breakeven as you do is going to leave you broke. So, what exactly was this "initial plan"? Whatever it was, its net effect was to reduce your production from yesterday by 90%. You need to continue to pick your trades as you have yesterday and today. Also, in addition to those two shorts, there were two longs as well. You want to make sure that you haven't become biased to playing the short side - especially as this thing is going to break out of this range sooner or later, and it is as likely to break up as it is to break down. Finally, you may need to learn to enter earlier, anticipating the break of the potential "2" point. This will allow you a smaller initial risk, and should keep you safer from your penchant to go to BE quickly without a plan to get back in. Best Wishes, Thales

No use playing for larger targets if you're never going to do what is necessary to get to them, i.e. sit on your hands. Even taking it off at a retest of the low would be a preferable strategy to getting taken out for 10 or fewer ticks profit time after time. Right now (about 4:15 PM EDT) you can see that price has now wedged down in three little pushes into successively but marginally lower lows. This would be an excellent time to be covering your short day trades and calling it a day. I'd might even be tempted to get long here at 1.4363 with no more than a 10 pip stop loss and a 40 pip profit limit order and let it sit 'til one of them is filled or something within the price action itself tells me to close the position. If you are going to "trade for a living," young Cory, you will have to do better than $0.33 for every $1 you put at risk. Best Wishes, Thales

I would like very much to cure young Cory of his trailing stops ... he wishes too much for too little. I agree with your thinking in probabilitites. Cory cannot yet entertain such thoughts, however, until he reintroduces a touch more technical rigor into his trading. For example, I do not see price during that consolidation as having reacted back to any significant level of resistance. Therefore, anchoring one's stop loss off of any pont within that consolidation is no better than expecting a random result. Having not reacted back to a significant level of S/R, price would then need to decline to a new low, by at least a tick (should happen shortly), in order for that high he used to anchor his stop to become eligible for me as a stopping point. So where you would be able to adduce probabilities, young Cory is tossing dull darts while blindolded and drunk. Cory, in other words, could use some Spidey Sense about now. Best Wishes, Thales

Did you get your 1/3R? Best Wishes, Thales

So you are sure we have seen the high of the consolidation if price is to continue lower? And you are sure that if price does trade above that high, that the decline is finished, and we are to look for higher prices immediatley ahead? Best Wishes, Thales

Why? Best Wishes, Thales

Why not just add a "Commercial Thread" forum and move any thread that comes into being that is authored by someone with a known commercial interest? And instead of the TL labels, e.g. "starting...," "guru", market wizard," etc, for those who are known to be vendors, a simple "commercial member" or "Vendor" would suffice. Other forums do it - they simply label a vendor as a vendor or sponsor or whatever, and then the others members at least know that the motives of their interlocutor may be more than simpy altruistic. Label them all "Vendor," and be done with it - we can then be done with the vendor bashing as most of it is simply the well informed and formerly burned doing what we can to protect those less well informed. If all vendors are labeled as such, then let caveat emptor prevail. But so long as the sharks are allowed to swim with the children while simultaneoulsy being allowed to masquerade as children, then those calling a sharkl a shark are right in doing so. If MMS sticks the sharks with a branding iron that makes their nature immediatley recognizable, then the children know when to get out of the pool on their own, or at least know to be counting their fingers and toes and checking for wounds. Simple solution, if you ask me. Then again, no one asked ... Best Wishes, Thales

Once upon a time we could simply click on the Forums buton and at the bottom we'd bring up the most active threads for the last thirty days, the most viewed threads, etc and so on. Why did you get rid of those? I used to use them as short cuts or book marks. Now you made it so that I have to go ahuntin'. Seems to me that if you want to increase eyeballs you ought to make it easier rather than more difficult for folks to find the topics that have proven most "eye-catching" over the years. Best Wishes, Thales

I'd suggest that you spend some of your your new found extra time with your girlfriend and your parents for starters. You are a young man, Cory! I'm a geezer compared to you, and just sitting here I came up with about 14,380 things I could do while waiting for an opportunity to make coin to come along ... 14381 ... they just keep coming, young Cory. Live your life! Best Wishes, Thales

MidK, I can't tell you great it was to see your post. Your area was hit hard by the quakes, from what I heard, and I am happy to see that you are well. Best Wishes, Thales

But what do we do Cory? Price made it up into the next Resistance level. Is it time to turn that Red rectangle Blue? Or, must we remain undecided? Is there a case to be short? If so, you need to make it. Where or when do we get short? Is there a case, perhaps, to get long? No? Yes? Well, you need to make it. If so, where and when do we get long? Or do we sit on our hands and practice our waiting game? This is the four hour chart, but you can use any view you wish to make your case(s), as the case may be ... It is 9:45 PM EDT and I show the EUR/USD cash is 1.4366/67 and the 6E is 1.4361/62. What do we do? (And if you come across this twelve hours from now, try your best to roll time back to 9:30 PM EDT and tell what us what you think based upon "now," even though now may be long gone by the time you get here). Best Wishes, Thales

And here we can see that price is really whipping around back and forth through that purple zone, which is is not to be unexpected given the narrow band between minor S levels and R levels. I will check in later today. Right now, I am waiting for price to travel to the 1.4400 level or back down to the 1.4100 level (all +/- of course) before expecting anything that would entice my participation to develop. Best Wishes, Thales

In fact, Cory, let us add, perhaps temporarily, another color to the mix - red resistance, blue support, and purple for an area where the twain may meet, such as where price is now. In the above post I noted that visible on the hourly chart, but not the daily, is an area of resistance around 1.4310. Well, just below that resistance is an area of potential support near 1.4285. So, when red meets blue, we get purple. So I have added a small purple rectangle to the chart, and tomorrow, when we review, we will see what happened in and around that area. Here is how the chart looks right now - as you can see, a short opportunity did arise at that resistance level. As I said above, it is up to you if you want to play these lesser areas right now. But until we set you aright again, playing the more obvious areas seems to be in order, right? Best Wishes, Thales

Hi Cory, I'm hoping that you are taking a week away from posting but not a week from checking in here. Let's see if we can't pull you together a bit over the coming week. Perhaps you should demo trade these next few days if you are trading at all. Here is the current look of the EURUSD. You know the drill - red rectangles are resistance, blue rectangles are support. We want to watch for short sales at red, long opportunities at blues. If a red breaks, we turn it blue, so we then look to play long on a retest of the once red now blue area. You're a bright kid, and you know to reverse the scenario should price fall to and break through a blue. When price is out between these areas, such as it is now, we call that no man's land. You will recall that no man's land is a dangerous place, and that price spends most of its time out there. Since it is dangerous, we will leave it alone until it comes to us. Now, for the record, if you were to look at an hourly chart, you'd see that the EURUSD is right at a level where we might expect it to encounter some resistance. It would be up to you whether you were going to play these areas right now. My suggestion is that for the time being, you focus on those S/R areas that are plainly visible on a daily chart. At some point, I suspect (and expect) price to break hard one way or the other through this ever tightening stranglehold it has put on itself. When that happens, we will zoom out to an even bigger picture and see if we cannot figure out a game plan to ride what may become a sizable trend, while protecting ourselves from what may turn out to be an explosive thrust that quickly reverses itself. Last, but not least, I am going to suggest that you do not glue your face to your charts this week. If your broker or platofrm has alerts enabled, create alerts to send you a text or email or ring a chime when price gets within 10-20 ticks of these areas. Then you can watch your charts. Let's see if we can get you back on track. I'll check in with you sometime tomorrow - morning, noon, night - who knows? But at some point, I'll be back to review the charts with you. Best Wishes, Thales

Brownie! I had given up on seeing you back here, so I went looking for you in another neighborhood. And I agree - this seems to be shaping up into a nice place to visit as it has attracted some dedicated and disciplined followers. Keep up the good work, folks! Best Wishes, Thales

Cory, Not for nothing, but you are beating yourself to death trading the two pairs that have been locked in a chop box most of the year. Meanwhile, the Swissy, the Aussie, and the Yen have been trending and volatile and everything you need to make it easy on yourself. I know I have recommended narrowing your focus in the past. But perhaps you need both a narrow focus viewed through "funnel vision." In other words, I think it is a good idea to focus on one or two or maybe three of the majors. But why not keep an eye on their longer term charts, and focus on those showing trend-like, range expanding price action? Both the 6E and the 6B will break out of those trading ranges eventually, and perhaps soon, but until they do, tred (and trade) them carefully. Best Wishes, Thales