clmacdougall

I've only read one of the books you've mentioned, "New Blueprints for Gains in Stocks & Grains and One-Way Formula for Trading in Stocks & Commodities '" You know I wanted to understand it, but it started to lose me probably because I was caught up in market profile at the time. Maybe I should give it another try! Please let me know if you found Drummonds stuff worthwhile and if it does help, how so?

Here's my 5. I'll start with the one I like the most 1. The New Science of Technical Analysis (Tom Demark) 240 pages What a price action genius, this guy gives legs to theory. He so clearly explains himself. I've got all 3 of his books and the one written by Jason Perl on Demark Indicators, but this is the one I like best. 2. How To Make Money In The Futures Market ( Charles Drummond) 585 pages What a joy to read. I in no way support the idea of trading using his dot methodology, but his book is a hoot and gets you thinking all about price action again. Packed with good stuff. 3. A Beginners Guide To Short Term Trading (Toni Turner) 270 pages I can see why she has such a following, she's a fabulous writer. Intermingled with trading advice is advice concerning attitude and motive, I wouldn't trade using her method but her book gave some tremendous advice. 4. Markets And Market Logic (Steidlmayer & Koy) 161 pages 5. 141 West Jackson (Steidlmayer) 132 pages I lumped 4 & 5 together because they are both books on the same subject, Market Profile. The methods mentioned in these and other books on MP are totally useless but some of the theory is great. When you learn how to apply these theories outside of the methodology mentioned in the books, you come out with another solid element to add to your trading strategy in my opinion. I was also going to mention Stan Weinsteins book, Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets, a simple but great little gem. I look forward to Pat Dillard's book on trading if he ever gets around to releasing it, have you heard anything about that? I loved his threads on orderflow and MP.

Blowfish, just because we're in the recommended books thread, what are your top 5 recommended books?

Please give me your opinion on trading without volume. Do you consider that volume is meaningless and for that reason you trade forex without reserve? Do you believe that you could trade another product better if you used your method and added a volume study to it? I guess I'm trying to see if you feel volume adds nothing to a probability based methodology. Thanks

I bought and read DbPhoenix' ebook, it was good but it didn't stick with me. It seemed like a diary of his progression instead of an arrival at something new and great. What did you think of it, or did you read it?

In the words of Bugs Bunny, "I'm dyin I'm dyin"!!! Can't wait to read the rest of your story.

Blowfish, are you looking forward to the book "Trades About To Happen"? It is based on Wyckoff so I thought you might be interested. I hope I'm not being presumptuous by assuming you're a Wyckoffian but your lingo seems to point to that possibility!

I guess it would be true that you don't have to carry over volume from the start of the day in your VWAP calculation and you could constantly drop your measurement off of the backend of your profile as more volume is added to your frontend, so my assumptions have an idiocy to them for sure. I just got "Investing With Volume Analysis" by Dormeier in the mail yesterday, I'm going to read it once I'm done Aronson's book. I'll let you know if it's any good. Hope your enjoying your holidays.

Blowfish, forgive me for not answering your previous question about Jperl's threads. Yes, I read and watched them all, it was really enjoyable. I found it somewhat in the same vein as MP but it was interesting to think of trading between standard deviations and the high volume node or whatever he called it.But you were again forced into looking back in order to develop your trading plan, you had to accept a context placed upon the market from the start of the day and in my estimation now that will lead to disaster in the long run. Again it relied on stale information for a trade setup. Any idea whether or not he still trades this way?

Blowfish, I'm just finishing Aronson's book "Evidence Based Technical Analysis", really good but a hard read through the middle on statistical analysis. You'd probably enjoy it by the sounds of it. The final section deals with random and non random price movement. I've got to say I lean more towards the random. He examines the Efficient Market Hypothesis really well and makes a statement that stuck with me concerning the uselessness of "stale information" when making a trading decision. I'm beginning to see that the more you rely upon past technical information when making your trade the more potential there is for your trade to go bad. Have you read the book?

I backtested 3 years worth of day and night profiles for probabilities that were not random and found hardly any. Don't get caught in the MP trap, it's far behind the times in trading application and is next near to useless in most of it's theory. In my opinion the further you look back when you're about to make a trade the more dangerous the trade is to take. A trade which relies on as much hard right data as possible is the one which is going to offer the most success and the least amount of risk. Don't get fooled into believing the profile provides context for a trade or you might get the money shook out of you. The statistical bell curve has no place in the financial markets, it's a misapplied science when used to determine fair value. That context is a lie and your trading account will prove that to be true in no time flat.

It's funny Blowfish, yourself and the previous poster used the same phrase when describing MP. You both used the word "context." The idea being that background MPinformation gives you an edge when trading forward. The last conversation I had on the phone with Pat Dillard, ""UrmaBlume", which was a long time ago, I asked him that very question, " does the market have context," just as quickly as I asked it he said"no". MP falsely tries to put that chaos into context but in my opinion it fails miserably. Context has lost alot of people tons of money when they hold onto a concept when losing money until they have no more money left. In my opinion the closer you are to accepting randomness and trading srictly on probabilities the closer you are to being ready to trade.

I would sure love to see that gem list zdo, please consider sharing it. I can totally identify with the value of a trading book being in a sentence or paragraph alone. Something within it causes you to question something which you never did before leading you to change and grasp a reality you would never have had if you didn't read that small bit. It's hard to recommend the book though as the better part of it is useless other than what it causes you to question.

MM, my experience has been a little unique in the sense that I started studying the markets in August of 2006 at the same time that my job came to a grinding halt. I studied for about 13 hours a day for the first 3 years and then 8 hours a day for 4th year and now I average about 2-3 days a week of 8 hours per day study. My family has been incredibly supportive through it all, without that it would have been impossible for me to carry on. I've gone through over 100 books and probably thousands of articles plus some overpriced systems that were useless. I've now drawn my "own" conclusions about the market and how it works and am really enjoying myself, I think I have found the truth but am looking to learn more. If you're trading without peace don't trade at all, wait until the peace comes first then trade. Peace is a good sign that you now know enough to begin.

The trouble with trading is the amount of misinformation you must wade through in order to find the truth. Most of us have never lived a life where we had to question every piece of information we were taught but were told to trust and embrace it instead. Can you imagine the damage you'd do to yourself if you trusted in even 2% of the trading misinformation which is taught out there, it's absolute rubbish. No one reading these threads is ever going to be a major liquidity provider so don't get bowled over by the lie that the electronic markets are too complicated for you to pull money from or that simple concepts are going to part you from your money. Learn to develop your own concept, that is your edge!! That no one looks at the market like you do will provide you with a strategy that no one can beat. Question your market understanding non-stop, tear apart your own ideas about the market with good sound logic and have a lot of fun doing it. This stuff is alot of fun to figure out you know, don't forget to enjoy the journey and to keep your money in your pocket until you figure things out for yourself.

I can't imagine what's more important than understanding why a position has been sold to you and why you've bought it, it's the rest that really is semantics. Though you may never fully understand the reason for the release of a position into your hands by preferably less experienced or educated hands, you'll always realize why you've chosen to enter the market at that moment. Your looking to trade in someone else' poor judgment for a profit, or your piece of pizza for something even more desirable. In essence trading is simply "trading up".

The real question is "what can you trade the pizza for?" If giving up money gets you a position someone else is willing to let go of, why were they so willing to let it go and why were you so willing to take it.

Hello Rajanadar, I spent more than 3 years in India and loved it. I know the exchange situation and would definetely recommend you do not purchase this method. Just keep reading here at TL, there is tons of good stuff, especially if you're new to trading.

No trouble Kiwi, glad to be of some help. Please do try and read, "Markets and Market Logic," it really is a great read as well. Unfortunately Steidlmayer is so smart that he found out what many followers of MP discovered as well, it's not at all as useful as it was thought to be initially. He has been quoted in one of his most recent interviews as saying: "Steidlmayer says today markets don't actively form profiles each day because "imbalances," or directional moves, are now so overwhelming the market can't integrate them and form an efficient price by day's end as it did 40 years ago." The interviewer went further to ask him' " What would you say to traders who are using Market Profile as a visual display on different charting platforms and are studying your original theories?" To which Steidlmayer answered,"It's a pass-through cost (i.e., it won't be very helpful), not an asset. I'm building a database with Market Profile . Everyone should have their own database and understand the nature of the markets they're trading, which allows them to create opportunities instead of finding them - a big step." Yikes, if the originator of Market Profile "Theory" no longer considers his "theories" to be very helpful than why should you? The truth is his theories are only useful when deciding upon the potential best timing for "your" setup but the rest is just nonsense. Notice that his parting words in that interview places the onus upon the individual trader to understand the nature of the markets which they are trading, something which was outside of the scope of MP and some foolish bell curve for sure. At least Steidlmayer was man enough to admit the weakness of his "theories" instead of trying to keep it alive for ego's sake.

Esignal has a formula wizard that helps you to create formulas on your own, but I'm playing catch up when it comes to any type of code work. I've got some good ideas upstairs, just trying to learn how to make it show up on the screen. Thanks for the reply.

Tams, would it be possible for you to make that usable in the esignal efs code? I'm just learning to be literate when it comes to writing code. If it's too much please don't bother. Tams, could you recommend any publication that would help when it comes to writing efs code. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Great post Siuya! I think differently concerning the fractal nature of markets than you do but I really enjoyed your post. I've read Mandelbrot and enjoyed his book. Intraday price movement outside of news releases can be fractal, but somehow the greater time/volume frame involved in a price bar the less trustworthy are the results stemming from it's development. That's just my opinion and I'm open to change. Thanks again for your post, good advice for sure.

I did some extensive work on trendlines and used Demarks TD lines as my setup. I applied it to trading Corn futures and the ES. It, like many other trading methods, slants towards predictability instead of probability. Eventually, as you might find with whatever system you should choose to follow, your stop has to grow in order for your method to "succeed" . This, to me anyways, is a massive warning sign that your method is out of step with market truth. I can't remember what my r-r ratio was, but I know now that anything that slants more in the direction of your stop than your target is a waste of time. Just stop, take a breath like you've said you did in your initial post on this thread and try to look at the markets in a new and fresh way. Don't go for that high risk stuff man, it'll defeat you mentally.

Think long and hard about it daedalus. Already tried this concept out, it ruins you psychologically. Had 30 winning trades straight than got nailed on the 31st. It's a pain that's hard to forget. It takes a strange kind of dude to risk like crazy for small profits and then get nailed for a huge loss and keep on stickin to that same plan. Good luck man.

I think UB already made it clear that Trade Intensity was not at all his sole factor for entering a trade, with that said I agree with you that context is extremely important and that Trade Intensity alone provides little or no context, but maybe it provides a trigger point for entering a trade once context has been provided. For UB it seems that along with other things his HUD which monitors multiple time/volume frames gives him an understanding of market bias and that is his provider for context. The real question becomes, what is his understanding of bias in each time/volume frame? To me this is what's now key!