Logic

Absolutely agree! Thnaks for the clarification of your point.

Could you clarify this point please?

Hey Tams! You hit the nail on the head with this comment. It amazes me that people don't research their trading environment more so they see the areas of absolute chaos the charting platforms create for traders to fall prey to.

I was curious on how the indicator tracked price but your second screen shot answered that question. Thanks for the answer and the explanation. Is the indicator openly available for testing? Logic

Urma, what is the histogram indicator and would you mind sharing the settings?

I agree that volume based Support and Resistance is the most accurate way to read those levels. I will add that each specific chart has its own unique Support and Resistance levels and when those levels match on shorter and longer time frames, those are the most critical levels. If you utilize Divergence/Convergence using those support and Resistance levels too, those oscillation tops and bottoms will be stronger as well using volume based levels.

Sorry for the disconnect. Two thoughts going on when I posted. I talked to a group of energy pit traders that were margined out on Wednesday and were blaming HFT's, algorithm traders and general speculators for their predicament.

Interesting article today. Oil crash pits floor veterans versus computer algorithms | Reuters Pit oil traders are pissed that us new "technical traders" have an advantage over them. (I consider myself a pure technical [algorithmic] trader). I created my own algorithms just like they could have and I consider myself no smarter than any of them or have access to any more resources than they do. That breaks my heart. Just like any industry; keep up with technology or suffer for it ignoring it. I know many many pit traders that have migrated to the charts, the open minded ones that is. Of those, some succeed and most fail. Still waiting on that email Josh.

As I stated previously. All the trades I take are strict objective rules based. In other words, they can't be fudged on my charts. I don't need to prove anything. If you would have had the charts, the indicator and rules you would have seem the same trade in real time. Again that isn't my fault. I've given you the ability to validate it for yourself. Other than that I can do no more.

Crude triggered at 8:18 am EST this morning, 2 hours and 12 minutes BEFORE the report, is currently up $1.50 and in an area an exit will trigger but nothing yet.

I post Crude nightly. Let me know if you use NinjaTrader, Tradestation or MultiCharts and I will send you the indicator. I'll repost the trade set ups in tonights email so you have it too. Like any method, if you expect to learn this in a couple weeks, don't bother. I say this because you already have established habits to overcome and that in itself is a wall you have to overcome. Regarding Twitter and programming, I don't do either. My programmers are integrating the feature to post trades to Twitter in the new program they are building for me. There is no way I will ask them (at $150 per hour) to separate that feature out and I can't anyway because it isn't useful to me without the new program. I really wasn't trying to be argumentative but you stated your question like it was a physical impossibility for TA to preempt moves on a chart and that just isn't correct.

You requested infomation from me. You had the opportunity to get my newsletter for free, get my indicator for free, ask me questions for free and test it for yourself for free. If free is too expensive for you I can't help that. Others in my thread on here did the same thing to prove to themselves it worked. I don't need to prove anything.

?? I'm not saying that a chart oscillation foretold 9/11, the London bombings, the Flash Crash or the Japanese earthquake. I'm saying that confirming oscillations put us short the equities about a month prior to 9/11 on our longer term charts and about 10 days prior on the shorter term charts. Josh, support levels in most, if not all of the Equities had made new lows the Friday (9/07) before. The news media was announcing after the attacks that they were going to investigate everyone that was short the markets on 9/11. A whole bunch of us contacted CNBC (Maria B.) and told her to bring her camera and her dumb fat butt and we would explain to her how the charts actually worked. Needless to say she never returned our emails. Two of my Australian students posted beautiful short set ups on the NIKKEI two or three days prior to the earthquake that remained valid till many days after the quake. The day before the London bombings, going into the close, we triggered sells in the Equities that reversed and confirmed bottoms prior to the market open. By the end of the same day we were making new highs. (The intraday equity charts were all in confirmed bull trends). The day of the Flash Crash, strength on our equity charts had all turned down in the pre-market and into the early morning triggering shorts. We had sell signals on ever bounce up the whole way down. It was not a straight drop down as the ignorant media had you believe. There were buyers in that drop the whole way down. Just last week in Crude on Tuesday afternoon we triggered a sell at about $113 that exited two days later, late in the afternoon at about $97. That is over a 10% pullback in 3 days and according to Taleb qualifies for a Black Swan as well. I posted that chart and many of our traders caught it perfectly (the ones swing trading Crude that is). You can't do that with time based charting. These are all objective rules based oscillation set-ups that we have programmed. These are not subjective discretionary art trades made by some idiot with a magic 8 ball, tea leaves and an aluminum foil pyramid hat.

I can attest that every Black Swam event I ever participated in was pre-empted by a confirming TA oscillation or oscillations including but not limited to; the London bombings, 911, the Japanese earthquake and the Flash Crash. Taleb's book is a good read but far from being an accurate assessment of what TA is capable of showing an individual.

Nice book to read, once, after you are consistently profitable. Have you ever met and had a lengthy conversation with Nassim? Something you ought to do, if you haven't . . . one time as well.

Do you trade; intraday, swing or postion?

Do you truly have an open mind or are there restrictions?

I absolutely agree, 150%!!

Within the next 90 days, I will have completed a program to post live trades to Twitter. These posts will contain; Buy, Sell, Reverse, Exit, Time Date and price of execution for a particualr Futures chart. I will make the page known later. You can follow my trading in real time by getting these twitter alerts. Once you subscribe to the twitter page I will also send you an computer annotated chart at the end of the day to show you where your alerts you were sent triggered. About 90 days after the release of my stand alone software I will introduce a website that will allow you to follow all of your Stock, Commodity, Futures, Option and ETF positions in real time as well, using the same triggers as my software but the website will only be for swing & position trading. Following the trades on Twitter is free. Oh, the website will be free too.

Yes, Volume Charts omit the time variable and for a reason. I've studied how time plays out in the markets and specifically on charts and came to the conclusion many years ago that adding something to the purity of a chart that needs interpreted dilutes profitability not enhances it. If you and many others find adding it to your charts, that is your prerogative. I apologize if I responded harshly. Great trading to you.

Event trading, you mean trading the news, correct. The Fed report is a good example right? That is why the Fed Report has to be analyzed before individuals can make the decision to trade one direction or another. Every report has to be analyzed in order to make a correct decision. Every event has to be analyed in order to make an informed decison. You said yourself that at "specific times" volume is analyzed and compared and based on that analysis a basket of shares or contracts are traded. Its amazing how people read what they want to read. That is exactly what I said. Time/volume charting must be analyzed (INTERPRETED) in order to work efficiently. I employ a group of some of the most proficient programmers the market has spit out over the last few years and am familiar with all of the antiquated algorithms those "successful professionals" are using. I didn't begin outside of the box, I crushed the box and started fresh. What I is do if different, extremely different. Will all of those "successful professionals" still continue to make money. I damn sure hope so because we all live in the same neighborhood. Steve, I understand how your general environment works but don't assume you understand mine.

I posted my trading charts. Our win rates are very close. I've been trading a bit longer than you but only a little over 8 years with volume bars. You can see my results as well in Crude. I stated that there are numerous edges and many are nothing remotely similar to how I trade. I fully understand that many individuals are successful trading many different methods. A few simple questions, if I may 1. You are saying that you consistently execute trades based on the same time of day each day, week or month, right? 2. Is your time based method 100% objective? 3. Would you say your average weekly return is in the neighborhood of 15% (per your above statement)? Thanks in advance for accurately and precisely answering the questions.

I have traded long enough to know there are lots of edges. I'm smart enough to know that there are others that have there own method that are profitable and trade nothing like I trade. That is not what you said nor is it what I said. I said that your assumption that viewing/trading time AND volume charts or volume charts and any other combination of variable based charting were an advantage over just volume charts and that is incorrect. I've analyzed them, side-by-side for 8 years and know what the pure raw data shows. I hang out in these forums occasionally for a couple reasons. First is to help young traders steer clear of the typical pit falls that trap them into paths toward failure and the other to learn about the edges others have found. I know what I know and your path is one that I've traveled thousands of times. There isn't anyone that knows volume bars better than I do and knows better the relationship between them and other bar types. Oh, liquidity shows up as a lack of speed and the absence of bars on a volume bar chart. You don't have that feature on time charts. I would never think about trying to instruct you on improving your dance techniques, that would be ignorant. I respect the fact that you have spent so many years at your art. So don't tell me I missed something in my research especially when you are standing on the outside looking in, that is offensive. I've earned the right to be defensive about my creation especially when someone is making an inaccurate statement regarding it.

I read your post this morning but waited till now to answer. I agree that both volume and time are important but for unrelated reasons. I will explain. You mention an instance were 50K contracts traded over 5 minutes indicates a different market sentiment traded over 15 minutes of a specific contract or stock. Do I agree, absolutely! Does that matter to my charting environment absolute not. Does it matter to time, range or other variable chart environment, it absolutely does. In fact it has to be interpreted in order to accurately utilize the information. Any interpretation of information is in error or the natural occurrences in price action. Now that being said you run into the exact same problem that has plagued traders since they began plotting price action on a chart and that is being able to accurately interpret market sentiment (EMOTION) in a chart. Using time, range or other variable chart increment makes it impossible to "read" emotion. HUMANS PAY ATTENTION TO TIME BUT HUMANS DO NOT TRADE BASED ON TIME. If you can find a single human that places trades based on the time of day and is consistently profitable I will kiss your dancing feet. Humans pay attention to weather and sports scores too but that has nothing to do with price action. Humans put a volume indicator on a time chart because volume is important. Time is only relative to the release of news reports that are relative to the market you are trading. This is only good so you are aware of trading action that will increase during that time. To bad you can't have something that would tell you of consolidation or a lack of liquidity . . . oh yea, my stuff does that. I have objectively programmed what I do based 100% on volume bar charts. This is something that is impossible to do with any other charting environment. As soon as you or your great great grand children figure out how to interpret emotion on a chart. post a blog. You are stating a problem it has taken me 10 years to solve and are too stubborn allow someone to simply offer you the solution. So be it. In 10 years or whenever you may come to the same conclusion I have, let me know. I know you "like" time. I used to like playing in a sand box but I outgrew it. I know that is a smart ass answer but it's appropriate. How long have you been trading Josh?