gosu

I'm curious, what happened to the "that you can test for yourself and take to the bank" or else it's BS? Not that I'm saying it should be the litmus test to post but you seemed pretty emphatic about it yesterday. No matter, you're still my favorite chief trading advisor for a hedge fund listed on the internet. (Just kidding!)

Since it seems important to you, I attempted to edit my post to add "that you can test for yourself and..." to the quote in my post. Unfortunately, the time for editing a post has been exceeded. To me it doesn't change the intended point, but consider it added. I have not read the posts that you seem proud of; therefore I cannot offer an opinion about your claim. I will not speak for others, but as for me, finding something that I can test for myself and take to the bank is not why I come here, so you will understand if I do not show any interest in your generous gift. From my own experience, I have yet to find anything that can be picked up by any visitor to a message board that he can test for himself and take to the bank time and time again without eventually being taken to the cleaners. That is usually the claim of someone who has something to sell. I am not accusing you of being such a person; I am just speaking from my own and very limited experience. I have been known to be wrong, but I do not shy away from the consequences of being wrong. If you did indeed put forth a money machine on this site that we can test for ourselves and take to the bank, I will just have to live with the thought of having missed out on a fortune because of laziness.

No need to apologize. You are entitled to form your own opinion like everyone else and to express it as well. In my post I expressed my opinion. It was not meant as advice, as you say. It is just something that I've arrived at from my own experience. Now, I cannot claim to have the authority of "the chief trading advisor for a hedge fund listed on the internet". But to be fair, from the get go I've claimed no authority and stated I'm here mostly to bullshit. I can say, however, that I did much better than 25% last year on my account, but I know I am not comparing apples to apples. In any case, I am in agreement with your statment that most people who post actually offer little substance. So it is wise to be skeptical. However, I would take it one step further and say to be especially skeptical of people who offer advice claiming they've actually posted things of substance or something you can "take to the bank." Love and kisses, gosu

It's all in the method. Without a method, it's just gambling. But not just any method. You need a good method - no, a GREAT method. Then you can trust your method completely. No "mechanical" method will ever do. You will never trust a mechanical method completely. Your method will always require the use of good judgment. Your method is THE way you form good judgment. Then it is not about using instinct. It is about OBEYING.

Trading requires Knowledge, Skill, and Experience. They are acquired through WORK, which must be distinguished from merely spending a lot of time at something. Knowledge can be obtained by reading, studying, asking questions, listening to others, etc. In the past, knowledge was expensive and not easily accessible. In the internet age it is the easiest to obtain, at little or no cost. In fact there is too much of it, most of it false knowledge, or what I call folklore, which piles on top of real knowledge. The truth is not hidden but just needs to be uncovered, or separated from the chaff. Skill has levels, from the most rudimentary to the highest. The various levels of skill are best obtained by doing drills. For the beginner who has no skill, only the simplest of drills is possible to do, such as entering and exiting the market without taking a hit to the account and free from the urge of jumping out of the chair or a window. Even this simplest of drills is a real challenge for the beginner to do unsupervised. Experience comes in all forms and successful experience counts the most. Mistakes may be opportunities to learn but they must be recognized as mistakes and addressed as such. Repeated mistakes, especially if they go unrecognized, can easily take the beginner in the wrong direction and to a place of no return where the possibility to learn correctly is foregone permanently. Successful experience on top of successful experience is what builds the mind and assists in the acquisition of K and S. Innate ability may be a factor, but so are desire, perseverance, resiliency, etc. And did I mention it takes WORK? It's worth repeating, it takes a hell of a lot of WORK, far beyond what most are willing to do.

I have adopted, for the most part, the Hershey lexicon to describe market events. However, the fp3 doesn't exist in the Hershey orthodoxy so I suppose that makes me a heretic. The terminology is freely available. I do not consider anything I use to trade as proprietary, only my understanding of how to use them. No need to apologize for asking good questions. Cheers. :beer:

I'm not sure I would call it out of sample; trend days in general are not the norm so I would hold up yesterday against other trend days to distinguish it rather than against nontrend days. For me, the quintessential trend day is a dominant move in the AM and a continuation of the dominant move in the PM connected by congestion during midday. A tell tale sign of it beginning is a significant gap open, and there are also elements preceding the day that put the possibility on the table as well. The most recent examples are 3/13 and 3/26. We do not use the same distinguishing terms (I don't know what "rotation" means and therefore the significance of "no rotation"). For me, yesterday (4/10) can be distinguished from the quintessential by the lack of a gap at the RTH open and the day ending in congestion rather than continuation or even reversal as on 3/28. In answer to your question, the start of midday signals the end of the AM trade for the reason that all variations from the quintessential trend day occur after the AM. Midday congestion is certainly playable as a lateral but that is a new trade, or more accurately, a new series of trades.

Both. The determination of a trend day beginning (trend AM) is market based. Once the determination is made, the hold through the AM is based on duration alone.

ftt - failure to traverse. fp3 - failure to point 3. ftr - failure to resume.

Yes, I could have been clearer by making explicit that I am referencing different "fractals," for want of a better term. Elliott Wavers would say I am referencing more than one "degree" of trend. The reference to "nondom modus" is to the fractal that overlaps days and connects RTH sessions, what I call the ST (short term). Specifically, I am saying that the RTH sessions following the first two dominant legs after the 4/3 BO are nondom on the ST. Contained within these nondom sessions are, of course, smaller dominant/nondominant moves that are traded by intraday players. With the ST in mind, yesterday's RTH session was a "trend day" comprising the third dominant leg short following the 4/3 BO. All subsequent references to dominant/nondom are with intraday legs in mind, specifically in the AM portion of the day which is from the RTH open to roughly 8:50 a.m. pacific time, give or take a few 5m bars. A bit of background: I always see an RTH session, unless holiday-shortened, as consisting of 3 parts - AM, midday, PM. The open and AM is what I trade primarily; midday I usually break for a meal; and PM I will come back to trade if I think it has potential. My strategy for the AM on what is potentially a trend day is to enter on the dominant side and sit tight all through the AM. This is not as easy as it sounds because it requires a change in the mindset used to trade the AM on most other days, what I call "default" days. On default AM's, the strategy is to take profit at the end of a dominant leg followed by a choice to either reverse and reverse again on the nondom and resumption that follow, or, in the alternative, to sideline through the nondom and reenter on the resumption. In a potential trend AM, I am better off just holding throughout the dominant/nondom cycles without either trading the nondoms (reverse-reverse) or trading around the nondoms (sideline-reenter). I've learned from experience that it is easy to mistime the beginnings and endings of nondom legs as the trend continues on toward lunch (and congestion). On default AM's, the nondoms are more pronounced and there is usually at least one reversal. Consequently, holding through a nondom retrace will result in profit erosion with a likelihood of some type of failure (ftt, fp3, ftr) to follow. Thus, the strategy is to take profit at the end of a dominant leg and to either trade the nondom as well or trade around it. Hopefully this doesn't confuse you further and clears things up at least a little. Cheers. :beer:

Those are good stats to keep. Today was the third dominant leg after the BO of the 4/3 pennant, and the best one so far for trading RTH. The prior 2 dominant legs had the bulk of the move occurring overnight or on a holiday, leaving the RTH session mostly in nondom modus. I'm not sure about calling today volatile. It was a one-way market, what's commonly called a trend day. I don't particularly care for the term "trend day" because I always look at the day in 3 related but disparate parts that usually require disparate strategies. The strategy for a "trend AM" is always the same: detect the potential for a trend day ASAP, entire on the dominant side, and sit on my hands until midday which usually begins around 8:50 more or less. The strategy protects me against the very strong urge to trade the nondoms, which from experience I know to be not worth the risk of getting a poor price or even missing out on the resumption. If I have to set a stop loss and walk away from the screens to avoid trading around the nondoms, then that's what I do. Sometimes I have to remind myself who is in charge of profits in the partnership because on trend AMs it is easy for me to usurp the market's role. Much has been written on how to detect the potential for a trend day - narrow ranges (nr3, nr7, etc.), surprise side moves, etc. I take a bit more focused approach and want to know the potential for a trend AM, which can be a part of a trend day proper or even a day where the market reverses the morning move in the PM. Finally, it is true that the market's design is such that your volatile days outnumber the one-way days. It is important not to sit on positions in the AM on such days because nondoms can be as profitable as dominants and can erase profits from dominants without action. Most days are of this type and they come in various forms. I detect them by default - once the trend day is taken off the table, I know to go into default mode.

Not too far from there, further east, nearer the "gritty" neighborhoods. I get a kick out of my OC friends coming to visit and freaking out about the area. They think they're about to get mugged when approached by a panhandler. I've lived in rougher places but they're used to new streets lined with palm trees so their perception is a bit warped.

Nope. I've only recently heard about that place from a vegan friend, which made me think it's not a place for an omnivore like me. Back to the market: currently left to right on the tilted lateral. Going into the last hour of the day...I think most of the juice has been squeezed out of the short trend for today. Will need a big surge in volume to get the VE on the larger fractal. It's not off the table but I just don't picture that happening. Closing shop early and gonna take the good vibes to the beach. Good chatting with you, roztom.

Yeah, Guiliani had "cleaned up" the place by then. By 4 a.m. I was usually done drinking and it was time to get a slice of cheese at Ray's. Always lots of people walking about but no frisbee games.

West Third and MacDougal. Went to law school at NYU late '90s. Really miss the chess cafes the most. Haven't seen them in any other city. There were two on Thompson Street when I lived there. I'll be there next month to visit. East coast hours are good to trade - can stay out late and still trade the open the next morning... LOL. Would have liked to maintain a place in Manhattan, but just too costly.

Yes. Those were fun times.

Initially I wondered what was so great about today and why it turned into an average day and then I read all your posts for today and realized you were commenting about your p&l. For me, a day that was nondom for most of the session after a large gap that occurred on a holiday is a below average trading environment. It's sort of like arriving at my favorite fishing spot at dawn and realizing that others had already been there and caught all the big fish while I was sleeping. P.S. It's probably a good idea for you to debrief because it seems you were caught off guard by the obvious - the possibility of a resumption on the short side.

Funny thread. The discussion lived and died before I arrived on the scene but now that it's been revived I do see that the OP was confused. The title of the thread asks the uninteresting question, "how much would you pay to learn from a 'veteran' trader?" while the original post asks "how much money would it take for you to teach what you know?" Those questions are not equivalent but are diametrically opposed. Notwithstanding his confusion, he implies he has something to teach and enjoys thinking he can charge a bundle for it. The truth is, if the trader is really a "veteran" who is an expert, he is simply unaffordable and he is accessible only because of the relationship between the parties and not because of a fee. The people who dream of making substantial sums selling their services to others are not worth learning from because they are marginal players at best and washouts at worst. I realize this leaves many people who want to learn between a rock and a hard place but that's just the facts of life.

Not bad. But you may have caused Charlie to turn in his grave.

That about sums it up.

Been trading in the Pacific time zone the past few years. Barring illness, holiday breaks, appointments, I'm always at the screens for the open and AM. I take a meal break around 8:50. Most of the time it's at the screens but I do like to go out to a nearby Hof's Hut (drive) or IHOP (walk) if I see low volatility. The servers no longer ask what I do for a living after I told them I'm unemployed. I'm also over 40 but taking a nap in the morning is just not my thing. The day goes by too fast for me to feel like I'm watching paint dry.

It takes into account ON activity, which is why I said the RTH could start with a BO of the daily pennant, as it did on the gap open. Had the RTH opened within yesterday's range (i.e., no BO to start), I would be anticipating a BO to occur during the session. The point is I would be anticipating a BO before the day ends. The only other possibility would have been a further contraction of volatility on the daily and a continuation of the pennant. There would be telltale signs at the beginning of the day to signal that possibility, however. As you point out, the pennant boundary is a key area even after the BO. You call it Monday's low now being resistance. I call that a static R, a horizontal. No doubt, that price is on the radar of a lot of players, as our institutional brother confirms in his post. To summarize without using gobbledygoop: going into today there were only 2 possibilities for the market operating point to move to, with BO being the most likely.

In my book, that's called a wash (a wash+), not a gain. You had to jump to a larger fractal to get the wash but you got it nonetheless. You and I apparently play on the same intraday fractal in the ES. The timing of your initial entry was poor, which is why you had little opportunity for a wash and you chose to add on and lower your cost basis, a point of emphasis in your post. I had read the sentiment the same as you - short - but I read the operating point at that time to be a nondom L2R traverse after a VE of the channel on the preceding dominant traverse and was anticipating a resumption trade at the RTL. The L2R turned into a bo of the channel and the fact that it was so near the end of RTH had me closing shop before the close. The environment so far this year hasn't been conducive to strong continuation moves at the close, and the day ending on a bo of the short channel put the final nail in the coffin for everyone expecting a break of yesterday's RTH lo. The daily settled as a pennant, so I anticipate a bo to either start or occur during tomorrow's RTH session.

Your "students" . . . that's a good one. I'm curious to know how these "students" of yours address you? Professor? Teacher? Sensei? Master? Probably you are just Roger to them. My first day in high school the french teacher asked the class what his name was and admonished those of us who left out the "Mr." He was right of course and I didn't forget that lesson. When I took a course at a local university, I befriended on a first-name basis the instructor who was around my age. Inside the classroom I always addressed him as "Professor" as befitting the relationship, just like all the other, younger students did. There is so much pretense in the trading vendor industry. Maybe "trading education" ought to be added to the pet peeves list.

Cool story bro. Your post has enlightened me. Henceforth I'm going to apply the spirit of price action into other areas of interest. I've been wanting to take up fishing. But I don't care for any fancy equipment or the latest thingamajig. Surely there must be others here who trade price action and know a lot about fish. I'd be interested in learning fish action from any fish action fishermen on this site. Please leave a reply. I will respond later after I return from some lunch action.