johnw

Thanks Rande, There is a great deal of truth in the expression "all we have to work with is ourselves" The part that is missing is "but first we must learn how we work" 2014 is going to be a most interesting year as we continue to borrow our way out of debt and throw rhetoric at the reasons why it is not working. We are in BA for a few months and last Thursday the City temperature hit a humid 47.8C (118F) on the very day that the Central Bank gave up their futile efforts to defend the Peso. The whole place is a shambles needless to say .... but as some Wit remarked "we know how to create a crisis and then how to survive it" How is that for 'perpetual mediocrity' ... Regards

I thought this was another of your very incisive pieces Rande. Thank you. You have added more bite to to this one which may well account for the deafening silence from the assembled crowd. perpetual mediocrity This is a very catchy little truism. Years ago (in another life) I had built up a staff of around 50-60 people and since I owned the Company, I took a particular interest in their well being and their incomes. Occasionally, when someone was under performing I would have a quiet chat with them (not necessarily only about their job performance) and it always wound up with " you have perpetual potential, just make certain that you don't take it with you to the grave" That little phrase could bat above it's weight and change attitudes overnight. Regards

IMO, trading is all about winning Statistical edge .. mental edge are components and very important components indeed, but without a Winners attitude they are incomplete. Winning is a habit,it is attitude, it is a belief... You win because you are a Winner. A Winner has the mental edge and that in turn develops the statistical edge.

Hi RH, Another very interesting piece from you I particularly appreciated .. To be released from the comfort zone that the brain has created, but that now has become a prison to your growth as a trader (and as a human being), you courageously embrace your history (simply accepting it as one possible organization of the self) and begin taking responsibility for the organization of the self that you can be. IMO it ranks right up there with an earlier piece from you .. If you have any weaknesses (realised or unrealised), Trading will reveal them. (the quote may not be exactly word for word) many thanks

The most important aspect of learning to trade is not to get ahead of Price. Just relax and watch, relax and watch and you will be to understand how Price moves in waves. Each wave can be separated by a battleground where longs and shorts fight for supremacy. Sometimes the waves just reverse as though every Trader agrees on a change of direction. But then again, every Trader cannot agree otherwise Price would stall because for every Bought Contract there must be a Sold Contract. These simple little things are the guts of trading. Try to place Indicators to one side until you establish a sense of confidence that you can follow Price ... at this point many things will become evident to you. Much of what is written about Indicators here on TL is written by People who have not reached this point of understanding ... in fact many have not even tried to understand Price and so they are doomed before they even start.

Hi livernik, I would suggest that you only watch the price bars and concentrate on what bars you think best represent price (time, range, tic, vol) and what size bars you want. If for example you chose 3 minute bars, at least you will understand what is unfolding before your eyes because you have weighed up the options and then made a choice. This is quite different from using 3 minute bars because someone else mentioned them. Supply/ demand will open up to you from watching price.

Welcome to South America .. the continent of perpetual potential. On a brighter note, I am sure that the Latino attitude will give way to a more Nordic approach to business and SA will have it's day in the sun. Just make certain that you stay alive long enough to join in the celebrations.

Hi livernik, The markets have changed a great deal in the last few years as Quants have replaced Traders and now rule the markets. If you watch the Price very carefully and monitor the ask-bid volume you will come to understand The Quants perspective. From this knowledge you can devise a strategy to put you into the market and then pull you out again. IMO this is time better spent than following TA history. good luck

Nice piece of work Zupcon ..very nice indeed. If People come into trading with no prior experience of what it takes to struggle and persevere in an individual effort such as Arts, Sport, Disability/Injury then they will naturally take the course of trying to match their academic firepower against the Market. I don't think that it is arrogance that causes this, but rather it is the result of a complete and utter lack of understanding of how we function as Humans and what our potential really is. I thought your posts were very clear and refreshing .... "most people fail"

gm OILFXPRO, You have just written the ROAD TO FAILURE .. Now how about balancing this well written piece by writing THE ROAD TO SUCCESS.

Hello MK, There are many instances of these mental experiments and they do make us think ... as indeed they should.... in many human endeavours, especially those that require one Learned Soul passing un(semi) quantifiable to a hungry Student, it works. However Trading is as quantifiable as it gets ... just look at your daily Brokerage Statement. It is even more exact than being the World's fastest man... even if you run the 100M in the fastest recorded time, there is always the suspicion of drugs hanging over the Runners head. Trading is brutally honest. And so when People tell us things like 'S&R doesn't really work" they are demonstrating the limits of their range of their thoughts or assumptions on the subject. When I say to Handle 'the supply/demand zones exist intraday CL' ... I say this because I can see them. I do not say to Handle that if he doesn't use them then he must be nuts, because that would be a presumption on my part... Handle is a Trader and answers only to himself. S&D zones are the result of Longs and Shorts doing battle and the Winner controls the next Price Wave ... to me this is the very essence of market structure and it is the guts of trading. The Zones will be as long as your bars are small ... it is your choice entirely how you choose to exhibit your price information. Once we accept these concepts, then we can decide how we are going to build a mathematical edge that is applied consistently. Without this edge we are dog tucker. Without this edge, Retail Traders who are well funded will take longer to go broke than Traders with smaller balances. However the Trader who grasps the structure of the market and who builds a mathematical edge will grow their account. In short ... It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you grow your account. This means that any/all experiences, opinions, thoughts and assumptions should be embraced openly and put to the test mathematically before any decision is taken. This is a brutally honest game ... and I mean that we have to be brutally honest with ourselves in every respect.

Hi Handle Try looking inside your 5 minute charts, rather just focusing on the daily lines They are there

Hello Rick, Your analysis was good, the pullback to 83.50 was in an uptrend that showed no signs of weakness and so the pullback was a BUY. However, you were hoping/assuming that the price would fall to your level of 83.00, but it didn't... this is not a clever thing to do, since you are giving away control of the trigger. Remember that price controls direction, but you control the trigger ...this is important. What you are lacking is a Traders Mind ...ie what am I going to do when price reaches a supply/demand zone I say 'zone' rather than 'level' because when price reaches a supply/demand area things can get messy as it shakes out the weak Players and tries to trap other Players on the wrong side. This is the essence of Trading. What you need to contemplate, is entering after a return to upward momentum (in this example) or a retest of the low of the zone.( offering a better entry and a tighter stop) Your stop size is critical. Also, if you have any thoughts of win/loss ratios, I would place them gently to one side and retrain yourself to think in terms of hold/scratch ... in other words, once you are in the market your options then become ... will I continue (hold this trade) or will I scratch this entry and look for better one. The next entry might be in a minute into the same price wave, in which case it may well yield an extra tic or three to cover your scratch trade, or you may miss this price wave and wait for the next one. Add up your scratch trades each day and when the total is close to zero, or better still, it is positive, it means that your trading style of entry is exactly on the money. Focusing on staying in a winning trade without being prematurely 'shaken out' is another subject.

Good for you handle for applying Joe's methods on the odd occasion when you get a signal. There is nothing wrong watching the price all day as you learn. If you are not doing so already, pay careful attention to the LH and HL ... how they are formed and where they are formed and where the next bar starts in relation to the previous HL and LH. After awhile you will begin to see where the market is being pushed.

If you are determined to intraday trade the ES, you will find over time that most (if not all) of your thoughts towards trading will melt away as they are replaced by thoughts that are particular towards your new found interest Words like 'noise' will cease to exist ... win/loss ratio will fade away as you focus on entry continuance or scratch. You lose interest in R/R but you might be heavily attracted to moving averages of High/Low and whether they are traveling in near straight lines from time to time and whether your bar entry lies inside/outside the last bar mov av. of High/Low. RTH Open will be a fat line across your chart together with Yesterday's Close ...2,3 day high/low plus other lines dragged forward from significant recent and not so recent turning points. Trend and momentum merge (who cares what to call the next few minutes) ..either you have bought in or sold in to the developing price wave... you are either long or short on an OCO trade and your management requires you to drag the stops around the DOM, or hit the Flatten button when you want out. Trailing Stops are for other People. This style of trading is not everyone's cup of tea quite frankly .... it is best treated as a game IMO and as such we train for it ... and train hard. We all need a realistic understanding of our appetite to stress and our ability to react immediately. The rewards are good, because you are doing the same thing several times each day, (although your no. of lots keeps increasing) ... and over time you will come to understand that the price is repeating patterns but not always in the same order. That is why People hold the believe that the market is random. Remember that 'No. of Lots"' does the heavy lifting ... you just need to provide stability. Lastly, it is a simple game and you must keep it that way ... there is no time for complexity