joshdance

Regarding value... There are several measures that people use to determine value over some period of time: POC / VPOC VWAP / TWAP Close-weighted pivot point (H+L+C / 3) Closing price Moving average Can you think of any more, and which ones are important to you?

After looking at several earnings calendars online, I'm still trying to find one whose UI is clear. That being said, finviz allows me to screen by market cap and pick out the HAL and AAPLs and ignore the smaller stocks. But, then the earnings calendars all seem to lump these together and I lose the "important" ones. Any that let me see just what big stocks?

After this brief detour, let's try to get the conversation back on track.

After it moved up after the open and started to level off, I got a good indication and got long at 95.75 (at 11:20am EST). It tried but could not get back above the prior high at 97.75, so after a triple bottoming at 95.50 it seemed it would move lower, so I moved stop to BE and was out at 11:34am. No need for a 10 point stop when it's just not going. Then it broke another 1.25, and I got another indication to buy and was long at 95.00 (at 11:53am). Stop was 1.5 points, for reasons that should be pretty clear from the chart. This time it did go, and I closed the trade way early, but still had a profit. My point is that there's no need for such a wide stop. Stop placement is still something I really struggle with, but the most frustrating thing to me is to have a 3 point stop (wide for me), watch it get hit, and then go my direction. So most of my stops are 1.5 points or less. There's nothing wrong with trying 3 times for a trade, getting out with -1 on each of the first two, and then hitting a nice +4 or +5 on the last try, if you can do it. Small losses are important psychologically too; when I get down 3 points on a single trade, on these days when the range has been 10 points, it makes it difficult because you could now capture 50% of the day's range and still only have +2. Lots of pressure for me. More important is, "am I on the right side of the market?" I shorted last week and gave the thing 3 points of room, and it just kept crawling and crawling against me and finally got me. There's just no reason to do this, and I wanted to be right more than I wanted to have a good trade, because I knew it would get me, but I just hoped it wouldn't. Not a smart way to trade. On a day where volatility is high and the range is 20-30 points, a 3 point stop may be just fine, but in 8-10 point ranges, if you need 3 points of room, the location or timing of the trade is just off IMO. And if you need a 10 point stop in anything except a swing trade where you're targeting 30 or more points, something's very wrong IMO.

It is a "fact" huh? Prove it. And they are going against thousands and thousands of retail traders? Prove it. I don't fundamentally disagree with you, but it kind of irks me when someone incoherently posts broad, sweeping generalizations with no facts, and claims it as truth.

khamore, can you please delete and repost your post, this time quoting the correct parts? I can't tell what you wrote apart from what MM and I wrote. Please use the quote tag, as I do not wish to be misquoted.

It's simply a matter of perspective, and it really goes to the heart of why I started this thread. MM is simply saying that a price where the most trade occurs means maximum disagreement, IF the definition of high trade activity is indeed disagreement. I buy from you, you sell to me. We disagree with each other, else we would both be buying, or both be selling, from someone else. MM is seeing a trade as, by nature, a disagreement as to value. That's where MM is coming from I'm sure. MM is slick and always rocking the boat ;-)

Wish I had gotten back in this when it went back to 1306, this went on to hit my original target plus a little more!

Excellent post 'mac and just the kind of conversation I'm wanting to have on this thread; all dissenters and believers alike from all sides join in! In response, I really don't see profiling as a methodology at all, at least not how I use it (perhaps it should be more of one for me! ) I'll put it this way: in the same way that horizontal support and resistance of price levels based on past price gives a structure to the market and gives a context to where we are now, so does volume at price. I tend to use shorter term profiles, like the day or spanning several days to a few weeks, and only use the distant past if we are in new territory and I have nothing recent as a contextual reference. What does a volume at price profile really represent? Well, speaking objectively, it only presents a view of volume traded at price. That's it. Anything beyond that is us inserting our own personal, subjective analysis. Notions of "value" or "unfair high" or anything of the sort are what we as viewers of the market project onto it; it says nothing about value, or fairness of price, or any of that. So, I try to keep this view and understand that a volume at price histogram is simply a presentation of data. I am still developing what exactly a profile "means" to me. I don't know exactly how you trade but based on our prior interactions, you and I are probably more similar than different. I use a profile much like I use a 30 minute chart: where are we in relation to yesterday, this week, this month? But at this very moment, that really is not as important as what is happening NOW. Is sentiment bullish or bearish? Does this market at this time want to go up or down? That's my question always, and when I am on the wrong side of the market, in about 70% of those cases I was uncertain when taking the trade to begin with and need to simply be more patient. Does Schulz reach any particular conclusion regarding horizontal development? I take it that you have rejected this, and would like some of your opinions as to why specifically, if you can concisely explain your thoughts. I will certainly pick up the book and give it a read. Sounds very interesting.

just logged in from my phone, and closed as it hit the IBH at 09.25 for a +3.50, nice way to go into the weekend

Thanks mdubs and gosu, will check these out. FYI I am long ES 05.75, stop below the low at 04.25, looking for a revisit of 10.25 from yesterday... heading out and leaving it for the afternoon.

roztom and BlueHorseshoe, thanks for your input very much, and I look forward to hearing more ideas. So far this thread has provided some very useful feedback and I will post thoughts and ideas as I consider what you all have said.

Very good point peter, and very sobering in that it reminds me that all the technical analysis in the world is really meaningless unless we're going with the current "flow" of things... sometimes this is hard to really determine, market sentiment that is, but definitely true that the NOW trumps the past every time if they disagree on what "should" happen.

Thank you squishy; I have read all of Jerry's threads before, but will go back and review these. My only issue with this approach is that it's based in "if X is below Y then only go short" ... and VWAP, while a valid statistical measure, is to me on par as effective as a moving average. However, I certainly want to go through Jerry's threads again with a fresh eye and see if I can find anything that will be helpful this time around. I'm not sure I really agree statistically with it either, but I'll have a look. Thanks for pointing me in this direction.

Thanks Jthoma, I am in the middle of watching it and some pretty good info, thanks very much.

SPX traded 650M+ shares in an 8 point range yesterday, significant if you're into VSA / wyckoff.

Good advice -- do you have a resource you check for earnings schedules?

Thanks gosu and N-- N, unfortunately I only have tick data for ES through early August but I can see that today was the largest volume for a single price at least for the last few months. Although when I took the trade I took, it was not quite so high, and built up quite a lot over the last few seconds of the session so it looks a little more dramatic than it actually was. However, it also caused a weekly vpoc shift for this week. In fact that was one reason I considered a long was due to value shifting higher. Do you have tick data back 2 years??

Look at the absolute BS the market plays. 8 point range the entire day. Goes down 4.5 points after the cash close. Then back up 5 points. All within 15 minutes. I know it's not healthy to think, but it's frustrating when I want to absolutely strangle the big money traders who are manipulating and playing games with this market.

Out 09.00, for a wonderful +0.75 ... I really do not like this market, sorry for the vent. Every other time (every) that I have bought at a similar location, I take the profit, and it goes straight up like a rocket. Not to be today. Normally I would see the heavy volume at 3:22 and be out, but I decided to be a "good boy" today and look what it got me.

Yeah it's just had many chances to break 10.50 and did not so far. When it's truly strong it should not be so difficult, but still in for now, time getting short now for a real move, it needs to go.

Objectively, I think if we trade 09 we will see lower than 08 so stop to 09

Right now I'm long 08.25 ES after a couple of failed tries prior. Serious selling here around vpoc at 10.50, but I will leave the stop at 08.75 for at least 2 ticks gain, I want to give this an opportunity to completely explode up, let's see what happens.

Perhaps this is a good time to shamelessly plug the thread I started on a very related note yesterday http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/market-profile/11711-price-acceptance-value.html

This is kind of like, jump on the bus if you can, while it's moving Most logic and levels and all that can be pretty well thrown out the window in this type of market. Just buy, pretty much. I'm waiting for some type of volume to show itself but it crawls up because no real sellers opposing it. Just look at the spx chart attached. If you were OTF, would you really short here for a position trade? Doubt it.