amisme

I and several others seem to have fallen into a trap that I have recently become aware of. I had been told that the method had changed considerably between the ET threads and this one, but I thought that was just in terms of concepts like “lateral movement” and “faster fractal traverse.” The reality is that the fractal concept is used in a drastically different way in the ET threads and is fundamentally incompatible with what is presented on TL. Trying to apply concepts from the ET threads to a TL conceptual foundation has been sadly counterproductive for me. Spyder has explained several times that when he started futures, he was able to trade mostly intuitively without being fully aware of his thought processes. I believe that as the threads went on, he became more consciously aware of what he was doing subconsciously and refined his understanding of the price/volume relationship. Going back over the ET threads, I can see how Spyder’s explanations gradually shifted more towards what is presented on TL, with one of the largest pieces being a shift from defining traverses as having a visible retrace, meaning that a lower fractal level is visible, to being a distinct and consistent fractal level made up of containers that are one level smaller. Glancing back over this thread, I see that gucci also saw what I am seeing now. Learning to view the price/volume relationship as presented here on TL is comprehensive and complete. It is not lacking anything that you will find in the ET threads. If one wishes to learn from the ET threads, I believe the best way to do that is to set aside the concepts of consistent and distinct fractal levels and follow those threads exactly as instructed, possibly preceding this by trading equities for a few years, as Spyder did. Given that I believe what is laid out in this thread to be the pinnacle of Spyder’s understanding of markets, I have decided that starting from here and moving forward is the best path for me to follow. Anything that happened before 2009 is not something I will spend time on. I will follow exactly what is laid out early in this thread, looking at charts for similarities and differences that signal continuation or change on different levels of sentiment. I believe that the ten cases are the metaphorical letters. I also note that Spyder has emphasized differentiating between them over annotating a chart. This process does not require perfectly annotated charts to begin. I hope this helps others to decide exactly what course of action they want to take in order to reach their goals.

Does anyone happen to have charts for the "channel drill" from June 13 2009 to August 5 2009? edit: For anyone wondering, I did find the answer to my earlier question. The accelerated RTL is used for RTL break test and pt2 confirmation of a new container.

So, another general question about maintaining fractal integrity. Let's say I have a traverse, and it accelerates. I get a new point 3 and I redraw the RTL. What are the requirements now for establishing a new traverse in the opposite direction? Does point 2 need to occur outside the accelerated RTL, or the original RTL? I would think that a pace acceleration would reshape the container in such a way that the new RTL becomes the meaningful RTL for maintaining fractal integrity, though the original RTL may still be relevant as a bookmark. Spyder did state early on in the journals that the original RTL was mandatory and the accelerated was optional, but I don't think there was the same emphasis on fractal differentiation back then. Examples early in this thread lead me to think that this is not something to go by. Has anyone had good results maintaining fractal integrity while requiring original RTLs to be broken after a pace acceleration greatly steepens a container?

No noise. Changed some fractal levels from yesterday. Something about VEs that I need to look into. Tried a new convention for doing sub-skinny volume lines. I think I like it.

I was expecting to see a down traverse followed by up traverse today. I guess I got something like that. Pretty sure I'm not off by a fractal level, but if anyone has something different, I would like to see it. One goal I had for today was to see volume with no noise and annotate every peak and trough. Every volume peak is a point 1, 2, or FTT, while every volume trough is an X2X or point 3. 15:30 I did not see a complete sequence for. I expect this is because pace increased after the initial R2R and dropped the second trough out of visibility.

Today's chart. Low volume with FBOs was tricky in real time. I can't attach the spreadsheet I made for pace so I took a screenshot of the output. Volatility data is only the last 14 days but volume data goes back 20 days. Current as of EOD today.

Early day clarity on yesterday's puzzle, and some perspective

It is interesting to me that we have ended up at about the same place. I started my current annotations from a clean slate a few days ago, so I've been wondering if my largest container would be off. I seem to have aligned with correctly drawing an up channel, but I did notice mine had a little bit different slope than yours. I believe yours was correct, and by annotating as consistently as I could, today brought me to the same place in that regard. End of day gives us a tricky thing. The lateral we have there, I expect it to be a non-dom inside the tape, and here is why. Volume trough does occur on volume, but it occurs on the first bar of the lateral, with volume increasing steeply afterwards. In other words, no volume trough to correspond with the two actual down bars. On top of that, the lateral bar touches LTL, which in several examples does not end the tape until the lateral ends. However it is end of day, where we expect volume and volatility to be increasing, and there is a volume trough.

Today was difficult in real time, especially in the early day. I did draw an up traverse that did not break RTL of a down traverse that had VE'd steeply and did not create a new point 3. Ultimately I decided that it makes sense on volume, so I'm doing it. I think I got on track and feel pretty good about 11:10 on.

Haven't found myself upside down yet. Feeling good about that. Bookmark at 1402 today for down channel and watched two bars come up to 1401.75 before reversing. That was a little perplexing, but it worked out. Now I have an RTL that moves one tick down for every 82 price bars.

The current up channel, as I see it. Possible end at 15:10 today

The explanation I remember probably came from Jack but might have come from Spyder. It was that the character of the market after hours is different than the character of the market during RTH. Different players playing for different reasons in different ways. Same instrument, but the difference in participants creates two very different environments. Similar comments about the last 15 minutes of the day as that is a transitional period between the two. As I understand it though, your trading style includes elements of JHM, with the rest not being anything I am familiar with. That being the case, the intraday gap may be relevant to you where it is not for others. I wouldn't know.

Not much commentary for this one. Lot of FBO. I feel like the first one could have been better anticipated in real time because the RTL from the previous container fell right across that movement.

Taking a stab at how I think pace lines may be used in differentiating fractals. The fundamental concept: volume must reach a certain magnitude in order to define points of a container on a certain fractal level. Going to use PST times so that people don't have to convert when looking at my chart. Excitement begins on my 7:05 bar. RTL break on high volume, a pace level is set for the new fractal. Decreasing volume for several bars, until 7:25. We know that this inc red vol is 2r of a lower fractal because pace is much lower. Pace returns to complete traverse level R2R at 7:50. Until that bar, we knew we were still waiting for point 2. Point 3 follows and a return to dominance is confirmed by volume pace returning to the level set by point 1 and 2. A clear reversal follows. I am not sure what pace level to use as a starting point for the new traverse. We are looking for rising black to show us our point 2. We get rising volume that breaks into the pace level I feel good about at 9:10, but it is a down bar. Two bars later, high volume pace gives us point 2. 9:50 is not point 3 even though price wants you to think it is. Black volume drops another pace level. A sub-tape fractal is visibly building. I get a little fuzzy after 10:25 bar. PRV is initially strong and suggests it will break into the pace level I'm watching and give us point 3, but it falls short. I do not know if I should expect it to reach the same pace level, or an adjacent pace level, or what. I'm still making guesses as to how this actually works, but I think I'm on the right track. Could the relevant pace tier have dropped for this fractal? It seems quite evident after bar 11 that we have our point 3. Bookmark for the non-dom down thing is broken. Volume isn't strong, but suggests up dominance. I am pretty sure that in an up trend, point 3 cannot be higher than point 2, but that may not be a tenent. RTL break on increasing volume looks convincingly like a new down traverse. I'm going to presume that fractals can shift pace levels and that I will have to look for signs of that happening. Decreasing red volume, trough is below a pace line, increasing red volume back to the same pace, I annotate R2R. 12:05 bar breaks into a higher pace level. I do not know if this is significant. I also do not know if my pace lines are exactly accurate, though. Looking for volume to break 18000 to confirm point 3 since 12:05 bar broke into the higher pace level. 12:35 bar gives that to me resoundingly. From there, ride to close.

Fantastic. Suddenly it makes so much more sense why people made a big deal out of that graphic. Also, from Jack's document that Corey pulled up: That's good! Price containers are also not a continuum. I have a big write-up for end of day attempts at understanding pace. If you like words, you won't want to miss it.