Tasuki

Yuval, you da man! Thanks for the indicator. Looks good. Attached is the closest I can come, after the fact, to a direct three-way comparison. Charts represent price action last Tuesday, June 2, at about 11:43 AM PDT on the ES, 5 minute chart. indicators: left chart: the StochRSI ala Tradestation middle chart: EOT's Vol Splitter right chart: Blowfish Vol Splitter #4 Tasuki

Yuval, your oscillator is colored light yellow, and at least on my computer is virtually invisible. I had to manually adjust my brightness to nearly zero to see it at all. Could you repost it please, changing the color to black, or any color with good contrast, pretty please? As hard as it was to see, I did manage to see what looked like some differences to me. Maybe I'm wrong. One question I'd have is whether your oscillator can mimic the "dumb money" simply by changing its settings. I doubt very much that it could do so, but again, perhaps I'm underestimating your StochRSI MA. In order to make a clear comparison, I'd love to get my paws on a copy of this "wonder indicator" for Tradestation. Do you know if anyone has translated it into Easy Language?

Thanks, diablo. This time it worked! Tasuki

I tried to open your pdf file, but I got an error message: "There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired." Tasuki

Just a caveat to the notion that the actions of the big traders must follow the patterns of price. As I point out in the legend to this chart, there are times when the big traders are buying as the price is going down and selling as the price is going up. This HAS to be true, so one needs to be careful about following the "smart money" too closely--unless you have mastered the concepts of accumulation and distribution. For those of you unclear on the concept, I recommend reading books by or about Jesse Livermore, and also reading Traders Laboratory's own very excellent sections on Wyckoff and VSA. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed. Tasuki

Mike, Hideously off topic, but too cute to pass up---since your avatar shows a picture of a cute puppy (presumably yours?), I thought you might be making a subtle pun, control-break --> control-bark. Tasuki

This is a continuation of the previous post. Times for these snapshots are: 12:15 PM 12:32 PM 13:15 PM Notice especially how there was a double bottom in the indicator before price made a double bottom. At least the double bottom in the Vol Splitter signaled a potential change in direction for price. However it took a few more bounces of the indicator before price started to go north again. Hope this helps someone/anyone (or am I just wasting my time?).

These charts come from the EOT live trading room from Wednesday, June 3. These are all 5 minute charts of the ES. The horizontal lines are their version of Murrey Math. They have two moving avarages in magenta and cyan (not sure what settings they used), and the important indicator is the red and white one in subgraph 2, their EOT volume splitter that we're watching. As mentioned in my previous posts, this indicator is tracking only trades above 100 contracts, so in other words, it shows, or purports to show, what the big traders are doing. I've included this as a series, which I'll continue in the next post, so you can see how their indicator works as the day progresses. The times of these snapshots are as follows (all times California): 8:54 AM 9:38 AM 9:43 AM 10:18 AM 10:33 AM 10:35 AM 11:00 AM 11:47 AM To be continued in next post Tasuki

Here's another chart of the big money vs. the dumb money, this time from Thursday, June 4. In this chart, they are showing how the smart money (the big traders---indicator over price) is tracking price very nicely, whereas the dumb money (yellow indicator in subgraph 2, indicator set to 1-5 contracts) seems to be doing the exact opposite of price---they seem to be buying when price continues to fall, and selling as price rises. My question has to be--if this really is true, if this indicator (the yellow one in subgraph 2) is really showing the small traders acting like total idiots over and over and over and over and over and over again, how the hell do they fund their accounts? Looks to me like the small traders would be getting wiped out in short order. Think about it--doesn't this seem suspicious? The EOT main trader mentioned that the small traders do sometimes make money, but by his calculation, only 15% of the time, whereas the other 85% of the time they get their heads handed to them on a silver platter. Can this possibly be right? Woulldn't they be blowing out their accounts with statistics like this? So, I'm a tad suspicious, that's all. Seems too "pat", too obvious. There's got to be more to the story than this.

Mike (control-bark, nice handle), Maybe you're rich, but $233 per month, every month, is too much money for me. I mean, for less than half that, Tradestation gives you an entire charting platform, a data feed, an order entry platform, a Radarscreen, access to Forex, futures and options markets, etc. etc. etc. Yes, you're right, the EOT crew seems to be a nice bunch of people, but so do Hubert and John, who are playing the same game, and getting filthy rich from it. You may recall the old saying that the people who got rich during the gold rush were the folks selling the picks and the shovels. Same deal here. These folks, just like the more disreputable pair, Hubert and John, are selling the tools that traders use. More power to 'em, but I want to bring my own tools. There's another reason for spending so much time on this indicator---understanding where the big money is going is very much like VSA--this is just a different approach to the same question. If we can create a reliable way to do this, it will act as a confirming indicator to VSA signals, giving us more confidence in our trade.

Sorry, Tams, their legal noticed didn't forbid such posting, but it seemed uncool to post their stuff on our forum while my trial was ongoing.

I'm not sure how many screenshots you folks would like to see. I've got dozens from my weeklong trial with EOTPro. I'll start with a comparison of two five minute charts of the ES, one showing the EOT's vol splitter (which started this thread), and comparing it to the Blowfish Vol Splitter #4 (this thread, permalink $162, page 16). The first chart is a Snagit capture of EOT's live chart from this past Tuesday (June 2) at about 9:40 AM, California time. The EOTVolumeSplitter only shows the actions of the big (>100 lot) traders. The second chart is a Snagit capture of my Tradestation chart from the same time. I've put the Blowfish Vol Splitter #4 on the chart three times, one for big trades (in blue, over price), one for medium size trades (magenta, subgraph 2) and one for small traders (yellow, subgraph 2). The EOT vol splitter does seem to have some advantages. Despite the fact that it is smoothed (the smoothing factor, I was told, was "6" on this chart), it seem to lead the market sometimes. It also gives occasional divergences that often work out (but not always, as I observed). However, the Blowfish Vol splitter also has useful features. As I point out in the text on the chart, the indicator doesn't seem to like double bottoms. While price is making a double bottom, the blue (big trade) version of the indicator keeps going down until the double bottom has completed. As it is completing, the indicator frequently seems to consolidate with small range bars, then break out of its consolidation with a strong bar up (for bullish moves). This seems to signal a reversal in trend in the price. One may also notice that, as price was generally going down on the righthand half of the chart, the big traders were generally going south as well, while the small and medium sized traders were still buying as the price went down. Anyway, I hope this is helpful to someone. I've got more charts I could post, but these were my two best. Tasuki

I will be posting screenshots on friday or on the weekend, after my one-week trial runs out with EOT. Tasuki

daedalus, Today was just the first day of my weeklong trial. I should have a better answer by the end of the week, but my first impression is that I think that it is very important. Check back with me on friday. I'm taking snapshots (SnagIt) of their charts during the day. I'll post some of them here towards the end of the week and maybe we can answer that question together. Tasuki

No Tams, that's why I'm asking. I did a long search before posting that question. I'll do another one tonight and post anything I find, but I was very surprised the first time 'round not to find anything on longer charts of the Forex pairs that Tradestation carries, nor any of the futures charts I follow, nor a handful of stocks I watch. Maybe I need to widen my search, or maybe this pattern just doesn't show up on longer term charts....or, maybe there's something wrong with the code (or the way TS is reading it, same thing).

I'm taking the week-long free trial with EOT this week, looking at their vol splitter (see first post in this thread). So far, it looks like a smoothed version of the Blowfish #4 indicator (the one before the last one BF posted). I asked the folks in the EOT room about this, and they of course wouldn't tell me what the code actually is (they lease it for $233/month), but they did say that the unsmoothed vol splitter they use has a smoothing factor of 1 and the version they use on most of their charts has a smoothing value of 6. Not sure how that helps us, unless BF wants to smooth his version. BF?

What am I missing? I've been reading over the posted pdf files and trying to figure out this Drummond stuff, and so far, it looks like it's just a rehashing of trendlines and moving averages. Clearly, I must be missing something because you folks seem to think there's something here. Is it just the way Drummond uses these basic tools that makes his method powerful, or are there more sophisticated tools that I'm not seeing?

Just for review, and for the newbies to this thread, would you please show us or tell us what the signs of distribution are, so we'll know them when they finally show up? Many thanks, Tasuki

Eiger, I know I should know these acronyms, but UT means ? and SOT means ? One thing that VSA doesn't seem to spend much time on is the volume/spread patterns within well-known structures, such as your "apex" (i.e. triangle). Those huge volume spikes near the end of the triangle have to mean something, but I'll be darned if I can figure out whether its bearish or bullish. Symmetrical triangles are usually continuation patterns, and indeed those two big volume spikes occur where price tried to break down and failed, so my best guess is that we're looking for higher prices tomorrow. Any thoughts on this?

The example given at the top is for a one minute chart. Can anyone find one of these patterns on a daily or weekly chart?

When you import the text to EasyLanguage in Tradestation, it won't verify. I get an error for "text_setsize"---word not recognized by easylanguage. Anybody know how to fix this? Thanks, Tasuki

Steve, why do you think this is? What is TS doing to its data?

Olive, thanks for the info on EOT. I'll check it out next week. That BAP02a was one of the versions that was put on the Traders Lab thread. At least I think that's where I got it. Or was it the Tradestation forum? I can't recall. I can send you the code if you like, just send me a PM here on Traders Lab.

Olive, See attached charts. OK, so I'm not exactly comparing apples to apples here because my bid ask pressure is on a day only chart (just the way I pulled it up this morning) and my vol splitter is on a 24 hour session, but even so, I don't see any similarity in the patterns of the indicators at all. For clarity, the blue line in the vol spllitter is the large traders (100-9999 contracts) and the yellow line is the small traders (1-5 contracts). My experience is that indicators on the the day-only and 24 hour ES do look different in the morning, but tend to merge by the afternoon (I'm showing 233 tick charts from near the end of the day). Anyway, what I'd really like to do is to compare both of these indicators with the one from EOTProLive, but I haven't signed up with them yet. I've been watching the vol splitter today on several time/tick/volume frames, and I wouldn't have made money with it if I'd been trading live. Maybe I'm not seeing it right. Tasuki

monad et al, Here's my advice: never get old. Just avoid it like the plague. Here's the reason: your brain starts to atrophy. Cheese and crackers I'm not sure what I wasn't thinking, but "thrusts" are just VSA "UPthrusts". Sure, I know what upthrusts are, but I guess I was having a senior moment to not see that thrusts are upthrusts. Duh! Oh well, now I know. Whew. I thought this was some new pattern I'd never heard of. So, they kicked out Sebastian? But he was the best they had. Nevermind. So, I've got Tom's book, "Master the Markets". How different is the original "Undeclared Secrets" book? Does anybody know whether it's worth it to try to find "Undeclared Secrets" if one has already got (and read, numerous times) the "Master the Markets" book? Yeah, I know, the original doesn't have any Tradeguider BS in it. But beyond that, is the original sufficiently different to merit a search for it? Or should I just hunt down the original Wyckoff?