BlowFish

As I figured the answer lies in trade management rather than 'predicting' if that was the 'real' climax.

Did he offer any advice on this? It's something I have struggled with in the past? At least you can run a pretty tight stop and you usually get a bounce swiftly. Actually it can be a wee bit tricky knowing of it was just a prelim right into the test. (will the test be successful or will it fail)

First paper looked difficult I quickly abandoned that. Third one appears to have gone. The second one was a little more interesting however it seems pretty obvious that if it is a FIFO order matching system people will exploit that by placing limit orders at certain levels and then cancelling if they subsequently do not wish to trade at that level. The other thing that does not appear to be discussed is the effect of tick size. Too small a tick size deters people from offering liquidity 'early' (in the form of limit orders) as it costs a relatively smaller amount to join late. So the answer seems obviously yes but less so in markets with smaller tick size. e.g. If you look at say YM compared to ES the difference in the order book is greater than would be suggested by the different total contracts traded. YM is thinner than you would expect as it is cheap to better the inside bid/ask. Another side effect of this is increased volatility. If this sort of stuff interests you a useful and practical book that deals with the effect different exchange regulations have on how the participants operate is Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners by Larry Harris. A truly great book that offers a whole lot more solid trading information. Cheers.

I have a soft spot for real estate. Guess now is not the best time to start scaling in! I really should be scaling out but London seems to be holding firmish. A subject for another thread. If you are really confident that your intraday strategy is on track why not trade more contracts as your account size grows. Basically risking the same percentage? Exponential growth is fearsome. Simply averaging 2 ES points a day and risking 2% of a 10k account starts making millions in less than a year (from memory easy to crunch numbers in excel). Of course most people hit psychological walls as they trade more contracts on each trade. Still there's a challenge for you. I always used to have a longer term ambition to trade 100 cars (ES) without emotional overload. Of course have rules for taking chunks out so you can buy the Browns! How about setting some capital aside for swinging some other instruments? Go on, I know you want to from your contribution to other threads

Brown thanks for the write up. Might ask are you a 're-enterer'? If you entered on the first arrow when we first started talking about this would you re-enter on the second one if stopped out? or do you tend to put your stops further than the traditional '1 tick away from the last swing high' and hold tough until bar close? Would you employ the same tactics for a swing as you do intraday? Guess it's hard to say for sure if not a swinger. BTW why did you not pick the day before the second arrow? That seemed like a great candidate but would also have had heat. Looks almost identical tbh. The devils in the detail and just trying to to really understand that. I guess James should be in for 25% too though we could all just take the trade next time and all be paid . Personally I often risk 10 points intraday on a string of trades so putting that all at risk on a single swing just requires a shift in focus. Every now and then I am tempted to 'swing on the side' :o Actually I now have a spreadbet account for this purpose I can 'play' for say £5.00 a point a 'just for fun' amount. Paying a tick or two spread is no big deal if you are swinging and it is tax free too! Cheers.

I certainly didn't say there must be only one exit I would imagine peeling some of at each layer of support would make sense, particularly if you get a hammer there. Certainly need some criteria for exit though. EDIT: James it's tough when you drop down closer to the action, zooming back out again can be a problem. The same pitfalls can exist when you drop down to say a 1 minute chart to finesse an entry of a more 'major' daily S/R. (well to me they are as I get drawn down the rabbit hole often as not) A great trader I knew called it tickittis. Mind you trading off the hourly was tikkitis to him he liked to focus on the monthly...gave him time to think he always said). I can't recall (and too lazy to fire up charts) but I think it did poke up before it went down? I guess waiting for that last test/upthrust has a lot of merit.

Actually maybe I over reacted a wee bit It's just the signal to noise ratio goes way up immediately after some posts and this thread is already a monster to keep on top of. <doh> here I go adding to the noise. None of it really bother me except wading through stuff I don't want to wade through. Funnily enough the other thread has got off to a good start. You could probably split this thread into sub topics but some would probably get left behind. Cheers.

Problem with candles is they actually put the emphasis on the pattern. The smart guys soon realise (took me a whole bunch of time so maybe I am not as smart as I think I am) that this dogma can actually obscure what the price action (PA) is telling you. VSA is prone to the same malaise except the SoS & SoW (see previous post) are much closer to the PA. Incidentally, I am pretty sure Nisson is not a trader. His business model is similar to Tradeguiders though his focus is more on advisories and seminars.

If you read Toms original book (tbh the free master the markets ebook is not that different so it would do) you will at least be able to debate the subject from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. Reading a few posts in a forum might be enough for you to say 'VSA is not for me' but it hardly puts you in a position to argue its veracity or efficacy. I would never dream of criticizing peoples precious candles for example without doing similar work (I have all of Nissons and Bigalows books, I have done Nissons seminars and met the 'great man' on numerous occasions, always decent discussions about what he publishes) to do any less would be half arsed. Anyway back to VSA....its simply a tool, a method of looking at the market its not a trading system or even a book about how to use the tools to trade. The basic premises are blindingly simple (perhaps more in another post). On top of those are built 10 or so 'principles' that are essentially divided into signs of strength (SoS) and signs of weakness (SoW). Again pretty simple, certainly when compared to .... errm lets say candles to be provocative I personally think that there is a great deal of veracity to the basic premise and even the principles. It is firmly grounded in price action but adds volume to the mix in a structured way. Thats not to say there are not pitfalls to be wary of but show me an approach that has none and I am all over it. Yay we found the grail. (maybe more on pitfalls later if anyone is interested?) Another issue is Tradeguider. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are shills but there objective is not to buy strength it is to sell weakness. They are a one trick pony. In there effort to market there inventory they are gonna make it look as attractive as possible. As I said elsewhere I am waiting for the Gavin, Tom, Sebastian and Mike action figures. They are already working on the movie tie in (DVD only). Of course the real VSA 'message' is likely to get at best, a wee bit obscured, and at worst corrupted. I should mention that I mean no disrespect to Sebastian (don't want to jeopardise our friendship:)). He can certainly read a chart and even though he is not affiliated to tradeguider he lends some credibility. One thing Tradeguider has done is raise the awareness of VSA. Thats a double edged sword of course. I do remember when the book was first published the only person to really talk about it with was Tom. I wonder how many he sold in the first year, not so many I would guess. A bit later on there was a scam in the UK perpetuated by a guy calling himself the chief wizard. (or something like that). Cut a long story short he had a hacked version of VSA and Toms book was on the reading list (though he claimed to have uncovered the hidden secrets within)! Whilst that did not give as much exposure as trade guider from that moment once in a blue moon you would come across someone that had at least heard of VSA. So definitely not crock, though I could certainly highlight a couple of places where there may be issues. Having said that it would be more interesting to see if the naysayers do the work for themselves. I suspect not as I don't think their motive has ever been to establish the efficacy of VSA. Plenty more if anyone is really interested in debating the benefits (or not) of VSA.

No need to split the thread anyone can start a VSA is cr*p thread and post to there hearts content. Sadly this thread does appear to need moderating as there appears to be an agenda to call by every now and then to simply knock VSA. More recently it has been to knock VSAers, I personally find that distasteful. I suggest ellite trader is a better venue for that sort of stuff. It will be a sad day when the forum needs a complain button but there are a few posts here I would use it on. This thread is about VSA if that is of no interest why the hell post here? Of course if you have constructive criticism I'm sure that would be welcome but of course that would require some effort which is not evident in most of these missives.

It certainly turned out to be a pretty nice setup but the exit is the key to how much is 'banked'. I guess there is an argument for not watching intraday so you don't get wiggled out early as I am sure I would have). There was quite a lot of heat early in the trade. I'm interested if people would still hold or exit and why? I guess you are assuming exit here? Presumably today was a wide candle but would be interested in your rationale? Wouldn't want to loose it all to a big green bar Monday That to me would be of more value than how much coulda woulda shoulda been made. I was short the FTSE this morning and just about to cover for a few points cause it just wasn't moving off resistance Actually it was much like the daily ES before we got the break but on a low tick chart just going sideways right under resistance. Then bang off she went with barley a retrace and a very easy trade to hold. I had a look at the news to see what was going on, I knew there was something up somewhere! Gotta learn patience almost threw it away! :crap: ES wasnt bad later in the day but I didnt have the stomach for those larger retraces so actually did worse exiting and re-entering than if I had just sat tight after the early morning congestion. That's a topic for another day. Anyway the crack came and I stuck with it better than I might have thanks in part to discusiing things in this thread :thumbs up: And for some bizarre reason I thought it was Thursday and almost ended up holding the weekend :doh: as its not I wish you all a good weekendl.

Selling the assets of a company knowing that you are about to go into receivership is decidedly dodgy. Buying the assets is morally questionable (if indeed OEC new) but not illegal I think?

Indeed it is....I should have said its not an instrument that I am familiar with.

The pound has being weak for a while. The only currency it seems relatively strong against is the $. Perhaps its fairer to say the $ is "more weak". I have to say it is starting to concern me as most of my assets are in sterling. One of our major mortgage lenders announced yesterday that housing prices dropped 2.5% last month, the largest drop in 15 years, no surprise there. Of course the rate cut was pretty much anticipated and I would have guessed priced in. Worrying times and I think I should be paying closer attention to what the currencies are doing on a broader scale.

Ahh OK pardon my misunderstanding

Heres a chart with more data. I wasn't going to post it so make of it what you will. I got caught up in a nice FTSE trade so it has gone to the bit bucket! I don't know the instrument but the volume struck me more high than ultra high but how long is a piece of string Mind you the chart I post is the future rather than spot so maybe that accounts for some difference blue dot is WRB. Cheers.

Thanks for your post, I am certainly a great proponent of studying price action. Congratulations on your success, :cheers: I wonder if it is fairly newly found? I seem to recall posts of yours not so long ago where it appeared that you still had stuff to deal with. Anyway that's not the point what I wanted to ask was if really concentrating on PA is what you attribute your success too or is it using indicators to filter poorer trades? I am really loath to put squiggly lines back on my chart. It's my contention that if you study price action enough you would pretty much know what an oscillator derived from it would be showing you. It took me long enough to loose the indicators I'm not sure I want to put them back again!!

Thanks for clarifying your view on things. EDIT: No matter it appears to be 5 minute GMT? Not sure if you saw my edit on the previous post. Could you tell me what period bars they are? and whether the time stamp was for the last bar and what time zone it is. I'd like to have a closer look.

Great James, not a biggy just a minor irritant. Would now be a good time to mention again a 'mark this thread read button' and or a mark all posts read button again no biggy.

Hi CW, To be honest I have never bought into the idea that WRB bars are S/R. It is something I have challenged on occasion but don't really have the energy to argue about. (OK lets say to 'discuss vigorously' ). The reason why they very often appear to 'work' in this regard is because they are pushing through the real S/R!!!! You get a much much more accurate zone by trying to identify that. The reason they sometimes do not work is when they are moving through 'air' (a place with little or no previous S/R). To identify the 'real' S/R you need to look farther to the left. (You would need to look left to see what it was pushing through). If you look at DB's blog in the section where he does an analysis for the following day you will see how he approaches it, there are also people doing it in the price action thread. It's uncanny how accurate it usually is. I'd really urge anyone with an intrest in identifying S/R take a look. I know you seem to have a great handle on things and I certainly enjoy your posts, but I sincerely think it could turbo charge your identification of S/R. EDIT What period bars are they on your chart? And is the time stamp in the bottom right what timezone and does that epresent the time of the last bar? Thanks.

Briefly :- Interesting, though in places turns into a one man crusade against the specialist system. For that reason in these passages read like a guy ranting (e.g. the section James mentioned). To be honest I was somewhat disappointed though not regretful.

Mirus Futures (or amp). Free simulated trading using:- Ninjatrader charts and order entry client software. - Not bad at all and improving all the time (charting platform of choice for a growing number of retail traders). Zenfire data feed/execution engine. - Zenfire has a reputation as one of the best data feed/execution setups. Some would say they have taken TT's crown. Having used this setip in parallel for a month or so I can see why, doesn't miss a tick.

Might I suggest you take a look at smartclock 1.3 it is lightwieght and straightforward. I't does pretty much all you might want except you cant do the beep every xx minutes (that I am aware of, I don't have it on my laptop). Thats why I didn't suggest it to BF. What I used to like when I used it was small digital display showing a couple of time zones. Always on top with transparent background and it goes away when you mouse over. If it had a repeating eggtimer it would be perfect.

Yes indeed, right up there with the one found here Many pearls beeing cast before us swine http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f37/re-is-trading-just-another-road-3712.html#post33723

If you can identify a cyclical component in a time series you can tune an oscillator to be phase advanced to it. Having said that if you can identify a cyclical component why not just trade the cycle high and lows! You might want to check out Ehlers books if that is the sort of thing that interests you.