BlowFish

Hope you don't think this is quibbling however I think an important point is being obscured maybe as I am not making it particularly well. My point is that certain resolution tools would have made that observation easier. No dogma no "approved" bar. Let me ask what resolution 'tool' you used to observe these bigger volumes at 10:20 & 10:50. I would guess maybe a 1 3 or 5 minute chart would allow you to spot the shift pretty clearly. Or a similar tick chart. I guess that there are a few (very few) that could observe it from time & sales data only. I would suggest even if you are observing in real time and know exactly what you are looking for it would have been tough to spot on an hourly+ bar being as both events would have occurred within the same bar. Elephant gun for elephants and a small bore for rabbits. As an aside I am not sure where this idea of an "approved" size comes from, (I hope not from me). VSA is the same as many things 'any instrument any time frame' of course Tom added 'as long as there is volume reported'.

Have to say as we are up close to Resistance short is the only trade that makes sense from an R:R point of view. The only thing I don't like is that there has not been better price rejection. A couple of nice long upper wicks is more comfortable to me (not that I trade the daily).

Yup, I should change my location seeing as I am not travelling much at the moment.

Indeed, I was just trying to clarify the time frame confusion. VSA is really a method of reading a chart, any chart that you can plot in a bar form with associated volume for the bars. Kruger seemed to add the multi time frame stuff (in a rather haphazard way I always thought) I don't think it is really 'core' methodology though there is a brief mention in the book from memory. Picking suitable resolution chart(s) is important for most approaches imho. Most VSA practitioners that I have come across enter on bar close. Sure this is an arbitrary construct but if that bothers anyone I suggest they make no such restriction, maybe use a pro rata volume indicator to help anticipate if the volume will be abnormal at close. By entering on close you are giving up trade location for more price confirmation. (as an aside I wonder generally how many trader trade on bar close?). Of course if this is the case picking a suitable periodicity is pretty important. As for exits a variety have been discussed, the trite answer would be if long exit when weakness shows. Having said that the Undeclared Secrets was never a how to trade book it was more of a how to read the markets book. The same can not be said about the whole Tradguider offering and perhaps that adds to the confusion, their agenda seems simply to make as much from Tradguider and related merchandise as they can. Part of that merchandising is selling the whole how to trade package as far as I can tell. Having said that I don't own any of there stuff so can't really comment on how well it achieves that.

This answer from a VSA point of view (and from the point of view or most methodologies that employ charts of bars/candles ) would be 'the chart you are trading'. Or in the case you mention above the chart you posted. having said that know one can tell you how to exit all they can do is say what they may have done. More sophistication can be added by looking at longer periods (bars) for 'context' and shorter periods (even approaching real time) to 'trigger' a trade. For some this can add confusion rather than clarity. You need to think about what you want to achieve and pick suitable resolution tools. For example a trader trying to capture monthly swings is unlikely to be bothered by price moving against him for 10 minutes or for a few points. Likewise a scalper is unlikely to be prepared to have price move against him for more than a few seconds or few ticks.

Lets not forget Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre. Through the anecdotes of the campaigns waged by the great traders of yesteryear much can be learnt about the techniques employed by those legends in meeting there objectives. Not only that its a cracking good read.

Welcome. Can't answer your query I'm afraid - I'm sure someone will chime in.

Well hows that for timing. Check the multicharts forums someone has just converted it!!

Interesting. Funnily enough it's almost the same amount that our erstwhile leader (Gordon "goldfinger" Brown) sold when he was chancellor of the exchequer. The big difference was he managed to sell when it was at a record low <doh>. more here. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1655001.ece

One thing that makes me chuckle is how some commentators say things like "if it breaks 1350 its going down". Well duh 1350 is below us! In that great spirit I'm going to say much the same that 50-60 area provided a minor obstacle on the way up about 10 days back and will need to be broken to go down (well duuuh). To confirm the downtrend is still intact we need to take out the January low. That little prod mid march I would call a double bottom even though it exceeded Jan's low by a point or two. Will be interesting to see if it breaks today. Note to self when a strong break shows up intraday jump on and hold tight.

4) Notice the advances within the range are on steady increasing volume and the declines are on diminishing volume. I know Sebastian uses a similar concept. He kind of 'scores' bar by bar and simply allocates it as strong or weak.

http://www.tharptradertest.com/default.aspx?question=1 A questionnaire from the Van Tharp Institute. I treated it as a bit of fun however the results did not seem completely bogus. Innovation is probably one of the last things you need in trading, oh well. Be interested to see others results though of course a 10 minute questionnaire is hardly likely to be that revealing. My 'profile' :- You are an Innovative Trader! Your goal is probably to understand the world, constantly absorbing new information that comes your way. You then process all of this through your intuition to quickly size up what is going on around you. This can be an excellent quality for traders and investors if you get the right information. Otherwise your decisions and conclusions may tend to be flawed. And this could be costly for you as a trader... One of your Trading Strengths You can quickly determine if a new style of trading or system will fit well with your personality and you get very excited about it. One of your Trading Challenges You want external confirmation for everything and have a strong need for a mentor.

Stalor do you want it as a trigger chart (I.e. faster) or to be a similar speed to the 15 minute? In any case get a rough idea of the total ticks for a day and then divide by 6.5 * 4. Thats 6.5 hours * 4 15 minute bars an hour and will give a similar length bar to the 15 minute. Divide by a further 5-7 to get a faster 'trigger chart'. From memory 2000 tick was roughly equal to 15 minutes but I think you will need double that nowadays.

Gassah, I guess you have read JPerls's excellent series of threads elsewhere on this site? His approach is based on volume profiles rather than TPO's (which I'm pretty sure was adopted by Steidlmayer in the early days as a proxy for volume). Jerry's slant really resonated and its probably as well structured and written series of threads that you will find.

Milliard, I think the term "smart money" which I believe Williams himself coined does VSA a dis-service. It is a naive term and not very descriptive. This has been discussed a couple of times on the two VSA threads. I prefer to a adopt Larry Harris' term from the book Trading Exchanges & Market Microstructure for Practioners. He uses the term "informed traders". Of course he goes much much further and identifies the subgroups of this overall category. He also goes on to show how they make prices informative and how they directly effect market efficiency. He also discusses a whole variety of other stuff in this particular section including risks they present to other participants particularly liquidity providers. Fascinating stuff. Actually it's an absolutely outstanding book if you want to learn more about markets and there participants. Should be mandatory reading!

My 'gut' is saying the same as yours. That whole longer term R area round 1400 has not really been 'rejected' and it looks as if the little ledge here on the daly could be setting up for a push at it. Guess we'll know soon enough. The FTSE opened up over a key level (though it had previousy closed banging its head against it) and has been going sideways this morning sitting on top. I'm not sure about the other European indexes, I'll take a look at the DAX later.

Nicely done James. Looks like "they" want those stops above yesterdays high. It will be interesting to see if they can make one last push for it.

This thread just did it :- not sure if that's any help to your coder. http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f6/balancedtrader-2211.html#post16418

That my whole point! We seem to agree. Context, prevailing market characteristics and a whole bunch of other stuff is important. Actually similar criteria that you would apply to entries. If you had entered on say a hammer at support (or a selling climax/test at support) Dunnigan would say that if you then saw a 'thrust' that your trade was 'confirmed' i.e. you where in at the start of a new trend. Using ZDO's chart as an example he would be adding on each of those pullbacks. Dunnigan was rigerous in his research incidentally. If however you where in congestion or long a WRB going into longer term resistance that paints another picture The good thing about simply exiting on a WRB is simplicity. No need for analysis you see a WRB you exit. Of course you would need other exit criteria (unless you waited for a WRB or your stop to be hit). Zdo makes some interesting points about what your objectives are (scalp or intraday swing) if you are riding momentum getting out when it pauses is quite fine. Each to there own. As an aside one Of the many things on my to do list is post a review of http://www.amazon.com/New-Blueprints-Gains-Stocks-Grains/dp/1897597576/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206798671&sr=8-2 This is actually New Blueprints for Gains in Stocks and Grains and also has The One-Way Formula for Trading in Stocks & Commodities appended. IMO they are great works on price action (thats saying something coming from me), there is also hard back edition that has a few reviews.

That's the beauty of a setup on a narrow bar like this (R:R). Thr trouble with 'long wick' set ups is that you can end up with a distant stop.

I wonder what those conditions might be, some sort of buying climax I would guess? At least a more fundamental shift in the force Obi Wan This is what I am trying to get at :- what the clue in the title might be. As to gambling some might argue all trading is gambling. I guess thats not what you where alluding too. Short side trades might be 'gambling' in the context of how you trade. A scalper would certainly disagree. Personally when price started making lower highs on the time frame that was my 'focus' then I considered short side. Apart from a couple of places though the trend was firmly up (by my definition). Of course some one with a weekly focus might see the last 3 weeks rise as a small correction in the weekly down trend for example. Having said that looks like the weekly is trying for a double bottom but below 1400 it is still making lower highs. Of course if the bears take out 1270 then the downtrend is intact.

Yes indeed. One question to ask is 'what must happen next?' i.e. what must happen next to validate/invalidate what you anticipate might happen. For price to go lower it must start making lower lows at some point. I guess this is obvious. Price is still making higher highs and cant take out recent lows so the uptrend is still intact. Having said that it went 'sideways' for a bit if you allow sideways as direction. To look at it another way the bulls could not take price higher however neither could the bears assert themselves. Of course when the old high/DT was taken out and price held above, it was clear who was in control again. Perhaps I'm on a different page to others but this to me is what PA is all about? When you monitor it as it happens that is 'real time price action'.

No double top, my bad not defining terms. DT warning LH LL (lower high lower low confirmation)

I have read what you have posted here of course. Some good stuff, thanks. It's just recently there seems to have been a change to sniping (Battlefields rule!) rather than some of the constructive posts of yester year. Still the merits of candles seem better discussed here than in the VSA thread so we are making progress in that regard. I am still interested in why you think a rigid set of parameters (such as could be scripted) is somehow random. I thought one of your interests was automation. Would that not be useful in that regard? It seems to me for some reason some people want to leave descriptions vague and more to the point ambiguous. I just don't get it. BTW I still understand that context is very important but is that a reason not to make sure everyone (and not just those in the church of candles excuse my provocative nomenclature) understands what the patterns are. Finally I have started trying candles again (I change now and then for different reasons) for a particular type of thing I am trying to visualise. More on that later, but you might have a convert ironically!

In the spirit of the threads title here is a DT on a lower tick chart also with a line around 52.50 that must break to 'confrm' the DT.