BlowFish

Thanks - one more quicky if I may. Looking at your chart I am guessing the black horizontal line segments are key levels? The last one at 71.50 I guess is to do with the fib level rather than price action? I see the candle you drew from and it didn't seem that significant except it came back to test that 38.2. Also I wondered why you adjusted the globex level at 88.25 to 88.50 later on? Many thanks.

Be very interested to hear how you get on with Ney. I can't help wonder if there is more to 'uncover' in his books. I did Joel Pozens course a while back (he appears to have stopped running it now). Apparently it was Ney who taught him to trade. Cheers.

Hi Ronin, Leaving aside bias for now, do you use price action to establish your target? For example "we are going to 1471 to test that previous area of support" type of thing? I noticed also you like things to work within a period of time is that along the lines of "if its not moving towards the target on this 15 minute candle Im going to scratch". Thanks,

I'd go further - The exit plan is MORE important (compared to the entry that is) with all types of trading. Why not use the candles for exits too? So for example a hammer forms 'against' you and then price breaks out so exit - or even reverse if you are scalping walter style If you are long and each candle is green and making higher highs and higher lows there's really very little reason to get out. (I should say that over and over for my own benefit!!) Actually I think it was Tom Williams (of VSA fame) who said something along the lines of at least stay in until you get a lower close.

Of course we have talked about this in the past These are the important decisions - what size moves you are trying to capture, how much time you want to sit in front of the PC. etc. etc. Every bit as important as whether you are going to trade Dojis, Dunnigan or the DOM also one of the things you have absolute control over as a trader! I know a chap who trades houly bars (predominantly on bar close). He goes outside does some work and then just comes in now and then to see how things are panning out. - Rambling off topic.

I luuurv EL it really is ...well easy. There is a downloadable reference guide on TS site somewhere. Another advantage is there is a huge wealth of public domain code you can cannibalise. What I'd do is open up a couple of TS studies and see how they work. Start with a simple moving average or whatever takes your fancy. You might have to look a couple of things up but you'll be knocking out simple studies in no time. Cheers.

OK we are making different points I think. The statistics I took (not just looking at a bunch of charts) where from 1 minute 5 minute 15 minute 1 hour 1 day and 1 week charts. These showed absolutely conclusively for of all of those sampling periods that greater volume resulted in greater range. My point is simply this - WRB's are less frequent on constant volume charts with a similar number of bars to a constant time chart. This is true regardless of 'time frame'. (e.g. comparing daily to N hundred thousand constant volume charts) They also 'mean' something different (obviously). One means that a candle has gone 'a long way' in a fixed period of time. The other means that price has gone a 'long way' on a fixed number of contracts. Do you still use constant vol btw? Anyway leaving constant volume charts aside I'm Interested that you believe lower time frame charts have less clear signals. I know you are using 15 minute ES charts I wonder if you consider there is a 'cut off point' where its all noise? 10 minutes seem pretty safe to me and 5 minutes are OK except when volatility is real low (and you probably want to be sidelined anyway). Mind you if volatility is high 3 minutes seem to get by. Just wondered what your thoughts are? Cheers.

The culprit is the VBC'c. From statistical analysis of the ES and from observation of other instruments, the range of a bar (in a constant time) is highly correlated to the volume of the bar. What this means is a 'WRB' is much much more likely to show as 3 white soldiers / 3 black crows on VBC's.

This of course would be a gravestone or gravestone doji (with a pretty long wick) on a chart that is double the time frame to that the WRB's where observed. A pretty powerful sign that the price has been rejected. On A lower time frame you would likely have a ^ top. Just some food for though.

The weakness in the immediate background of yesterday was clear enough but still not terribly weak. Certainly not the climactic action I like to see to know things are primed. In addition the "no supply" (not) looks like it was right at an up sloping trend channel. I would have spotted it real time but probably favoured long (despite the small amount of weakness) depending on longer context. The very next bar proved that wrong so no great problem. This was a great example I thought as it was quite subtle and not as obvious as a polar bear in Hawaii:) Cheers.

Been there MrPaul - I guess all but those that start out incredibly disciplined have. I think the emotional damage is probably more severe than the financial damage. On the other side side sometimes a coupled of early losses can sort of harden your resolve and you actually really knuckle down and trade well. I guess the key thing is to follow your plan. If you can do that after setbacks (or successes) maybe you don't need the safety valve. If you are prone to going 'off piste' then perhaps limits are good. Pretty much an individual thing.

Really it should take a few seconds once you have the broker. My guess is that this is not where the delay occurred? It's worth mentally rehearsing (and knowing all the pertinent information of course) how to manually close a position. Sorry for your friends loss but on the positive side there's a lot of valuable lessons there.

Go with what brown says. You will probably find that once you start understanding the market sentiment behind the patterns you will begin to see stuff for yourself (screen time, screen time and more screen time:)) Most of the 'advanced' stuff (probably all) that Steve teaches beyond the books is discoverable for ones self. At least that was what I found.

Hope you dont mind if I tag along and play Devils Advocate from the "its the underlying price action that the candle represents that is important" point of view. I promise to behave.

Interesting you should mention Krausz. He was a student of the Canadian trader Charles Drummond. It was Drummond that 'turned him on' to multiple time frame stuff. Personally I think Charlie is one of the trading greats with some remarkably unique perspectives on the market. His treatment of multiple time frames is the most comprehensive I have come across by a mile. I'm somewhat loath to unreservedly recommend his stuff, it takes most people a long long time and lots of study to 'get it'. There are certainly far simpler ways to trade profitably. Just thought I'd mention his work for those interested in multiple time frames.

Not sure whether this a place to get into a long discussion on candles or not. Succinctly - my view is that the price action they represent is key. I think most candlestick proponents would agree. I have a hunch...whatever traders use MP&Market stats, Squiggly lines, Lines (S/R, Fibs channels etc.) etc. etc. The ones that do well have an intrinsic grasp of price action. Now whether candles bring that to life for you or not is a personal thing. My 2 cents Cheers

It looked good to me (Im no expert), sometimes things just need to re-test (btw I use 'test' to describe a test of supply or demand so probably wrong nomlacture). You cold say well first test was a bit high volume and with hindsight (easy with hindsight) you could see why it was re-tested. I'd have taken it. Excelent job getting back in btw! EDIT: I am a bit liberal with tests in another way too. What Tom or Sebastian would probably cal a 'hidden test' I still count as a test. If price visits an area of previous supply or demand and gets rejected (on less volume) that to me is a test. Apologies if my 'sloppy' approach confuses anyone

I know I have already given my :applaud: however I just wanted to add that a resource like this (and I include all the contributions) would have saved me years of not quite getting it, shelving things, then coming back, advancing a bit, wash and repeat. There are subtleties and this stuff really helps uncovers them. Cheers.

Well don JJ cracking it (and of course Blu for the code). I am rather surprised that they use a fixed multiplier. Years ago (just after VSA became tradeguider from memory). I talked to them about this and suggested they added bands. In those days it had a simple MA and that was it. They obviously took that on board but did not the bit I suggested about using standard deviations! To me it just 'makes sense' as it actually uses statistics so you know high and ultra high are statistically just that. Its probably of no mater (you don't see any lines on Sebastians charts hehe) Of course it is the principles that are important but I have a hunch we might actually be able to 'improve' on TG. Anyway don't want to detract from the great contribution so once again ....:applaud: :beer:

I didn't see that this thread had been posted to either! I replied in the VSA thread.

This is what I was searching for...not sure if TS has lognormal SD. I think VictorH probably had cracked it

Ahh OK I see you used use a fixed scaler...I am pretty sure tradeguider uses standard deviations. In fact there is a particlar type of variance and standard deviation calculation I believe they use (the name escapes me right now). Still looks nice.

Nice work!!:applaud: Based on standard deviations I would guess? Cheers.

Don't think anyone is saying bad stuff about measuring up and down volume like that, its fascinating stuff. A few people have asked that its discussed in that thread http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=26728 as its a pretty massive subject in its own right. Personally I have no real axe to grind but that would keep everyone happy . The VSA purists (of which to be honest I am not) are a funny bunch. They are quite zealous sometimes. (just joking guys).

http://www.realitytrader.com/ His book techniques of tape reading is quite interesting but didn't directly effect my trading. Cheers.