BlowFish

As the break was with good momentum going to try and stick with it though have marked a zone of support for P. I really dont like MT4 cumbersome to annotate capture and post. Really cumbersome for order entry (imho). (should say its sim for me on FX and euro). P.S. smashed through while I posted this

This triggered as I was capturing the screen and boy did it trigger. Probabbly need to zoom out to the hourly for targets. Why can't they all be like that

QuoteTracker

You might want to review this thread http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f208/reading-charts-real-time-6151.html there are a couple of other good (if somewhat older) price action orientated threads here too.

Didn't Tewles write about R values in "the future game, who loses, who wins, and why". Years since I read it but that has good coverage on risk essentially covers most the stuff VT does. Worth repeating but RoR is really what you want to be interested in. As an aside personally I like stops based on market structure, vary your size to control your risk.

He seldom disappoints. This was exactly what I was trying to 'provoke' (in a positive way), I was hoping that there might be value to others too. There is much to learn from trades that don't trigger, ones that just don't take off or ones that are simply passed. While the method is childishly simple there are clearly subtleties to how TT applies it. Having expressed his views on 'filters' there is some filtering going on based on the price action and his experience watching it. I am reviewing the thread (slowly) from the start and am looking at some ES trades. Whilst following the same principles some trades do seem to have a slightly different 'character', hard to describe really. To put it yet another way there is art here as well as science Anyway thanks again TT.

At least you are not directly blaming the poor fills and shenanigans with your broker. I was off my game yesterday anyway but FX bookie issues actually compounds thing's beyond what they should. (The emotional reaction is dis-proportionate to the level of the scam). Slippage is a fact of life but wondering if it is real adds a level of stress (for want of a better word) that one just doesn't need.

I wouldn't say they are irrelevant, its a 'data sampling' issue. Yes price is continuous but how we sample it to make sense of it is important. For example a high or low of a daily bar represents the extremes in that continuous data for the day in a question. The same is true of an hourly bar or a 15 minute bar. Anyway that was not what I was driving at.....what I wanted to know was what action would be taken (if any) if one was to sit down at the moment in time bar 1 was painting or bar 2 etc. I am certainly not hung up on the bars they are simply a way of sampling the data to allow you to see the movement (including extremes) that you are interested in.

Thanks for taking the trouble to do that. As with all things the devil is in the detail and knowing what to pass on is probably every bit (or more) important than simply identifying potential BO's.

Yes indeed Gabe. I probably didn't express myself well. What I meant is would TT have considered placing stop entry orders under those bars (which would not have triggered). 1 would not have triggered - but was it a potential trade? 2 would trigger on bar 3 3 would trigger on bar 4. Where either of those (2&3) up for consideration? I would have probably considered 3 long too but that did not trigger either.

Might I ask if you had been around earlier (with the usual caveats about hindsight) would you have considered a short on a break down of bars 1 2 or 3? Would you have considered a long on a break up of bar 3 ? Thanks as always.

The key thing is (imho) risk of ruin. TradersCALM - risk of ruin menu is a great little site that describes it well.

Hey Zdo I'd still be interested in how you think market data been generated by an auction precludes it from being a fractal? (I'd also be interested in how you define 'the auction'... the A word is as misused and over used as the F word imho ) Also worth repeating that the markets may well be fractal without being mathematical fractals (like coastlines). From a couple of things you said I guess you may well be talking about the latter. Different terms of reference offer hamper understanding another point of view and I still am not sure exactly why you think the markets are not fractal.

Do you have a minimum R:R Don? I guess you are looking to move the stop up aggresively ? I'd have been inclined to go with a stop under the more recent low at 1.4940, just interested. Edit (which as typing would have been hit) 2nd Edit I see you answered that whilst I posted....moving the stop straight up

I like the look of this so probabbly one to fade

Ahh that's a different argument though. It is a non sequitor though, just because no one uses them to trade does not mean they do not exist in financial time series. Btw. no one has suggested 'everyone is trading fractals'. The definition for fractal, mathematical fractal, fractal dimension etc. are clearly defined no need to loosen or tighten definitions. The trouble is people seem to form opinions based on second or third hand posts by people who never went to the trouble of ever understanding the core concepts themselves. Just because F word used to be used all over the place mainly to market dubious systems a whole bunch of other 'experts' just dismissed the whole discipline. That's true of many people in all walks of life they base there opinions on supposedly well informed pundits rather than taking the trouble to learn for themselves. The well informed pundits are often motivated by nothing more than there own prejudices! This is why the inter-web is as full of misinformation as it is information You can quote me on that if you like I am en expert :D One of the few practical applications I can think of, that is quite accessible to the 'layman' is the polarised fractal efficiency indicator. Just an aside that occurred to me while I typed this. It's an interesting concept.

I know in the past when I have focused on a a particular index you actually get to remember levels (I know a couple of people who trade without charts, they just remember key levels, my memory isn't that good anymore). The fresher the level the fresher the memory though significant levels of course persist both as S/R and in your mind for longer. Not what you asked really. I must say all the currencies, what with there wierd fractional components don't seem to stick for me. Conventional wisdom would have that 'obvious' SR is 'best' (perhaps 'strongest' is a more appropriate word) as everyone will be aware of it.

Now that's something even I can see!

This was an interesting chart. http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/attachments/208/15423d1258496942-reading-charts-real-time-11-17-2009-usdcad5.jpg (linked for convenience) I can certainly see the 123 but it dosen't look that 'well formed' to me. (I would be unsurprised to find some bucket shop feeds showing a pip HH at 3). To be honest the action looks like a 'box' or ledge to me (if you'll pardon the pattern reference). Still as I review the thread paying a bit more attention I notice other examples like this. Coupled with the fact that immediate resistance had broken and the 'box' was sitting on top of it I would have been just as inclined (actually more inclined) to conciser a long (which fortunately would not have triggered). Of course I would have been mistaken which gives a great opportunity to better my understanding. So formation and context I guess on the former (formation) this and any number of other examples are there own answer. I also notice that the 3 bar was also the entry bar and immediately followed the 2/trigger bar. No issues with that just an observation

Often. A couple of days ago I wrote about 'backing and filling'. Any time the swings from the end of the previous move are large but without much directional progress being made, you will likely have potential targets closer than stops.Of course when no directional progress is being made you have chop, however you often get 'lazy' movement (especially at the end of a move where momentum is waning). Price is moving just with large retracements after each push. Thales suggested a couple of possibilities for managing an example I posted.

Yes indeed MK. It all depends on how much you zoom in your focus. I notice that Thales looks in quite 'tight' sometimes with BO entry and stop all within the last two bars. Btw I empathise with the points you made in your post yesterday except the last one (about money management).

I don't much like it. The 'immediate' trend is down and though there is S down here it seems to have broke through the first levels without much effort. The biggest issue is that there was not a '123' to trade off. Having said that neither was there at the top so on the plus side it would not be unreasonable to anticipate at least a (tradeable) retracement or test of the high.

I dunno in my 'gut' I would have to say it was the London session both provide opportunity so it's all good I guess

ZDO I am not sure I completely understand where you are coming from. The auction is just a process that generates the time series. Looking at it seems to me like looking at tides or weather patterns to determine if coastlines are fractal. Personally I think some people read too much into 'the auction'. Maybe a concise definition might help me understand? The way I understand it, its pretty irrelevant to the discussion but that may be because my definition is different to yours.

Just wonder why you want ascii? Is it simply a visual appeal thing. To be honest I am not familiar with line plot functions but don't they have higher 'resolution'. Can they plot to the pixel or only to the bar? I rather like lines over ascii. Each to there own though