BlowFish

Certainly....I kind of anticipated this answer having 'estalked' you on and off for many years it can be said that you are pretty consistent in how you reply to questions. Imo it is pretty straight forward to spot a hinge in real time (i prefer triangle), I'd even perhaps go as far as saying its trivial. You can also feel the pace declining. Occasionally you might be wrong footed as conditions change (but thats another story). Where people face difficulties is precisely in entering managing and exiting trades exactly because there are so many ways of doing it. Of course having clear objectives helps (but again thats another story). Here is an after the fact chart. Its of USD/JPY, funnily enough I have never traded currencies before this week. Its an hourly chart but monitoring the PA on a 2min showed the break quite clearly and the rejection of price to the upside too.

Funnily enough some of JH's stuff has roots in reasonably solid techniques. Certainly controversial. Gann published some really solid principles too (money management stuff, quantifying price action etc.) The controversial stuff is all the esoteric 'natural law' and planetary motion portions. Apparently its all locked away in code in his novel tunnel through the air. I was going to suggest some of the out and out scammers that are around now but I guess to be truly controversial you need a small element of 'well maybe it has something'.

Thanks DB, the P&F stuff was an aside. I wonder if you have any comments on my first couple of paragraphs?

This has become a firm favourite of mine. If I was putting together a University course on markets, traders and trading this would be a cornerstone! Having said that it is somewhat 'difficult', mainly because of the sheer volume of information it contains. I was hesitant to recommend it as it is not necessary to become a successful retail trader. You can download a draft of the first few chapters from Harris' web site. I think its a really fine book and a great one to have on your night stand, just to read a section when you feel up to it. Glad you enjoyed reminiscences, it is one of those books that works on several levels and you will likely keep getting stuff out of it on re-reads for a while yet - not bad for $12 or however much it costs.

So i guess you monitor supply and demand as manifested in the price action (and possibly volume) through the Mark up/down? Or do you just monitor at potential S/R to see if the next phase (accumulation/distribution) might have started. I think potential S/R make reasonable potential targets. Buying a test and hanging on until a potential buying climax in an area where this might be anticipated is not a bad tactic (imvho). As an aside did Wycoff talk about using P&F for potential targets? I though he was the first to offer the 'classic' P&F method of counting the width of the base to project a target? Could very well be mistaken there. Cheers. P.S. Clearly moved away from hinges but I put this here for continuity. By all means move it if appropriate.

Yeah I am more like a 1 in a 100,000 sort of guy. Anecdotally I know several people that are delighted with the procedure. To be honest glasses don't bother me too much as I am not much of a sportsman. Funnily enough I played pool Friday evening, thats kinda tricky.

When the market gaps the MA's will take a time to catch up (i know ema's do so a bit quicker than sma's) Do you just wait for this to happen i.e. carry on as normal? Great thread btw. Should be linked from the "best of TL" if its not already.

I was hesitant to post this link http://www.lasikcomplications.com/ as they seem to have an axe to grind....I guess started by someone who had problems. I dont want to put you off, but I am sure you want to go into this with your eyes open! (bad pun). A further scan through and there sources are quoted and even if you read it with the knowledge they have an agenda it still makes disturbing reading (to me).

I feel that the risks of complications or visual artifacts are still a bit too high. I'm probably far to risk adverse (interesting observation on a trading forum). There are figures for some stuff but the visual artifacts like 'haloing' are kind of subjective and I have not found much statistic wise. Dry eyes seem to be pretty common (I guess most would consider that acceptable). I am prone to odd eye 'issues' now and then so this actually weighs heavier for me than others perhaps . Lots of info on the interweb, the Wiki entry is pretty good (mind you I am a wiki fan rather than hater, a remarkable resource).

I wonder if this fella has been buying pounds all the way down? I wonder how large the position is now? When was the pound last 1:2 against the doller, was it the eighties? There is a lesson here that's for sure.

A couple of threads that might be of interest (its ET so don't stay long or your mind might turn to jelly). http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42947 Even though it talks about market depth a couple of good posts on the tape. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55217 short an sweet. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26299&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 A kind of rambly thread but some stuff of interest. Worth paying attention to stuff that FuturesTrader71 says. There are a couple of other guys worth watching out for too.

I swapped a couple of PM's with Tawe, he is not the WW, phew! WW most certainly does sell stuff and I am sad to say I have the bank statement to prove it (yeah I know I'm a sucker, it was quite a long time ago and I had specific reasons.). From his web site :haha:"All the indicators together make up an "indicator library", and each type of financial instrument will have its own library, which in turn will house an average of 1000 indicators, with each indicator itself having up to 100 lines of seperate algebraic formulae which are computed to analyse each and every bar". If that dosent ring alarm bells I am not sure what would actually its pretty funny no?:) No mix up I can assure you, just an out and out scammer.

Yeah I am an out and out sucker! Things have to be really bad to warrant my ire however. The penultimate tradeguider promo had Pruden speaking, I listened to that one (but I have to fast forward through our buddy the 'professional trader and VSA expert' wittering on about ...err...well nothing very much). First time I have heard Pruden speak and was quite impressed. Funnily enough Pruden is running a Whycoff conference just before the TG summit ....the cost $250 including membership to a non profit TA association ($120 if you are a member already). Speakers include fund managers and real trading professionals (as opposed to people who deride there income from selling stuff and pretending to be trading 'professionals'). http://www.bestofwyckoff.com for those interested. If it didn't mean a trip halfway round the world I'd certainly pop along to see what was cooking. Compare that to the TG summit. I'll leave it up to you to draw conclusions.

I have to say I disagree about the Welsh Wizard. An out and out scam artist with a similar modus operandi as the "Chief Wizard" (which has been well documented in various places). I see he has further simplified VSA to 1000 indicators (per instrument type!) With 100 lines of algebra for each. That certainly trumps tradeguider. Of course there is no evidence that his software or book for that matter exist. Do you know the guy? I see you are from Wales too. God forbid, you arent the WW are you? Kind of worried that you have started promoting this con man.

I honestly don't know. Haven't traded the DAX through IB for a while. Could always shoot them a message through the platform if you have an account or it's probably on the website somwhere.

3 or 4 posts back its quoted in plain ascii text. Cut and paste that into MC's PLEditor.

If its getting boring then there is probably a good chance that you Are getting there! The next hurdle may well be dealing with success. If things are 'working' for you make every effort to continue doing things the same.

That is an exercise I have done many times over the years (except using 50 as a filter on the ES). As I said above nothing really 'clicked', sure you see patterns but there always seems to be two possible outcomes. As an example, sometimes you see a 'wall of support' at a level. This will sometimes hold sometimes break. Just to confound things sometimes it breaks for a few ticks to have the break firmly rejected and then the price subsequently hold!!! Sometimes I do get into the 'flow' but other times it confounds me. I have never managed to quantify things in a meaningful way. Maybe I am just daft or my brain is 'wired wrong' for this.

I'd second that. There are a couple of old (very old) threads over at ET where the odd person has tried to describe exactly some of the things they look for on the tape but if I am completely honest I have never really 'got it'. I get the impression that it is as much art as science but it is certainly something I am open minded too.

Actually when I was pretty young it occurred to me that this whole left right thing was flawed. A circular model seemed far more representative of what actually was going on. Damn that's two posts in a political thread. Can I bar myself from the traders lounge?

How can you trust voters that put GW in power? Oh wait first time round they didn't. Hehe. Guess I should stay out of this thread it'll only end in tears.

No, you simply use the import and export options to manipulate the data. In the past I have also used a word processor to read a text file, done a search and replace and re-saved it. A bit of a kludge but are possible options.

No. Just to be clear no critisism of you, Taylor, or his book. I woud urge you to read what I wrote carefully, note the smileys, no offence was meant. A screwdriver is not the best tool to bang in nails, Taylors work is not the best to learn market profile (or money management/trade management, how to run a business, psychology of trading etc.) That does not mean screwdrivers have no merit! Now, whether nails or screws are better fixings, or which is more appropriate in a give situation, is a different debate all together. Certainly not 'wrong' to mention Taylor just as it would not be wrong to mention Wycoff, VSA, Gann, Fibonacii, Elliot etc. etc. One of the big issues facing traders (particularly starting traders) is picking a method and sticking to it. Focus is really important. Anyway just to repeat, I certainly did not mean to be critical of you or Taylor or of either of your work. EDIT: P.S. You have probablly inspired me to take a look at Taylors work. His book is one of the few I dont have on my shelf.

You might want to get Edwards & Magees book on TA or John Murphys. Both are considered fairly good introductory texts on technical analysis. Depends exactly what you want to achieve. Quite a few guys here have 'progressed' through indicators to reading price action. (Though there are a couple of different churches they worship at;)) If you are looking for a technique that clicks with you, there is a sticky post somewhere that points to some of the best threads on TL.

You could probably run the data through excel to re-format it. Surprised NT requires ; 'standard' delimiters are usually a space or comma.