BlowFish

Interesting first post. I look forward to seeing where you go with this. There will be some sceptics that thing you are trying to sell something based on this material. I hope they do you the courtesy of not jumping to conclusions! Welcome to TL and thank you for contributing so much on post 1.

Does that make candlesticks junk? Being as Nisson doesn't trade? :) Yeah I know he just 'brought them to the west' but these guys didn't 'invent' the stuff either. As you can probablly tell I am feeling mischievous .

One could argue that both Wyckoff and VSA are based on the same 'fundamental laws of supply and demand'. In my opinion (and it is just an opinion) VSA 'borrows' from Wyckoffs work but purports to be based on the same fundamental laws. Williams makes no secret of this of course it is clearly stated ad nauseam in the early stages of his book. Wyckoff obviously made a great contribution to this form of analysis, but didn't 'invent supply and demand'. 'Pointing out something' doesn't give it more veracity, really all this stuff requires a leap of faith to some degree. Of course presenting it consistently over the years can help people make this leap. The VSA boys could claim the same that in and of itself does not make one more 'correct'. I wonder if the question asked in this thread should be 'laws of supply and demand crock or not?' Personally, I have accepted them as a fundamental truth. There have been several discussions of this over the years but they tend to draw less interest. i think most people accept it (supply/demand). The next question that should be asked is "VSA, a useful framework to examine supply and demand in the market?". That self same question could be asked of Wycoff's material. Tradeguider have raised the profile of VSA but destroyed its credibility at the same time, a double edged sword. One of the things tradeguider have done is 'jargonise' things and big up all this 'smart money' BS. It's a shame as I think some of (the few) principles have merit and are quite complementary to Wycoffs work. Really, in a nutshell, VSA tries to identify and quantify the patterns of supply and demand. Broadly the 'jargon' is the same as Wycoff introduced but VSA introduces a couple of extra terms how are things like 'no demand' jargon but 'test' is not? Anyway I am not particularly pro or anti but it is important to be even handed and apply the same criteria for evaluation as you would any other method. Unfortunately since TG got involved that means stripping away several layers of BS to discover if there is a pearl at the centre.

Could you elucidate (I am not being facetious ). Is this because Wyckoff dosen't 'predict' that it can not be demonstrated to 'work' or 'not work'?

I hope it dosen't develop into a 'zoom and retest'. Also while it looks clean it is a completely unproven fork, the 3 anchor points are the only place so far there has been any interaction. Final thing (and one of the intricacies of pitchforks) is that there may be an argument to slightly shift the 2nd point a couple of bars either way as there where a few tails own there of course that will slightly change the slope. It will be intesting to see how things develop (over the months!!!)

Dunno they seem to be to me...but correlation is in the eye of the beholder (unless you use some sort of statistical analysis which is probably well worth while if you are 'serious' about the endeavour). Oil has been going up and the ES down (until recently) that seems like an inverse correlation to me Makes sense you pull money out of stocks where do you put it? Certain commodities, I dunno oil seems to have joined the ranks of the metals and what not from that point of view. Seems like there are better (less correlated) candidates to consider. As you say things change and cycles get out of sync. I presume that original poster wants un correlated risk? I'd be apprehensive being long oil and short stocks (or vice versa). I wouldn't know how to calculate correlation without looking it up. Maybe a job for a statistician or someone with a quant background?

I have no more than a gut feel but these do seem to be correlated a lot of the time....it is an inverse correlation but it seems to be there....except when its not of course. I guess for a similar reason that bonds tend to be inversely correlated.

I think in all probability other types of malware are more of a threat than plain old viruses. For that reason you might want to consider spybot search and destroy. http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html I managed to get a 'virus' some while back and nothing would get rid of it completely.....until I used the above.

Ahh good...because I was never clear what a spring was!! I kind of figured (by the context that people talk of it) that it was some sort of 'test' at the end of an accumulation phase. Glad it is of no importance really. Of course understanding the behaviour is what matters, but as we have discussed in the past having clear coherent and common terms of reference is crucial for meaningful discussion. Of course keeping to core terms aids this, which of course you have said all along.

You can read the first post in each thread and get the concept. The rest of the posts are discussions questions and all the other stuff that you get on forums. The first posts are clear concise and structured very well. It is not often you get a really unique perspective on trading but this is. Regardless of your chosen trading style this is an important piece of work (imo). It is simple but requires some knowledge. Having said that choosing a time frame is simple if you have experience. It is important as its one of the few variables you have complete control over. Personally I just tweak things until it shows what I need to see to capture the swings I am interested in. Of course you need to know what you need to see.

This is an interesting paradigm shift and can help a trrader in how they approach things. A quick for example is establishing targets.

Funny how Tradeguider have taken Williams half a dozen or so simple (and quite Whyckoffian) principles and simplified them into 400 indicators. Still glad you find it amusing. Makes me and and a little bit and just a touch :puke:. The videos are a bit like train wreck TV I watch now and then out of morbid curiosity. Nowadays the 'shock horror market manipulation' BS pretty much dominates anything useful. I guess that's what sells software books courses symposiums Gavin Holmes action figures etc.

Where spring and test part of Whyckoffs original lexicon? Just thought you might want to add those if they are.

Hehe, now now, no need to rub salt into the wounds!!:o:o You know I am still prone to be a sucker - though I have made a couple of decent purchases recently (mainly due to decent appraisals from people I respect here). I do think that a certain "professional trader and VSA expert" has reached an all time low which is a shame as there is some merit to some of the core concepts. It's a real shame. Fortunately people like Eiger are doing an absolurely bang up job over in the VSA thread.

You should have asked! That was one I got suckered by many years ago. Possibly one of the most disappointing trading purchases I have made. Really half baked.

Median is simply the mid point L+ (H-L)/2 You are thinking of mode (or PVP) here you need to keep an array with each element representing a price level as you describe.

Always nice to see some 'action' on these threads. I think I might have given the wrong impression. One of the issues facing all traders (regardless of methodology) is not so much determining direction but determining 'break out' or 'retrace'. Different methodologies have different terms for this type of action. One way Jerry deals with this is wait for the event to occur and then use the shapiro effect (price action) to trigger a trade. Since we last spoke I have paper traded again for a few weeks this was a couple of months ago. I had great results percentage wise however I did have rather too many stops where I bought 1 at SD1 another at VWAP and stoped at pvp. Coupled with the fact that I am prone to close early (if the price action 'shakes me') I found those a little hard to deal with. Thats another story. I do wonder if the PVP is the best place for a stop? Of the maybe 3 out of 10 of these trades that hit the PVP I would guess at least half just prod it by a tick or 3. There are two alternatives I can see. Either trade with a wider stop around the opposite SD band or trade with a tighter stop behind the shapiro bar. Probably the only time to take an SD1 trade (with scale at VWAP) is when there is a 'clearly' established trend. As for Pearsons approximation for skew being a good proxy for the real one. I am unsure of that. There are certain circumstances (which I talked about early in the series and Jerry dealt with in the break out section) where they are clearly not. And that leads me back to where I started ascertaining if we are breaking out or returning to balance/accumulating/rotating/range bound. Cheers.

Isn't that the whole point of reading the tape? To see if the level is holding? Aren't the dances different depending on which side is stronger? I dunno maybe I have been expecting too much out of the tape all these years, no wonder I haven't found it!

This is an interesting idea. I have always suspected that people who trade from 'lines' be they had drawn S/R MP fib that success or failure is determine not by the lines but by the traders ability to read PA and how they manage trades. Mind you Jerry has covered both of these topics in his threads. Cheers.

I seem to have it in my head they (google) had a similar (but less draconian clause) with Gmail. I also seem to remember you could opt out if you could find the appropriate page. I don't think there is anything sinister going on, its all about targeted advertising. In the UK BT have just conducted a trial with a company whose name escapes me, that monitors all browsing at the ISP level with a view to targeting advertising. Personally I don't mind well targeted advertising too much provided its simple to ignore.

I'm pretty sure this is 'self fulfilling' (who cares if you can exploit it right?) If you look at Jperls fantastic 'trading with market statistics threads' he puts forward a very good case for volume.

Another practical example - lets say price is trending up and then moves into a nice boxy range from which you anticipate continuation. Ratherthan wait for a breakout you can chip away buying 2units at the bottom of the range and selling 1unit at the top. This technique can be used to build a larger position than if you had gone all in. You can use the profit from all these scalps to offset the risk on the remainder you are holding.

Also be aware on spot forex if you don't trade at least $25000 your order will be handled differently and will likely cost more. http://individuals.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=products&p=fx

Forsearch great find on the Harris draught!! I would urge everyone to give it a go. It can be 'difficult' but it tends to lead you in gently but quickly piles on information. If you have ever wondered exactly who/what 'composite operators' 'smart money' 'elephants in the room' are this clearly identifies the players and there modus operandi.

Firefox 3 is great I love the 'awesome bar' and the 'tagging' of bookmarks. (that might change the way I think about bookmarks). FF3 is less resource hungry than 2 but I probably still have have room in my box of tricks for a quick lite browser. I tried K-Meleon and to be honest hardly use it. Might be worth giving this ago, maybe I don't really have a need for a lite browser after all.