steve46

and here are my long and short targets for the open and I am done posting for the day Good luck folks

Sure, good enough...for what its worth I like to run two scenarios (a long & short) side by side until I see which one prevails (if it gets to that point)... This was illustrated in part when I posted the pre-market prep protocol where I showed two long and two short targets for the open..... My "big picture" view is that I can't know for certain where the market is going....but I can produce two ideas that have merit, and then its a matter of seeing which of the two scenarios looks like a winner.......and since this is a game of "time & price"....the goal is to figure it out as quickly as possible... Today my two scenarios are as follows 1. We see price test down until the existing home sales data is released at 7am PST...presumably that data shows an improvement and price retraces up to test the nearest distribution boundary......where it then resumes range bound (sideways) movement... 3. We see price test down until existing home sales data is released and that number is negative...markets correct down at that point and short entries would be available on retracements to any of several price points....it becomes a matter of figuring out where to get on board the train....

Here is a thirty min view of this evening's Globex market If you had a small account and wanted to manage risk close....one thing you could do is to simply work a day job and at night monitor this market at intervals (because time is critical to successful entries)....and just pick your spots.....and then hold with a reasonable stop in place.... I have to think people are missing the real game....which is to get on board and hold for the bigger moves... As you can see tonight we tested a dist line at 17:30 hours (ES Chart on the left) and there was another viable entry one half hour after the London open...on a test of that initial half hour high..... I don't know how much clearer that could be...

Hello Rob Couple of comments regarding "interest" in this concept.....first...I notice there are over 17,000 page views for this thread....in just over a 6 weeks....so "someone" is taking the time to look closely at this idea...and when I am posting, I often notice at the bottom of my page, that there are a significant number of "guests" looking at the thread...to me this means that folks who are not members (yet) are reading the material... I make sense of it this way....as far as I can tell, there isn't anyone else trading this way (and writing about it)....of the few dozen folks I used to work with, I would suggest the majority have moved to concepts based on either Market profile or the statistical analysis of behavior (whats now called behavioral finance)...and those who still use Market Profile have migrated to the "strip method" rather than the traditional display...this in response to what is undeniably a changing market structure...as with all things it takes a while for the retail crowd to "get the news"......which is fine.. Finally, for the most part I think people here don't actually trade...or have lost their accounts and are simply on the sidelines trying to keep their heads above water at some day job..given that this has been a terribly difficult market to trade, I can understand it...Go back and read the first few pages....does any of that seem to originate from folks who possess the intelligence to make it in this business? I am thinking no....you see if even if you disagreed with my approach, one thing an intelligent, responsible person would do is to test it for themselves...as you scroll through the thread, notice the comment by WBtrader...who has some math background himself....once you see the potential....what else do you need...sure there are details that some of this is dependent on experience, but really if you saw how this kind of approach could really pay off, wouldn't it be worth a few evenings of work...what you have left are the folks who wouldn't make it no matter what approach they used...because they need someone else to tell them when to buy and when to sell....that group (in my opinion) came in to the thread later, challenging me to "prove" to them that this works....or offering to help me...LOL I would love to show a few folks how to make this work, but to learn it requires an adult emotional mindset (the ability to take responsibility for their actions)...and that isn't as easy to find as one might expect...I still have to make a living myself...so I will simply trade it... Seems you have the basic idea. so best of luck to you Steve

Appreciate the kind words Rob Here are my trades...on a day when I focus on business One final piece of advice, that may help you.....I look for 2, 5, and 10 NQ points...I am willing to risk 2 (approximately, depends on how much noise I see).....I have two choices as far as which time frame to operate on.....10 min and 3 min...I like the feel of the 3 min chart but you have to be disciplined about entry with the trend if you use that chart or you will get chopped a bit when you enter "at the lines"...that happened to me once today If you take 10 and you hold at least one in case it runs, be certain to program your stop loss properly so that if it spikes down as it did today (when some idiot released Google's numbers prematurely), you can get out of the way promptly... Otherwise its a walk in park.... I think I will call it a day with this post...I will check periodically to answer questions but thats it..I do much better when I pay attention to the market instead of this thread....I'm sure you understand... Good luck Edit With regard to the last entry at 12:00 (just a few minutes after actually)....that is a "preferred time" entry...I know that certain folks are looking to make adjustments to their "book" starting at this time....I also look for price to test specific prices (for this market 2730 is particularly interesting price point)....when I saw that they tried unsuccessfully to find sellers there, I waited for that specific "time" to act......again its "time & price"....

This chart for the folks over at Wykoff thread....where the prevailing religious dogma is that everything they need is already in the charts...lololol.....except for GOOGLE EARNINGS..........SURPRISE! This little kick in the ass, happened at precisely 9:30am PST....(but, there's no connection between time and price....according to the local guru....lol) I believe William Shakespeare said it best; "There are more things in heaven & earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Sorry to be late in replying. Here you go.....today's dist lines

From the standpoint of pre-market prep, everything begins with the daily chart We post this one, because A) we are going to stop posting soon, and B) the arrow illustrates why we are (were) able to take long trades with a lot of confidence....hopefully it is obvious to readers that once price lifted and closed above 1419.75, odds favored continuation up to retest the recent high... Of course now the question is, how do we proceed once we get to that retest high in the area of 1466-1468. The general rule (for longs) is you wait for volume to come in off the sidelines....and to do that you need to be able to read volume both historical (which isn't very challenging) then on an intraday basis "the tape" (which IS very challenging)...

As mentioned there is some "art" to this part of the process...., but it would take a bit of doing to explain... The simple explanation is as follows Prior to the open I identify previous trend moves long & short....based on experience, I find specific prices where I believe institutional and/or automated execution is likely to kick in.... As with all things, practice makes perfect, and you can see the result on our NQ charts (which we did trade today).....its very rare that price reverses without touching one of our targets... I miss trades all the time, as you can see in today's posts...what helps me (if I will just trade instead of posting) is to be focused at "preferred" entry times....combining time with price action makes it much easier to separate "valid" entries from borderline entries that are likely to result in a loss..using that framework I tend to trade 3-4 times a day max. On a trend day...once..

and here we have the 6:39 candle (again one of my preferred entry times) I believe this is probably the place where I would have said to myself...OK then lets give this a shot....reading the tape, watching the DOW and looking at other markets on my screens (like the DAX for additional confirmation)

and here is the next candle...as you can see price touches/tests one of my targets and that happens at/near 6:36 (one of my "preferred" entry times)....now the question is do you enter at this touch of the blue rectangle....and my answer is (in hindsight) yes....but if I were trading this market, I would be watching the tape...to confirm that this was the place, because obviously price could do any number of things.....right...it could continue down to touch the lower blue rectange....hell, it could simply continue straight down...and take me out at a big loss...(low odds of that, but it could happen)...my thought is that I would have take it long either here or on the open of the next candle (as you will see)

Good one Rob...you are one of the few... who took the time to really understand what I am doing...you went that extra step So here is my additional comment I'll go candle by candle so you can see what (some) my preparation would have been (I wasn't trading this market today)...I can't go through the whole thing in one post, it took me several years to figure it out...I am sure you can understand..but here it is in an oversimplified nutshell Ahead of the market open, I look for recent previous up and down trend moves...I isolate the origins of those moves and I look back to see what the market response was at those points (there is some "art" to this part) Then I come back to the most recent part of the chart and put in my levels (you can see them as blue bars...and I have characterized this market as probing both ways to find responsive buyers and/or sellers (this has to do with automated execution programs) So my levels are in....If I am thinking "long" (and I certainly am in this environment)...then I want to see price probe down to one of my two levels AND I want them to be tested at or very near to my "preferred" times.....if that happens, I read the tape, and if conditions look right I enter looking for reversal (in this case a continuation long move back to the top of one of my distribution lines.... I'll show the charts one bar/candle at a time....here is the first...my long and short targets are in place and I am simply watch to see which side gets hit first...The arrow is placed above the opening candle....

LOL....if I could kick myself in the butt I would Once again I miss an entry while posting and I should know better So lets see if I can redeem myself a bit.. first of all take a look at the attached chart I have posted this before....particularly for GOB...but this is relevant for several reasons...first choice of time frame....I have tried them all believe me, and what seems to work best is either the 10 min (my preference) or the 3 min....either way you have to accept the compromises. Taking signals off the 10 min chart means you WILL miss some trades....however it minimizes the chop....while using the 3 min gives you the added detail that some traders like to see, but you WILL get chopped around periodically because these are noisy markets.. Item 2.....its "time & price"...."time & price" I can't stress that enough....I prefer to have both elements in place before taking a trade....I posted on the open what my "preferred" entry times were....now at the end of lunch hour, can you imagine what the primary preferred entry time is.......yep......10am PST (or as near to it as we can get).... now look at the attached chart and the red arrow, right at 10 we see price open below the distribution boundary, and then retest up to that line....test & fail....and down they go...without me....lol I am a little bit pissed at myself but thats a type A personality for you.... Thats it for me today. Best of luck folks

Here we are at the tail end of the lunch hour Price has been trending.... In the NQ, we saw price trend up into the lunch hour then go sideways (predictable) now as price tests the top of a previous range.....the question is "up, sideways, or down" further one might ask, what usually happens in the afternoon, when folks (in NY) come back from lunch... Does the morning trend resume.....do we go sideways as traders stand aside to wait for news or some event overseas? or will participants decide to take profits here and mark it down into the close....? and by the way, there is plenty of time, so we could see any combination of the three possibilities.... This illustrates the benefit of learning to trade the open....if you do that successfully, at this point in time, there is no hurry to come to a conclusion....no need to take risk unless you see a clear opportunity to act...remember each time you pull the trigger there's an cost involved as well as the risk(s) that you will lose money..... One of the things I like to do is to read the tape.....meaning you "read" (monitor) the $tick, $VOLD, $ADD AND the "Time & Sales" Strip....... If you look at mine (see the attached chart) what you see is all thoughout the morning session the Tick stayed above zero.....until this last few minutes....(note the red down candle) however price was not "responsive" to that down candle....interesting... for me, this behavior means that participants are waiting for some event and I immediately start scanning for news, I look at the econ calendar to make sure I know when the next pending report is coming.....and then I start to look at other markets..... If we get to noon hour PST, and no change, then my view starts to change, and I look for price to retrace down....as participants take profit into the close... Edit And so readers understand my tactical approach here....I watch as price fades off the top of the distribution boundary....I have choices....but what I continue to do, in order to manage risk is the following 1. Instead of simply "making a bet" long or short I watch the tape.... 2. I am confident, that the odds favor a move one way or the other, and that the market will display its intention by moving directionally then RETESTING the distribution boundary.. 3. Because I have already got paid this morning I can wait patiently and see if I am right (or not)..either way I don't have to be "at risk" unless I see my "preferred" setup. I hope this helps folks to put things in perspective... Best to all

Went to get something to eat, came back to my screen and noticed this.... Its one of the "unintended" benefits of this approach that I really like One of the big problems for amateurs is that they miss entries and then spend the rest of the day watching, or even worse, they poke around trying to find an entry and get chopped to death...bleeding their accounts down to nothing.. What you see is the ES (left side of the screen) signaling a "continuation entry" in the NQ market (lower right side)....as the trend resumes a bit after 8am PST....today Nice move (about 10 NQ points) as the NQ revisits its morning high at the top of the previous range...

Okay so one small additional comment.... My "focus" is on helping struggling traders to find financial independence....realistically no one here could qualify as a trader at a top tier banking firm...thats not going to happen....so the next best thing (and from my point of view, its not a compromise at all)...is to show just a few (adult) folks how to win this game...I've only taught a few folks, but in this economy, I can tell you that it made a big difference in their lives... As to vendors "making it worse"...absolutely agree.....the idea that a system has to "fit" each person however is problematic...in fact my opinion has changed dramatically about this...throughout life, there are opportunities for each of us....things that we COULD do that might benefit us, but in order to realize those benefits, WE have to change, adapt, learn, and act....it ain't coming to us on a platter....its not like someone measuring you for a suit......you have to make the changes necessary to obtain the benefit...or someone else will, and you will be talking about how you never found what your were looking for. zdo I appreciate your contribution as well as the opportunity to clarify my position

For this and future posts the focus is on pre-market preparation We start by looking briefly at the Daily chart....on the attached chart to the left we see that there was support for a test and continuation move up (NQ market) at 2755 The next attachment is a 10 min chart....understand that we start with a "30 min" and work our way down to find two (2) valid long and two (2) valid short entries....these entries are determined by scanning left and looking for recent previous trend moves...depending on what we see, we either locate those long and short entries using the 30 minute time frame or of we cannot see valid entries on that chart, we move to the next lower time frame (because it provides more detail) In this instance we found what we needed on the 10 minute time frame, validating the daily which shows possible entry at 2755....transferring to the 3 min, as the market opened we let the market "show us" (confirm) our entry at a "preferred" time.... We look for price to open and show us an initial move in one direction followed by a "countermove" that provides our entry.....and (hopefully) is the ride we are looking to get on board (a signficant move)....that move is often 10 and sometimes 20 NQ points. Notice also that once price starts to move, the trader is encouraged to hold until price reaches the opposite distribution boundary...today its the top of the blue rectangle... Once again (just like yesterday) we are done for the day.... (Preferred times are 6:36, 6:39, 6:45 and 7am PST)

Thank you sir As with many things in life, I was trying to construct a simple system that amateurs could use to get a little cash flow going...what I found was unexpected.... I don't want to get into the differences between this system and MP (market profile) but I can say that I found a way to determine value fairly accurately and it isn't at all related to traditional Market Profile (although it "works" within that framework pretty well). In the process of doing research I found (unexpectedly) a systematic approach that seems to be "in synch" with what a lot of my institutional colleagues are doing...that in my opinion is why when I publish my distribution, you see how accurately price frames the action...I think this is because I lot of other participants are seeing the same thing I am, and reacting to it in the same way I was taught to.... Finally, I worked out a method of preparing to trade the open...and although this is a separate issue, one that you haven't commented on..this is one thing that I am very proud of...because in my opinion, preparation (and having the discipline to ACT on the information you obtain during that process) is what makes all the difference between winning and losing on a daily basis.... I will tell you honestly it has made me a better trader....I have always been able to anticipate where opportunity lies in markets, but now that I have seen how the system works over a period of time, I feel confident entering trades because I know that as long as I am consistent, the system is going to "take care of me"...it has been a real pleasure trading the NQ for example....very little stress....and quite often I am done for the day within the first hour...

Saw the title of the thread and was going to post that "there are very few details" but I see that DB has it covered.... Nine People Saying Romney's Tax Plan Is Mathematically Impossible If figure I am going to get hammered at tax time, no matter who wins... Romney reminds me of George Bush, and he seems to a similar talent for public speaking... Good luck to everyone...

You want a sincere answer...here it is Persistence without the pre-requisite skills, without direction, and disciplined application of valid principles won't amount to anything....there's just to many obstacles in the way....to many smart people reaching for the brass ring....its all very romantic (thinking that persistance will win "in the end"), the hard truth is that if you don't have what it takes, you lose.....no matter how persistent (I call it masochistic) you are.... Its really not that difficut...if you want to win this game, find someone who IS winning and get them to show you how its done..."do it yourselfers" simply don't get very far in this profession... Done for the day... Best to all.

and here is the follow-up for today's trade As can be seen at the top left hand corner, this is a 3 min chart...we have our dist lines in place and the blue rectangle represents the previous day's range....prior to the open, price was bumping along just above the top of the previous range...this of itself is often indicative of possible "continuation" move (long if above the range, short if below)... The vertical lines show the pre-market prep area....this is the area where we prepare for the open by identifying potential long and short entry points..today the entries were obvious In the overnight market, Europe stayed positive despite continued problems with Spain and Greece...this to us signals an uptrend. The left most vertical line occurs at 5am PST....and the next line at just after 6am PST....during this time period we see exactly what we expected based on experience...and that is a probe down to find sellers.....that probe terminated at the top of the previous day's range....confirming that we were going to see a counter move to the upside.. On the open we saw the expected initial move up until 6:36, followed by the counter move back down to retest the top of yesterday's range....at that point institutional buyers came in and the buy orders overwhelmed the sellers....our preferred "time-based entry" at 6:45 served as the launch pad for the longs to take it north... This time based scenario occurs often and while we rely on it for valid entries we never take them blindly, instead we watch the tape to confirm our bet....and if we are wrong (like everyone else occasionally we ARE wrong) the tape lets us know early enough that we can minimize the damage...

Here is a look at today's open As posted so many times before, price takes out a distribution line, then comes back to retest for a nice clean long entry and an easy 10 NQ pts (looking for 20) Edit...thats what I get for posting instead of managing the trade....hit the 20 while I was posting

Here is our primary pre-market preparation screen....as can be seen it is a 30 minute chart and we divide the chart into sections with vertical lines at 1300 hours....this allows us to see the how the rest of the world "votes" starting with Asian Markets (Japan & Hong Kong) moving through the DAX and London open (Midnight) and on into the US open at 6:30am PST... We use charts like these (both ES & NQ) to find four (4) potential entries.....two (2) long & two (2) short, to use at the open...

Here we are at the end of session I wanted to post this 10 min chart showing the location of potential entries...and say a few words about the system and how it trades Item 1....the goal is to produce a system that trades just a few times a day...but provides high quality entries....if you go back in this thread and look at the charts, what I hope readers will notice is that the system provides a framework that is pretty reliable. Notice for instance that there are multiple posts where price bounces from one extreme of the distribution to the other. This is by design...and that design is meant to provide retail traders with the psychological comfort that they need to cope with the stresses of trading... Item 2....if you see how this works, one benefit is that you can trade it using relatively tight stops....the system provides two basic alternatives for entry.....a 10 minute chart or a 3 minute chart...and there are tradeoffs or compromises that have to be made...if for example a trader stays with the 3 minute time frame, there will be times when they get chopped a bit as price moves near to a distribution boundary...this is less of a problem if one uses the 10 minute chart for entry... Item 3...trading with small accounts....this is problematic....I tried to design the system so that a small account could be used (less then $3,000) but there are obvious obstacles to overcome....for one, it is going to be difficult for newbies to have the discipline to stay out when conditions aren't right....and that does happen....even trading small size, if you lose your discipline on a given day and start to "revenge trade" because you took an early loss.....you are at risk of having a string of several losers....its called "free lancing" and it is the primary problem that we see with amateur traders....staying within the rules seems to be very challenging for retail traders.......the general rule is "don't trade with money you can't afford to lose...." and based on what we see...we suggest amateurs wait until they have at least four to five thousand dollars in an account before trying to trade futures markets....absent that, we suggest they trade simulated while saving up the money, and use that time to learn to gather and maintain historical data so that you have a track record showing how the system performs The approximation process isn't complete yet, so we can't publish it, but we can put out an alternative method that allows the trader to produce distribution bands that are near to what we use...based on a method first published by Kevin Haggerty. We have simplified it (we hope) so that a person with basic math skills can make use of it... Good luck folks

and here is the follow up and conclusion to today's short entry off the open I've posted this type of trade several times before here in this thread (test/entry on retest)....so this isn't new at all...the goal (for folks who are well trained and have a decent account to trade...is to A) identify the levels that might serve as entries (Anticipate)......B.) Pull the trigger promptly (ACT).....C.) Manage risk and take profits according to plan.... I will talk about the preparation that allow us to get this one later...right now I am going to get some sleep..