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1a2b3cppp

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Everything posted by 1a2b3cppp

  1. 1a2b3cppp
    This is the top problem. Most people do not have a winning system. I've never had a problem sticking to a plan but I've had a very rough time coming up with a profitable system. Following the rules of a losing system won't get you anywhere. Breaking the rules of a losing system won't get you anywhere. The majority of systems you see online are either too vague to have specific rules (which gives the "guru" an out if you ever dare to question his instruction), or have concrete rules but don't backtest or forward test profitably. While we're on the subject, beware of any "guru" who says there's no point in backtesting. That basically means "I don't want you backtesting my system and finding that it isn't profitable because then you'll stop paying me for seminars books and lessons." Yeah, definitely, assuming you have a profitable system. If you have a profitable system you are 99% of the way there. For sure. Probably more applicable when increasing contract size. If your first trade is a loser once you increase from 1 to 2 contracts, you might not want to see the dollar amount. Definiately. Oh, you mean overtrading. Yeah. Well, stick to your system's signals! Agreed.
  2. 1a2b3cppp
    I use "random" colloquially to mean unpredictable. But I suppose there are constraints. For example, stocks cannot go negative. A true random sequence can go negative. I assume the market will go up and the market will go down. I don't know when it will do each one, however. I do like to watch for patterns just to see how they play out but they don't play a role in my trading. Maybe I'll learn something, though. My trading depends heavily on money management, including adding to positions, hedging in the opposite direction, and sometimes collecting dividends (although I guess that's technically not money management).
  3. 1a2b3cppp
    I think I may have phrased that wrong :o The "so far I have been entirely unable to do so" meant predicting price direction in general, not that I had given up on the DOM thread after only two weeks. I'm wordy sometimes and I edit and reposition sentences and sometimes the end result doesn't come out the way I intended. Absolutely agree. I haven't given up on the DOM yet. In the beginning I had those thoughts. You know, cult mentality, "everyone gets this but me! I just have to study harder. I have to figure out the secrets behind the vague fortune cookie advice." But then you realize no, no one gets it. No one is profitable. Not even the "teachers." (this is referring to the vague threads and methods by some of the well-known internet trading "gurus") I worked in education for a bit in the past and one of the things you learn is that not everyone's learning style is compatible with everyone's teaching style. So it's definitely possible. But I'm a good student, and I ask very good questions, and when they get answered with vagueness and doublespeak, I don't think it's me who is failing to understand the teachings; I think it's that there's really nothing there to be understood. Specific questions always get specific answers. Always. No vagueness. No doublespeak. No laughing it off with a joke (distraction) or other silly frame control nonsense. Someone once shared a story about going to a trading seminar and they were talking about following short term trends during the day and someone in the audience asked how they knew which way price was going to go or something like that, and the "guru" replied, "I don't need a weather man to tell me if it's going to be raining 5 minutes from now." :crap: I'm sure everyone laughed at the obvious simplicity and logical nature of that answer. But if you actually think about it, that's a BS answer that didn't tell you anything. So is it possible it's just me who can't understand the wise "gurus"? Yeah, it's possible. But somehow I don't think that's where the problem lies. And even if that is the case, and all these dudes actually are profitable traders who are just so wise they are unable to explain their method to anyone else (or just me), that still doesn't change my basic premise that price is random (to me), and until I figure out how to predict price direction, I will continue to trade the way I do.
  4. 1a2b3cppp
    Who was I insulting to? I didn't say "no one can predict direction and anyone who claims otherwise is a liar!" That would've been insulting. Instead I said "I am unable to predict direction so I needed to change the way I trade." I'm certainly a beginner in the grand scheme of things. I've only been trading for around 5 years, but only profitable since 2010. I know there are people who have been doing this for much longer than I have and I don't pretend to have their experience. I'm always interested in sharing ideas, though.
  5. 1a2b3cppp
    That implies you have a trading method that works, though. I have read a lot of stuff suggesting that the reason people fail is because they can't stick to their rules. I have always been of the opinion that that is incorrect, because I think most people don't even have a winning system so it doesn't matter if they stick to their rules or not. There are a lot of threads where people are like "I broke my rules today and it cost me!" But they don't address all the times when they didn't break their rules and they still lost money. It's nonsense 100% of the time. If someone asks a specific question about a specific situation, the reply needs to be specific. But "gurus" will say "do what the price tells you to do" which doesn't actually help at all. Imagine if you asked your algebra teacher "what do I do in this specific situation?" and the teacher replied "do what the numbers tell you to do." It's just as silly of an answer in trading. I haven't, actually. I haven't paid for a single thing (other than a monthly SierraChart package). I just follow threads about many of the "gurus", and supposed teaching threads from self-appointed "gurus" and they all go exactly the same way. They never have live calls* (always some excuse), and they never have anything specific enough to be helpful to anyone. It's always semi-specific, enough to sound complex, but it's always just a bunch of vagueness. The "gurus" always have excuses ready, though, including: - some excuse about how backtesting is flawed (when their system doesn't backtest profitably) - some excuse about how people always want answers handed to them without putting in the work themselves (attempting to justify their vague fortune cookie advice) - some excuse about why they don't post live calls Not sure why you went there. I'm not disparaging anything. I specifically said that some people may be able to predict direction, and if what you're doing works, keep on doing it! I just said that price is random to me, and that thinking about it as such changed the way I trade. Directional trading is prediction. If you don't think price is going up, why take a long position? Of course I know you can be wrong more often than you are right and still make money. *I will admit that if you are scalping it may be too difficult to make live calls. But if you're holding positions for longer than a few minutes, including swing trading, live calls are easy; I do it all the time.
  6. 1a2b3cppp
    Can you elaorate on "trading one's ego"? I feel like I want to agree with you but I'm not quite sure I know what you mean.
  7. 1a2b3cppp
    lol @ subtly condescending reply. I did not say the markets are random, I just said that, despite years of studying indicators, making my own, reverse enginnering others, studying price action, patterns, etc. etc., I am unable to predict direction. So as far as I am concerned, markets are random. It was this change in how I looked at things that caused me to change the way I trade. I'm all for having a discussion about how to predict the markets as long as we are talking specifics and not vague nonsense like "trade what you see" or "do what the price tells you to do" (typical fortune cookie nonsense spewed forth by "gurus" to try and seem wise), or after the fact charts that are perfectly annontated with trades that would not have been visible in real time (my favorite is when a scammy "guru" posts a chart and says he entered the trade on the first touch of the trendline while ignoring the fact that it was impossible to know there was a trendline there in real time). No offense to you, of course, but 100% of the people and methods I've followed who claimed to be able to predict price ended up being "gurus" who hid behind vagueness, never made real time calls, and never address all the losing trades their system produced. That is assuming they even gave clear enough rules to have a "system" in the first place. I would very much like to be able to predict market movement, even if it's only during specific times or for specific times (such as short time frames that are only apparent from looking at the DOM). I assume that if the market can be predicted, it's not 100% of the time.
  8. 1a2b3cppp
    I never became profitable until I started to treat the market as if it were random. In the future I will share my method (for free, unlike scammy "gurus" I do not charge people to learn how I trade). Most people do not like my methods because I regularly break the supposed basic rules of trading (adding to losers, being long and short at the same time, etc.), yet none of the people who tell me I'm doing it wrong have posted real time calls of their own, so... haters gonna hate. I am unable to predict market direction. My thread on learning how to read the DOM is another attempt to learn how to predict direction, but so far I have been entirely unable to do so. Until I am able to predict direction, I will continue to treat the market as if it is random. I wanted to post this thread in light of the recent threads on market direction being random. Please note that I am not saying the market cannot be predicted. I am just saying that I personally cannot predict it, and as a result I adapted my methods from trying to predict to treating the market as if it were random. So in other words, some people may be able to predict market direction to trade successfully. If what you are doing is working for you, by all means keep on doing it.
  9. 1a2b3cppp
    Ok so I was watching the CL and the DOM on Friday. What is going on here: How are trades occuring above the bid and the ask? If someone comes in with a market buy order doesn't it fill at the ask, and if someone comes in with a market sell doesn't it fill at the bid? How do you sell above the ask?
  10. 1a2b3cppp
    Another example of this happening:
  11. 1a2b3cppp
    The ES is currently trading at 1553.75. There are 785 contracts waiting to be traded at this level. Why does price go away from this level before that 785 becomes a 0?
  12. 1a2b3cppp
    The first time I saw a ton of orders all at once, price had been going up for a little bit and I thought "it'd be nice if this were a top" (resistance). Cuz supposedly all the big guys put all their orders at S and R places. So I watched as the orders poured in and the TaS scrolled down pages at a time. And price kept going up. And up. A bunch of orders filled at the bid. Price went up. A bunch of orders filled at the ask. Price went up. For example, at 12:33pm (CST) on the ES, a ton of orders came in. Here is a chart and some of the Time and Sales orders: All those orders were filled at the bid. There were a bunch more orders a few seconds later that were filled at the ask: After that there was another huge blast of orders filled at the bid at 12:33:45 but I'm not attaching an image for that one because you get the idea. edit - weird, my attachments didn't show up. Maybe because this post had to be approved since I am a noob here. I've rehosted them so they should show up now.
  13. 1a2b3cppp
    Hi, Read a lot. Remember that anyone trying to sell you something probably does not know how to trade.
  14. 1a2b3cppp
    I'm new to this forum and wanted to say hi. I tried to start a thread in the TA forum but it said it needed a mod approval. Any idea how long that takes?
  15. 1a2b3cppp
    My current trading method is based on the market being random. I do not necessarily believe that the market actually is random, but despite years of study, I personally am unable to predict direction. I didn't start to become profitable until I accepted the fact that I cannot predict market direction. That being said, the two things I haven't really ever understood are DOM and Time and Sales. I've seen a few people try to explain them but it was in such a vague manner (as you may expect from trading "gurus") that lacked specifics and was of no help. I am creating this thread to provide a discussion for us to help each other as I try to learn to understand DOM and Time and Sales and how they may be able to help us make smart trading decisions. I will post screenshots of certain things and see if we can identify what they imply. I will try to post some videos, too, since the DOM and TaS move so fast it can be hard to get screenshots. Specifically, I am seeking to answer the following questions: Time and Sales questions: When you see huge influxes of orders coming in on TaS, what does that imply? Does it matter if they are at the bid or ask? What sort of TaS activity, if any, implies the start of a trend? What sort of TaS activity, if any, implies price is going to keep going in the same direction? What sort of TaS activity, if any, implies price has made a swing high/low and is going to reverse? Is TaS activity significant anywhere or only at specific levels (such as prior S/R levels)? DOM questions: What sort of DOM activity, if any, implies the start of a trend? What sort of DOM activity, if any, implies price is going to keep going in the same direction? What sort of DOM activity, if any, implies price has made a swing high/low and is going to reverse? Is DOM activity significant anywhere or only at specific levels (such as prior S/R levels)?
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