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Hello, My name is trading4life. I just joined this forum.

I read somewhere on this site that technical analysis doesn't work for day traders. It sounds like most traders are having a hard time discerning what's important and what's fruitless with regards to intraday signals. I am starting this thread to cut through the clutter and tell you how the markets can be traded in ANY time frame. In this lesson I will explain the two most elementary technical signals on the chart: price rejection and price acceptance. I'll bet that most traders have a hard time determining the general intraday trend and I believe this is due to your dependence on ultra short term charts, such as 1,2,3 or 5 minute charts. Moving out to 15 minute and 30 minute charts one can see things that are basically invisible on 1-5 minute charts. What I like to see on a 15 or 30 minute chart is a hammer or doji candlestick following a consolidation or range breakout. What is the psychology behind the hammer? Price moved from the breakout zone to some new level. Then price then retraced towards the consolidation zone and was rejected (hammered) back into the direction of the new trend. The breakout of that hammer bar IS THE ABSOLUTE SAFEST BET YOU CAN MAKE!!! Why? Because if the market just got hammered away from a price level, what do you think the odds are that price will immediately return to that level? Not very good odds at all. The doji is similar in nature because it still shows price rejection on a lesser scale, but also vividly displays the mini-consolidation which leads to a continuation move. And both breakouts CLEARLY DISPLAY WHERE TO PLACE YOUR PROTECTIVE STOP, at the other end of the hammer or doji bar following the breakout of that bar! Since the number one rule of trading is to always know your risk BEFORE you enter a trade, this is the best indicator in trading. (It doesn't hurt to have MACD confirming your trade direction, but it is not imperative). Just use the 20 period moving average as your trend filter and NEVER trade against the trend on the 15 minute chart. Price acceptance is when the market moves to a price level that previously turned the market around but this time doesn't, thus indicating that the market may still go further in its present direction. This is most useful when the market is searching for support or resistance after a prolonged move and you are trying to decide whether to exit or add to your position. I'll leave trade management for another discussion. Hope this helps! Luv, Phantom

One of the most important reasons why traders take big losses is because they often fail to recognize when a trade has gone wrong. You see, stopping out of a trade is probably the biggest fault of traders and investors. Often, this happens to young and inexperienced traders and investors, but I know many veteran traders and investors that struggle with this as well. Early in my own career I struggled with stopping out of a bad trade myself, so I can sympathize with this problem. The problem with taking a loss is really two fold. First, the trader has to admit that he is wrong. As you all know, as human beings we all hate to be wrong. The ego simply gets in the way and we all want to always be right all the time. The first secret in this business is to check the ego at the door. The market does not care about your the color of your skin, religion or anything else. It will move in the direction of the money and that is the bottom line. Once a trader or investor goes into what I call 'hope mode' the trade is over. I'm sure everyone has been in this position at one time or another. Simply put there is no room for ego or hope in the stock market. The market is always right and there is no reason to fight it. Here is the second problem with taking a loss, it hurts. Pain and pleasure are the two reasons why humans do anything at all. As a human being, we are always looking to have pleasure and avoid pain. Well, losing money is painful and many people would rather simply hold a losing equity than lock in a small loss and move on. I cannot tell you how often I see a trader hold a losing trade only to see the position move further out of the money. Many years ago I watched a day trader blow up a $200,000 account in a single day averaging in on a bad day trade. To this day I can remember the look on his face as his money vanished in thin air. Believe it or not, this trader could have exited the position with a $500.00 loss, but instead he kept averaging in and fighting the position until he was wiped out. As a rule, once you have your full position you should never average in on a trade. At that point, it is critical to know where your max loss is going to be and stop out if that level is breached.Now when should we stop out? The answer to this question is not that simple, but here is what I personally do. I always place my stop loss below an important breakout or pivot on the chart. You see, prior breakout or pivot levels are usually defended when retested. After all, this is usually an area where institutional traders and investors got involved, that is why there is a pivot low or high on the chart to begin with. If that level is breached on a closing basis then I will move out of the position. So If I took a trade based on a daily chart pattern then I will usually check the daily and weekly chart levels. If there is a major pivot on the weekly chart then I will use a week chart close as my stop out level. While this method may not be perfect, it has saved me from much bigger losses when I have been wrong. Nicholas Santiago

Hello; I am thinking of trading with Quaestus but not sure if it's legit? Their website publishes results weekly. Gains Vs Losses are great! thanks, Frank

Good Morning All; For this series of four letters, I am going giving you some exact steps that will help you tremendously if you have the technical knowledge, but cannot seem to turn the corner on making good profits. There are going to be four things that you can do that I feel will 'dramatically change your trading career'. The results will be immediate, every week. It should be stated again, that if you do not have the technical expertise, you are not at the level that these comments will help. If you don't know how to look at a chart, no amount of refining will help you. Where do you get this expertise? There is no better place than Pristine's Trading the Pristine Method Seminars. Talk to your counselors about the end of the year deal that will be gone, not to be repeated, after the holidays. After a long time of working with many traders, one discovers that there are certain truths that cannot be denied. There are four things that are done so consistently wrong by new, and even fairly experienced traders, that each of these mistakes results in bad trades 90% of the time for most traders. If traders would simply follow these four rules, they would eliminate most of their losing trades. The fourth rule does not really fall into this "90%" category, but is perhaps the most important. Four Things That Will Change Your Trading Career: Part Two of Four Here is the second rule, and the subject of this lesson. Traders should ONLY take trades that exactly fit the parameters outlined in their trading plan. It sounds simple, but again the facts behind this are staggering. Of the four 'secrets', this one is the easiest to describe, and really requires no technical expertise, just discipline. However, it is arguably the one that costs most traders the most money. Having a trading plan is simply the most important step to trading. It is the only concept that has a 100% correlation with success. 100% of successful traders use trading plans. 100% of traders who do not have plans fail. What more needs to be said? Unfortunately, there is still great aversion to having a trading plan. Here is the pattern that usually happens. First, traders simply leave a seminar or training course and sit in front of the market with the intention of 'developing' a plan over the first few days. The trials and tribulations of trading, combined with the huge dislike for the 'work' of writing a plan keeps 80% of the traders from ever beginning to write one. Of those that begin to write one, 80% never finish, or they do finish a plan that is so poor and vague it cannot be used. Of those that do finish a reasonable plan, as bizarre as it sound, 80% of those never use it. Of those that use it, 80% never follow up properly to see if they are truly following them, or if they are effective. Where are you in this process? No. Stop. Really; go back and answer that honestly. WHERE are you in this process? The purpose of this article is picking the one most important concept to follow up on to eliminate losers. When traders are asked to go back and review their records, it is found that when they go back and pick out the trades that were not really in their plan, an amazing 80-90% of trades taken outside the plan fail. 80-90%. Does that get your interest? Don't believe it? Check for yourself. While it would be interesting to see your results (feel free to send them to paul@pristine.com), experience tells me that few will send them, because few will REALLY do it. Stop and take these lessons seriously. These four 'secrets' will change you career, if you are not doing well now, and if you actually do what they say. Here is what you should be doing to check this. The results below are typical of what you might see. The worst category will be the strategy that is 'no strategy', and you will likely be worse than this example. Closing Comments The point of this lesson is simple. The glory of this does not come from a chart; it comes from the discipline to follow a plan, and more importantly, the discipline to check to see if you are following that plan. By following up in this one area, you may be able to stop the majority of your losing trades. So you ask, "But I don't have a trading plan, or I don't have strategies outlined in my plan, what do I do?" The answer is simple, develop a detailed trading plan that has one or two specific strategies, and follow them. In the next issue of this letter we will look at the third 'secret' that will change your trading. Paul Lange Vice President of Services Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

Market Pullback And Rejection A big topic among the traders I train is one virtue all traders need to have and that is patience. With the big violent moves and the increased volatility in the Crude Oil market the past week if your not patient, you are probably crying! Take a look at the header photo and look at the arrows representing the extreme and then the second attempt. It is imperative you identify both so you are able to jump on board those lower risk trades that usually go the distant. Volume is key and like I say in the video you can use all the indicators you want or even price action. If the amount of buyer or sellers does not succeed the amount of prior sellers or buyers the market will not go. PERIOD! Don’t forget you do have to take in consideration that nobody knows the next order in the market, which could have a direct influence on direction.

Sorry I started a new thread as the thread before had Friday's date on it. I will post an analysis video once a day in this thread, hope it helps! Market Profile Crude Oil Analysis Monday 8.11.14

Daily Post for Crude Oil Traders. Hope it Helps!

Hi all, I am new on this forum, but I have been around the stock market for over 10 years now. I used to play the hypes, like shortening financials during the credit crunch and shorting FB . BUT since a couple of months I am busy developing my own day trading style and for me focussing on the momentum is a great help when going long. :missy: Have been reading al about day/momentum trading on this forum, but I have two questions that pop-up when I am busy trading small caps. 1) I haven't found any good technical analytic tools that are used yet. I use different EMA's to see trend switching, but the signal is mainly too late for my taste... So what is a good combination of indicators? 2) Stock scanning, I have a junkmail account to receive al kinds of pumps (good tips are always welcome!), but I would like to have a more active way to scan for good stocks. When using finance.yahoo.com you only can focus on the price gain and I just would love to have a tool that I can check sudden volume increase too. Maybe a alert of some kind? Hope to learn a lot and share my knowledge on this forum. Cheers :helloooo:, Pieter

Good Morning All: "Amateur traders want to be right; professional traders want to make money." Today's topic reflects off the very true and powerful quote above. Many of these Monday Morning 'Eyes' editions are technical ones with charts and lots of markings on the charts. However, many of the best ones are just words. They are comments on 'soft' topics, such as the topic today. The Need to Be Right If you are in the stages of learning to trade, you will become a compilation of all those from whom you learned. You will become your own unique breed of trader. We all come to the table with certain expectations and beliefs. We all come with some emotional baggage. We all learn from reading, studying websites, and other traders. Some informally, some by paying for education in the form of trading rooms, seminars and mentors. Every time you learn something, it adds to your experience as a trader. Eventually you become the sum of all you have learned. Even if you have a mentor you have tried to emulate, you will never be exactly like your mentor. You will be unique. However, while no two traders are identical, most successful traders do share some common characteristics. Most have learned the value of a trading plan. Most have learned the need for stops. Most have learned many other disciplines that have I have addressed in a previous weeks of "Eyes". It takes many a long time to understand the subject of this article. That subject is, the belief traders have that they need to be "right". The topic is a simple one. Yet it eludes many traders. It seems only obvious that if we want to be successful, we need to be right in our underlying assumptions in our trades. If we want to trade stocks, we should focus on being 'right' about the direction stocks are going. Correct? Well, not really. Most traders focus too much on their need to be right. This can be detrimental and needs to be addressed. The truth of it is, we are dealing in the stock market. There is not a system, method or pattern that can produce accurate results all the time. If there were, it would be known to all. All would be using it. Ironically, if this was the case, when all started using the system, it could no longer work. A 'catch 22' of sorts, but just goes to show that it is obvious that there will never be a perfect system or indicator. The best we can do is to study each situation, collect the evidence, and make a high probability decision at the proper moment. What is of primary importance is how the situation is handled when the trader is right, how the situation is handled when the trader is wrong. What is the most common reason traders fail? The answer is not following stops. What is another top reason traders fail? The answer is not letting winners run. Not following a stop is an example of handling the situation improperly when a trader is wrong about the trade. Not letting a trade hit a target is an example of handling the situation improperly when a trader is right about the trade. What good is being 'right' if you are not paid for it? Good traders assume from the beginning that the trade may go bust. They know how much money they have risked. They know when they will get out, and they will analyze other options, such as profiting from the stock, which is now moving 'against the odds'. Good traders also know how go balance being 'right' and being timely. I know of an advisory service that took credit for predicted the fall of the Dow in 2001. The only problem is that they began that prediction when the Dow hit 6000 a long time before that. Quite a hollow victory. Waiting for too much information may make you 'right' more often, but to what avail? It is like the trader that finally decides the NASDAQ is going higher intra-day, because it broke the high of the day. The only problem is that the NASDAQ rallied 30 points to come back to break the high of the day, it is so extended, there is no room left for profit. The trader may be 'right', but his late decision awards him no money. Closing Comments: Yes, we need to be 'right' a fair amount when we trade. However, if your average winner is three times your average loser, you only need to be right 25% of the time to be breaking even gross. Accept that this is not an exact science, and never will be. We are reading peoples emotions. Accept that you will be wrong a certain amount of the time and accept that graciously. Done properly, this is a very profitable business. Focus on how you handle your winners and losers. Make timely, high probability decisions when you have sufficient evidence, and do so consistently and objectively. Paul Lange Vice President of Services Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

When I first started trading, many traders pretty much scalped in one form or another. Trading near to an exchange/exchange hub with mostly just other traders to worry about (far fewer algos) gave a disciplined and skilled trader a very good edge. Doing 50+ trades per day was not especially unusual, but never really looking for more than a few ticks at a time either. I ask myself what has changed. I know a good number of people changed their styles somewhere in the last few years given the change in conditions. There are certainly more algorithmic systems these days. I think the level of volatility is higher. Also the way prices move has changed. This could just be due to algos mind, but also a criticism of some markets was that in certain conditions they were ‘manipulated’. I believe that although traders were way too quick to blame their losses on manipulation which probably didn’t exist, there were certainly times when specific markets were ‘played’ with. However, the line between dark manipulation and natural rebalancing of books such as a short squeeze is not always well defined. Anyway. So things are quite different now but could it be done again and what would be required to do it? Scalpers certainly still exist. The question is how successful are they compared with the past? My feeling is that if I were to scalp now it wouldn’t be a whole heap different from how I would take any other position. That would equally apply to any other of the various methods used by traders. But it would have to be taking a trade at a place where there is good potential for a reaction. The difference being over a normal trade that you would only give it a little space. So you’d let it run if it moved straight for you, but take the trade off quickly if it didn’t or started reversing. Here’s a list of factors I feel are important:- Realization that you cannot lean on the order book (a limit order fill is not an edge). - It used to be that a limit order fill let you take at least a tick and sometimes more on most trades so long as you had a good position in the queue. This is why EPIQ came about for X-Trader and OrderQ (if I remember correctly) was popular before it. Not anymore. If you get filled on a limit you have to assume it will trade through you. If you’re accurate with your entry however, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Accuracy in prediction of possible supply and demand changes at specific prices/times/indicator values/whatever else. - To make sure you have the best chance at taking at least a few ticks whether or not the market moves much further from any given price, you will need to identify good areas to trade. This can be based on any method, but should show a high level of some sort of reaction at the areas you identify. Ability to read any reaction and change in supply and demand in real-time. - Nothing always works. With scalping you need to get a good win rate. Your wins are never likely to be huge so they need to be plentiful. To improve your chances it is important to be able to see what is happening at you potential point of entry. If you have a DOM with good information (TT X-Trader historically was the best for this) you see it here, or if you have a bid x ask footprint as popularized by Market delta, you will be able to get a good idea from this too. Simple equivolume candles can help too and watching cumulative volume delta and how it changes relative to price is also useful. A liquid and lag free market. - Scalpers need to react quickly. A market which ‘jumps’ for any reason can particularly hurt a scalper if they have no time to react to the market (i.e. it moves before they see it move). Scalping the likes of the Dax or Crude is possible, but because of how they move most of the time changes to your methodology are necessary to be successful. Not saying it can’t be done. I know people who do it. Also, is it possible to scalp on a high quality retail feed over the internet or is it necessary to trade say from an arcade or somewhere with a leased line at least? My feeling is probably it can be done retail depending on your feed, your ISP and your hardware quality. Identification of favourable conditions for scalping. - It’s very important in my mind to make sure you are trying to trade in the right way given different conditions. If for example you position trade and you sell at a good level into a market which has bolted from open, you’ll probably take a hit and a standard stop out. Do that as a scalper and you might have to take a larger than normal loss. Strong risk control. - You simply must get out when the market moves against you whether you think you are right or wrong. Scalping is a numbers game and you must minimize your losses. Quick and easy order entry platform. - To react quickly you are going to need a quick and easy order entry platform. So that means no delays whatsoever on order entry/mod/cancel (obvious this depends on the connection too) and if means you should be able to alter orders easily and accurately (preferably with keyboard function trading in addition to mouse). Low trading costs. - As I’ve already said, scalping is about numbers of trades. So your costs per trade must not be prohibitive to making a profit. You couldn’t scalp if you were paying $5 per round trip or more for example or it would make it very difficult at the very least. Mental focus. - Trading requires mental focus at the best of times. Scalping requires even more. You have to be able to concentrate for long periods sometimes and that can be tough. If you're at all interested in scalping, I hope this information is useful to you in some way. If anyone has any other important points to discuss, please share them. If you’re currently a scalper, it’d be great to hear your thoughts on how it is and what your challenges are these days.

The secret to day trading is that there is no secret. Smart-ass, huh? Bear with me, I'll explain. A secret means that not a lot of people know about it. When trading, do you want to look at something that only a few people are looking at? So that when you make the decision to enter, it's you against everyone else? Hell no! That makes no sense. Even Paul Rotter, probably the largest individual futures trader, said he wouldn't be able to go against everyone else if the market was going one way. So you want to be on the side of with the most volume. And where does the majority of futures volume goes through? Trading Technologies' (TT) gateways (I remember a quote on their site that said about 70% of all futures volume goes through them). And what do you see on the screen of every professional trader? Columns of red, blue and prices. What is it? MD Trader that is part of TT's X_Trader (or a competing product that looks pretty much the same)! Don't you think professional traders would tell TT if there was something essential missing on MD Trader if this is what they use all the time? What about X_STUDY (TT's charts that are also part of X_Trader). How many chart types does it support? Not many. How many indicators does that have? Not many, and most of them are based on volume. And why don't traders complain about X_STUDY? Maybe they don't look at charts for decision making? So might it be possible that all the information you need can be seen on this small MD Trader window? Is this even possible? Paul Rotter (same guy I mentioned above) says he looks at charts for orientation, but doesn't make decisions based on that. What does he use to make decisions? The MD Trader! (Btw, this is not a commercial for MD Trader, you can use any competing product that shows you the same information). And what does MD Trader show you with just 5 columns? • All Bids • All Offers • Last Trade (Price and Size) • Volume by Price (a.k.a. Volume at Price, Market Profile, etc) • Your Orders inkl. your estimated position in queue (shown as EPIQ) Why is this relevant? Because this is a market, not some magic world. Bids and Offers make a market and the last trade shows transactions that took place in that market. See, this is simple. This is just a market, no magic. Think of it as a bazar. No one uses charts or indicators on a bazar to make the decision to buy or sell something. Same with the trading pit. And traders in the trading pit also use something else: noise. Noise meant momentum. How can you see momentum in the MD Trader? It's how quickly bids and offers change and how much is how quickly traded. So momentum is another important information that you can't put in numbers, but you can feel looking at the order book. What about Volume by Price? It allows you to find out how much has traded at a price when the last trade information is changing too quickly. It also summarizes the entire day's trading. You don't know whether the volume that you see there are still open positions or whether they have been already closed. But some of them are likely to be open. And those traders care where price is right now. You don't know when the traders that are on the losing side are going to puke, but you know that they are going to puke at some point. And that point comes closer the more the market moves against them. And they don't care whether there was an S/R on the chart or there is some indicator telling you to buy or sell, when they want out, they get out and this will affect the market. What about EPIQ? It shows you how likely it is that your limit order is going to get filled. Do you really need this? No, but it's good to know. No reason to enter at market, if your EPIQ is 10 and you expect a few more trades at that price. I hope I've given you something to think about. And please don't flame me in this thread, it won't change anything. That's like saying Newton's law of gravity does not apply to the part of the world that you live in. It is what it is. I'll post a few snippets of my favorite posts made by other traders from this forum to illustrate what I mean by all this.

When scanning for stocks that are likely to continue to move in one direction overall, I want those stocks to have a few criteria in alignment. I want the move up to have already started, but not that long ago. I want multiple time frames in alignment. I want the sector that the stocks are in to be in favor by institutions. I also want - and this is important - there to be a VOID of overhead resistance. Here are two stocks that meet all those criteria and are going higher. he above stocks, Prudential Finl. (PRU) and CME Group (CME) meet all of my criteria to move higher. The daily time frames have clearly established their uptrends and are well on their way. The monthly time frames have just move above long-term resistance. The Financial sector is a favorite of many analysts featured in the media. Lastly, there is a clear "tradable void" above for prices to continue the move higher that has just started. These two stocks are going higher based on the criteria I've defined. Greg Capra President & CEO Pristine Capital Holdings, In

The prior Chart of the Week (COTW) dated May 20th was titled "Ripe for Breakout Failures." In it, I showed you a couple of breakout failures and I gave you a few stocks to watch including the S&P 500 ETF symbol SPY. Break-out failures (BOF) are all over the place now and are obvious to even the most novice chart reader. Pristine students, and hopefully you as a reader of these COTW lessons were prepared for the moves lower that have occurred since that time. Many of the daily Break-Out Failures (BOF) have now formed monthly Topping Tails (TT) in May, so let's look at a few and the differences in how they have formed. A Topping Tail (TT) is a signal that buying (demand) was not strong enough to overcome selling (supply) at the high of the range, so prices fell. This can often signal that the end of a long-term uptrend is at hand when the TT forms on the monthly time frame. However, the truth is that we really never know when an uptrend is no longer an uptrend until it doesn't meet the definition of one; higher highs (HH) and higher lows (HL). That being said, with the signal of a monthly TT, those educated in the proper use of multiple time frames analysis can find excellent "swing-trading" and "day-trading" opportunities. Let's look at some different chart patterns with monthly TTs. Before we review the charts, here is some food for thought for those of you are not Pristine Students, yet and are in search for the truth when it comes to understanding technical analysis. I said above that the definition of an uptrend no longer being in effect is a simple way of knowing that an uptrend no longer exists. It's that simple, but virtually every commercial we see to open an "online trading" account (they seem to be endless) and from those that tell you they can teach you how to use technical analysis will show you a break of an uptrend trend line, a moving average, a retracement level or any of the other technical trend tools used to do it. Also added are some of the hundreds indicators that come with an endless combination of settings. All of these are often meaningless as a guide to a trend break and are outright misleading. Sometimes, it may even look like they got it right because the definition was violated at the time (e.g. the break below a prior low) Why do so many use these indicators? I assume it's because that is what they were taught and they never seriously questioned why those indicators fail as a guide so often. Why do the brokers wanting you to open an account with them show these? First, most actually know nothing about the technical analysis tools in the platforms they offer. To them more is better compared to than what the competition may have. They also want you to believe software can make you money. An educated, disciplined investor or trader - with a plan - can make money with any charting software. Let's continue. The TTs in the above charts all formed after what we refer to as a "fluid move" higher. Fluid moves have continuous higher high (HH) and higher low (HL) candles and these preceded the TT. This type of price move is the strongest possible and displays the most certainty about the buyers' view on the stock. This is the type of trend you want to buy on the pullback in anticipation of a higher swing low to be followed by a higher high in the trend. Realize that the lower time frames will not look good to the untrained eye at the time the monthly swing low is forming. That is when the knowledge of how to use multiple time frames will benefit you most. Without it, you'll miss a big part of the move. Here price have spent time moving sideways before the TT formed, so there is a larger area of supply (caught buyers) above. These can also form a higher swing low on a pullback, but these highs tend to be more difficult to overcome. The uptrend has not been violated on any of these, so keep them on your watch list. The TTs within a range tend to continue the erratic price action that has been happening. Red Hat (RHT) has the largest TT compared to its most recent price ranges. For that reason, it has higher odds of testing the bottom of the range. Notice that BRCM has an opposing Bottoming Tail (BT) that is significantly larger than the TT. This suggests that BRCM is least likely to move to the bottom of the range. YUM Brands (YUM) is more neutral since its TT is inside the range of the prior candles. YUM could be a breakout play higher if it stays at the top of the range during a market correction (i.e. relative strength). These two TTs have formed after a breakout above their resistance areas and failed to hold onto the move higher. A breakout above resistance followed by prices falling back to the breakout point historically will result in more selling. Everyone that bought the breakout as well as points inside that TT candle are now holding a loss and are likely to sell on any further weakness. United Parcel Service (UPS) is likely to see more selling pressure than BEAM if it moves below the prior candle's low, which was a BT candle. The reason for that is because of how it moved up from the 2012 low (star). UPS moved up in a "fluid" arrangement of HH - HL candles whereas BEAM move up, but within a sideways to upward motion. You're most likely thinking, "but UPS was the stronger move up, so why would it be likely to see more selling pressure?" That's an excellent question. The answer is because fluid price moves like seen in UPS leave little to no support reference points for traders to use as new buy points if prices pull back. In addition, the BOF in UPS was preceded by a continuation buy signal. BEAM on the other hand has many overlapping candles that display a higher level of uncertainty. Another way of understanding the traders' expectations within these patterns is this: The UPS price move up (fast and fluid) is virtually a sure thing (trade) to continue its move higher. The BEAM move up (slow and overlapping) should move higher, but a stall would not be a big surprise since that is how it has been moving all along. The TT candle in both has changed that to different degrees. Buyers of UPS are shocked to see its continuation of the prior strong move result in a TT. Pristine Tip: Technical Analysis of current price movement and the patterns that preceded it is a representation of the thoughts, beliefs and expectations of all those that created the chart. This includes independent traders, investors, hedge fund managers, money managers, those running auto-trading computers, etc. Lastly, the TT candles in these stocks are also in the process of making lower highs. A move under the respective TT candles lows will begin to establish those lower highs. Each stock fell relatively hard in 2012. Notice the large red candles and the weak recovery in 2013. Clearly, these stocks have shown relative weakness and have higher odds of falling to their prior lows, and potentially below them to make lower lows. The month of May has produced many Topping Tails (TT) candles that have signaled increased selling pressure. As you have read and viewed, the knowledge of a TT without an understanding of the price action that preceded it is close to no knowledge at all. Having some knowledge may be even worse than no knowledge at all, since you are likely to use that information incorrectly and potentially lose a lot of money. Isn't that what we all do when starting out? As you can see, TT candles can and do come with many different arrangements of patterns and the reaction to that TT will be different based on those different patterns. In addition, there are other technical factors to consider like volume, prior support and resistance, market environment at the time, sector rotation, multiple time frame analysis, relative strength or weakness, market internals and more. At Pristine, we teach all of these and most importantly how to combine their information together to find high probability investing, swing-trading and day-trading opportunities. All the best, Greg Capra President & CEO Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

There is a common sequence of events that most traders go through during their development. This begins when many of the strategies that the trader is learning begin to come together and the trader begins to see the light. This can happen slowly with a cautious trader who has been paper trading or playing with a small share size. This can happen for aggressive traders as they start to have some big numbers in profit on some of their better days. However, while the trader begins to feel good, there usually are some lingering problems. While the light seems to be coming on, the account is not growing. It seems that every time some progress is being made, something happens that stops this progress and the account does not grow. It is 'one step forward, and two steps back'. If this is something that you can relate to, you are not alone. Spending time in this area to understand this process is very important to your development as a trader. If you review your records you will likely find several good trades throughout the week, and then a bad trade. One so bad it really sticks out. So bad, it erases all the hard work of the prior gains that you were so proud of. It may show up as several profitable days and then one day that erases all the prior gains. If this is the problem you are having, there is good news and bad. The good news is that you are now doing well with the 'technical part' of trading, and now have to deal with the psychological part. The bad news is that you are now doing well with the 'technical part' of trading, and now have to deal with the psychological part! Psychology is not an easy thing to deal with. The answer? First, it's self awareness. It's identifying the issues at hand as being psychological. Once we've admitted we have the problem, we must build and change our Psychology so that it is conducive to making money in the markets consistently and without fail. We teach many procedures that traders can take to help their progress at this point. Use a trading plan, keep detailed records, and track the strategies you use. Print charts of your trades to analyze your discipline, trading plan, and strategies. Make a plan to eliminate recurring problems. Use money management that prevents catastrophic trades or days. Once the trader eliminates their 'demons', they will likely see an improvement in their trading. Unfortunately, that is not the end of the psychological issues. Sometimes a trader uses all of the above tactics to make great improvements and even become successful, then gets 'over confident' with their new success and abandons everything that got them where they are. The road will always be full of new challenges, the traders that thrive have on ongoing plan and a commitment to patience and discipline. Jared Wesley Contributing Editor Interactive Trading Room Moderator Gap, Intra-Day and Swing Trading Specialist Instructor and Traders Coach

You find a near perfect Pristine Buy Setup, meeting all the requirements of your trading plan, and devise a plan to trade it. Now the stock is at your established entry price, you click on the buy button, and it's done! You just bought yourself a position in XYZ. Whatever outcome is produced by this position should be considered your responsibility. Both a positive or negative one. But this isn't always the case. Our culture has suffered from a loss of the personal responsibility values that built it. These days, an individual walks into a McDonalds and after getting fat due to the excessive consumption of burgers, sues the company for making him fat. It's the old "the devil made me do it" rationale. But we have to understand that every action, even the decision not to-do something, is made by the individual out of free will. When an individual considers taking some course of action, he will compare the perceived positives and negatives of taking such action, and if the positives outweigh the negatives, he'll proceed with it. This same rationale can be applied to trading. When you take a position, it should be because the probable positives of taking such a position outweigh the potential negatives (High odds). A proper trading plan should see to this. Novice traders, never seriously considering the negative potential of any trade, will base their decisions on a constant bias towards the positives. When your stop loss price is hit, you and only you are responsible for the outcome of your trade. It's easy to blame specialists, market makers, or other dastardly subjects for your loss. But it was you in the first place that decided to buy/sell short that position. You should have considered all the probable positives and negatives of taking such a trade. Is this a NYSE stock? Learn about the execution conditions that exist in listed stocks before taking that trade. Is Bernanke speaking while you plan to hold on to your position? It's your responsibility to know all possible implications. At the end of the day, you take a position, and it either moves in your favor, or against you. If you're right, you'll make money; if wrong you'll lose some. In either case, you and only you will be responsible for the outcome. Understanding this is a step towards professionalism. KURT CAPRA Contributing Editor Interactive Trading Room Moderator Instructor and Traders Coach

Good Morning All: In the last issue, I gave you part two of a four part series. This series is a set of exact steps that will help you tremendously if you have the technical knowledge, but cannot seem to turn the corner on making good profits. There are four things that you can do that I feel will 'dramatically change your trading career'. The results will be immediate, every week, and this will be item number three. It should be stated again, that if you do not have the technical expertise, you are not at the level that these comments will help. If you don't know how to look at a chart, no amount of refining will help you. Where do you get this expertise? There is no better place than the Trading the Pristine Method Seminar. After a long time of working with many traders, one discovers that there are certain truths that cannot be denied. There are four things that are done so consistently wrong by new, and even fairly experienced traders, that each of these mistakes results in bad trades 90% of the time for most traders. If traders would simply follow these four rules, they would eliminate most of their losing trades. The fourth rule does not really fall into this "90%" category, but is perhaps the most important. Four Things That Will Change Your Trading Career: Part Three of Four Here is the third rule, and the subject of this lesson. Traders should always follow the power of the market (or an individual stock). When the market or stock is having a bullish day, the daily bar is green, and the intraday trends are up, buy pullbacks; do not play short. When the market or stock is having a bearish day, the daily bar is red, and the intraday trends are down, short the rallies; do not buy the pullbacks. This sounds simple, yet this rule actually addresses the number one mistake traders make in selecting plays. Most traders, especially newer traders, try to short strong stocks, or buy weak stocks. They try to 'short the top', or 'buy the bottom'. They may not even realize they have the problem. Most issues like this are not discovered unless the trader takes overt action to find the problem. Why would so many traders pick up such a bad habit? The answer is simple; it is the same problem that causes so many traders to not trade the way they want to trade. Psychological issues step in and cause the trader to trade improperly. Catching a bottom or a top in a stock makes a trader fell like a 'hero' when right. And, if they do get an occasional trade correct, that is all they remember. They forget the dozens of losses it took to get the one winner, and remember only the glory of 'shorting that one at its high'. There is a strategy for shorting a strong stock, or buying a weak stock, but it is only used when the stock goes 'climactic'. Unfortunately, this play seems to be difficult for most traders to recognize, and requires patience, something most new traders do not have. Below is an example. Would you short this pattern as a 'climactic sell setup' (CSS)? Many traders see patterns like this and feel that it just cannot go any higher. So they short the first red bar, at the '?'. Unfortunately, the usual result is shown below. As the stock advances, they realize that they were not just off, they were way off. They needed the patience to wait for this high at the new'?', above. Surely THIS, is a much better place to short; or is it? Well, maybe not. The stock did not drop at all, and after a little rest, it is back off to the races. As a matter of fact, it turns out that shortly after every 'short' attempt, the truly great play was to go long, even though it looked 'extended'. Bottom line, stay with the easy play. Look at all the money that could be made on the LONG side of this trade, yet so many traders are drawn to finding the top. It is often never found. This is not an unusual chart, I am sure you encounter this every day. Closing Comments The concept illustrated above refers to avoiding playing a stock against the power of a strong trend. It is also applicable to avoid shorting stocks in general, if the market is in a powerful trend (and the same for not going long on a 'red bar' day). While there are certain stocks that will drop on bullish days, they are much harder to find, and as a rule, drop much less. Next week we will look at the fourth 'secret' that will change your trading. Paul Lange Vice President of Services Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

Good Morning All: In the last issue, I gave you part three of a four part series. This series is a set of exact steps that will help you tremendously if you have the technical knowledge, but cannot seem to turn the corner on making good profits. There are four things that you can do that I feel will 'dramatically change your trading career'. The results will be immediate, every week, and this will be item number four. It should be stated again, that if you do not have the technical expertise, you are not at the level that these comments will help. If you do not know how to look at a chart, no amount of refining will help you. Where do you get this expertise? There is no better place than our famous Trading the Pristine Method Seminar. After a long time of working with many traders, one discovers that there are certain truths that cannot be denied. There are four things that are done so consistently wrong by new, and even fairly experienced traders, that each of these mistakes results in bad trades 90% of the time for most traders. If traders would simply follow these four rules, they would eliminate most of their losing trades. The fourth rule does not really fall into this "90%" category, but is perhaps the most important, and is the subject of today's discussion. Four Things That Will Change Your Trading Career: Part Four of Four It is time for the fourth and final rule of this series. As we have mentioned in the introductory paragraph of each of these four lessons, this is not really a 'new' rule. However, the first three rules are ineffective and worthless if you do not know the fourth rule. The fourth rule is to simply follow up to make sure that you are doing each of the first three rules properly. Now, DO NOT stop reading this and say, 'yea, yea, follow up, I know'. There is an exact procedure that must be followed. When this is followed, traders are always shocked and amazed at the results. 1. Print out the chart for the relevant time frame(s) for the trade you took. If it was a five minute Pristine Buy Setup, print the five minute chart. 2. Write the name of the strategy you played on the top of the chart. 3. Take a 'green' marker, and mark in the correct entry, stop, targets, and management, based on your trading plan. 4. Now take a 'red' marker, and mark in the actual entry and exits you had based on your trading records. 5. Now decide if the play you did was substantially correct according to your trading plan. If it was, write a 'good' on the top of the page. 6. If the play was not correct according to your plan, write a 'bad' on the top. 7. If the play was bad, put the reason why on top. Save these until the end of the week. Over the weekend, take all the 'good trades' and start a binder of good trades, saving the best examples of each of your strategies. We are very visual people, and learn best by pictures. Take all the 'bad' trades and categorize them by the reason they were bad. Take the number one mistake you committed that week, and do whatever necessary to resolve that problem the next week. Eliminate ONE mistake every week. Please keep a couple of important rules in mind. First of all, this process MUST be done at least 30 minutes AFTER the market closes. Traders often do not think properly when the market is open, and you will 'rubber stamp' any trade you do if you look at it soon after you close out the trade. The best case is to wait until that evening. Second, it is BEST to hand write on the chart. Print the chart, then use your own hand to write on the chart. Many like to use Power Point or other software, but the best learning will come from having all of your senses involved. If you must, it is better to do this on the computer than not at all, but try doing these by hand, as shown in the example above. This concludes a very important series of four lessons. If you are serious about your trading, see how well you currently do at these, and vow to follow them religiously for a week. You may be surprised. Closing Comments Even if you have not been following these four 'secrets', take the time to do this one. Print up some charts, and go through the procedure, even if you do not have good plan, or don't feel you even know what to look for. You will be shocked, and you will have a whole new perspective on the four things that were discussed over the last four weeks. I hope you have enjoyed this series of articles. Until next week, good trading. Paul Lange Vice President of Services Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

I prefer to short and being I always close out by EOD I am looking for additional RadarScan indicators or setups for TradeStations. Any suggestions? Thanks and Happy New Year. Chris Tina Bruce

One basic need human beings have is certainty. We're always looking to provide a measure of certainty to our lives. It provides for us a 'warm fuzzy' to know that we can live day to day and make sure that our necessities for survival are met. However, in the markets, there is never 100% certainty with any trade that is taken. This is one reason why trading the markets is so hard for most people. When trading the markets, this general search of certainty takes hold of many investors and novice market participants, giving them the illusion that they must buy when they're 'certain' that the stock has good upside potential (usually after that stock has doubled in price and has been "upgraded"), and sell when they're certain that the end of the world is happening tomorrow (usually a day prior to the establishment of some sort of climactic bottom). This need to be certain is also the driving force behind the eternal search for the "sure thing". That there is a perfect indicator out there that can provide them with a feeling of certainty, amid an environment that is completely uncertain. Indicators galore are created with the sole purpose of injecting a level of predictability (certainty) to decision-making. These indicators, used as "price predictors", are nothing more than a way to create certainty, in a place where certainty flat out does not exist. In the markets, you shouldn't look for certainty, only for opportunity. This opportunity in many cases won't appear in an obvious fashion. But this is fine, since opportunity isn't created for the uneducated, or he who looks for certainty. Part of the reason why the professionals can be wildly successful at trading is because of this Law of Uncertainty coupled with the pursuit of certainty by novice and unsuccessful traders. Opportunity is created for the educated individual who is willing to take calculated risks in order to achieve his rewards. When you're buying a Pristine Buy Setup (PBS), the entry point isn't the most certain place to be, right? That PBS looks a lot more "certain" after that stock has moved up 3 bars in a row, right? Hindsight is always 20/20. Notice that the place where opportunity dwells is just that place that makes most novices tremble with fear. By the time they gain a measure of certainty, it's often too late. So strive to look for reliable events that present good opportunities based on a methodical approach and then trade those events, with the understanding that you're trying to take advantage of the opportunities that the market presents. Realize that you will have losing trades because of uncertainty. You could have 'the perfect setup' based on your training and experience, and even those trades are never 100% certain. So - 2 key points must be absorbed here. One, that losses are simply a byproduct of this business. Don't get overly dismayed and lose control emotionally when you get stopped out of a trade. Two, remain objective rather than subjective (emotional) and forget about certainty, because the only certain thing in the markets is that there are no certainties. Jared Wesley Contributing Editor Interactive Trading Room Moderator Gap, Intra-Day and Swing Trading Specialist Instructor and Traders Coach

As we near the end of the year, here is a look at the long-term to put the short-term gyrations in perspective. For the very bullish case, you want to see the markets consolidate at the top of the range. That is likely to be months. Pullbacks ideally hold the area of first support. A move to the area of second support makes the bullish case very questionable and would at least suggest a much longer period of consolidation. For the ultra-bearish, a clear break below last support, and tent-housing communities could be high-end living for many. All the best, PRISTINE - A Trading Style, Often Imitated, But NEVER Matched!!! Greg Capra President & CEO Pristine Capital Holdings, Inc.

Been lurking around for a little while now, and I like what I see in terms of community, so I've decided to take it upon myself to try out a little experiment. I'm going to take my analysis, AND my trading, out into public view on a pretty regular basis, to give some of you a good idea of how one trader runs their particular trading business. Since this is my first post here, i figure you might want some background info. I've been trading for almost 10 years now, successfully (more or less) for about 4. Yes, I do this for a living, although this year has been particularly tough for me. In my primary account, I'm holding a double digit return for this year (just barely), although I had a time of it a few weeks ago, and halved my yearly profit in about 3 days. It was absolutely terrible of me to do so, but all things considered, it would have only been about a month of profits from 2011 (which was a much better year for me). I've traded just about everything under the sun, though I currently am trading primarily a few futures markets (currencies, equities, and crude primarily, though I do others sometimes), as well as the spot forex markets. I also am getting more involved with equity stat arb, though it's not something i'll be discussing much at this point. I've traded options, stocks, bonds, ETF's, currencies, futures, even softs, so i've been around the block. My trading style : well, I really just focus on 3 indicators. The MACD, an RSI, and a 21 period stochastic..... Just Kidding. I'm primarily a technical trader, but I don't subscribe to a single system or method or anything like that. I also consider the underlying fundamental drivers in the market, as well as near term and mid term sentiment. I've found if one wants to get the best results in the market, one must have a comprehensive understanding of what information other people in the world are basing their trading decisions on. For the record, I don't use any "indicators" though I will use a couple moving averages on occassion to filter for a strong trend. I have a few other tools, but I'd say moving averages is the closest I come to any "indicator" So, it probably seems like I should be doing pretty good eh? well, that's where you all come in.The problem is my head, and i've decided to really focus on some of the more positive aspects of the markets, as well as re-enforce all the necessary lessons and rules i've learned in the past... And the best way I know to do this is to teach it to those who care to listen. Not to mention trading is an isolated business, and I'm hoping this experiment here will give me an outlet to chat with like-minded folks. And most of you folks seem nice enough. Here is what you can expect: - Live, Realtime Trading in a real futures account. - An open "forum" for discussing trading, mine, yours, market thoughts in general, trading aspirations, just to shoot the shit, or even the most painless ways to commit suicide (common discussion for the "i don't use stops" group usually)... whatever. - A comprehensive trade analysis with some explanation behind it (as I feel compelled to do so anyway) - trading and the head game discussions. This will probably be my favorite topic, but who knows. - something akin to being a fly on the wall of the office of a real, full time trader. I will go into many things here, including more info about my method, setup, rules, etc... but it'll be an organic process. The only thing is it will require some mutual participation. I'm not gonna get anything out of this if there arn't any "students" who care to participate, or at least others who care to debate the finer points of the capital markets. So, as long as there is some participation, I'll be happy to roll stuff out. If that ends, (or doesn't begin)...well, I probably won't stick around. NOW: For the FIRST order of business: I will be hosting a live trading "chat-minar" over at anymeeting.com. It's obviously free, though I don't plan on doing any talking... just typing.. It's easier to keep it more casual that way, and that way I don't have to worry about filling "dead air" time. If you attend, you will get to see a general overview of my approach to trading, as well as watch, in real time, how I place my trades, and how much I make (or lose... as it very well may end up to be the case. we will just have to wait and see) I'll be starting the "chat-minar" after toyko opens, but before europe opens. I'm just going to basically have a screen up the entire time with a chart and my orders (if there are any) on it... so, it'll be something like "TraderCam" Here's a link to check out the TraderCam and learn how I trade from home: http://www.anymeeting.com/currencytraderx1 Also, the chat function on anymeeting.com kinda sucks. I'd prefer to start a skype group for this webinar here, so you can use anymeeting.com to watch the screen, and we can all discuss the markets via skype. If that's too much for ya, there is a chat function in anymeeting.com, it's just not ideal. But, for now if you don't have skype, don't worry about it. Anymeeting will do for today My skype name is: forextraderx Oh, and lets keep this positive folks. I know some of you are probably really cynical about anything remotely close to vendorspeak (and rightfully so!) But I'm not selling anything, and for some crazy reason i'm actually going to be doing this live... probably 2-4 times a week for quite a while if everyone (including me) is getting something out of it. While I'm not guaranteeing "A 93.6%+ win rate with my system!" I am guaranteeing live trading, in a real account, in real time, with plenty of premarket analysis, all just for the heck of it. So stop by, and lets talk trading and make some money! TraderX

What came first, the chicken or the egg? This question has bogged the minds of Philosophers and scientific know-it-alls for centuries. And I'm not the one that's going to provide you with the answer. After spending 28 seconds thinking about this matter, I decided that there are subjects more important to discuss here in terms of trading. Things that might present us the same dilemma. What comes first, consistency or profits? Now, this is a question that's in the mind of every aspiring trader. Well of course profits, you might say! You can't have consistency unless you perform several profitable trades. Consistency can't be construed to be just a streak of profitable trades. Even my mother can have several profitable trades, and she's not a trader, let alone consistent. A profitable winning streak can occur to any trader on a bullish run in the market, or be the product of sheer luck. So consistency must mean something more than just a bunch of profitable trades. Looking it up in the dictionary, consistency is defined as: "Reliability or uniformity of successive results or events". This uniformity starts, of course, with a well-developed trading plan. You simply can't be consistent if you're chasing any trading "opportunity" that you get from a friend or CNBC. Even if you're a technically trained trader, just possessing some knowledge of chart analysis won't make you automatically consistent. So, you learn a setup or two, and you're set! Of course, if it were that simple, even my mother could learn to be consistent. Of course that's not all there is to it! Setups alone don't make a trader. The same setup, under different market conditions, would produce different results. You need to learn a group of reliable setups, based on a proven method, and then learn to apply those under the ever-changing conditions of the markets. Read the last sentence again. Especially that last part. One of the key aspects of consistency is the fact that markets are environments in constant change. If markets were "scientifically correct" environments, where the same setup under similar circumstances would produce the same result, then achieving consistency would be a snap. But the markets are not laboratories. Thus, consistency would be defined as trading similar events under similar market conditions, and obtaining a good percentage of successful outcomes, while dealing in a logical and economical manner with the successful and unsuccessful outcomes. So what comes first? Profits or consistency? Well, I would have to say consistency. The proper use of setups, under proper market conditions, and under a strict trading plan that deals with the management of successful and unsuccessful trades would, under a disciplined approach, ultimately produce consistent profits. Now that's a concept that makes sense. KURT CAPRA Contributing Editor Instructor and Traders Coach

Currency Day Trading Systems differ in many ways, with some traders focusing on fundamental economic factors and other using charting analysis as the basis for positions.

On the heels of another MASSIVE European continent sovereign downgrade, plus the promise of UK & French downgrades, the market was saved again with a rumor. It wasn't just any rumor though, but the same old nonsensical Greek bailout rumor that never seems to grow old. With only a few minutes left in the day, the usual rumor was released to the usual financial outlets, before the close, that resulted in the usual change from a down day to a positive close. Isn't it odd that the bad news like MASSIVE SOVEREIGN DOWNGRADES are always released when the market is closed; however, good news is always released during the trading day? If I wasn't so jaded from so many obviously and bullishly rigged maneuvers by politicians and central banksters to achieve their preconceived outcomes, I'd say this was a freak occurrence. From experience, however, one must conclude that the timing of these things is completely controlled by the "powers that be" (read: Fed, Treasury, ECB, IMF, BOE, World Bank, BOJ, etc, etc). Any thoughts to the contrary show ones acute naiveté. Of course there are others who share this frustration and not just in the USSA. Another voice of reason comes from Godfrey Bloom of the UK Independence Party who excoriates the EU with, among other things, "The day must surely come when politicians, bureaucrats, and central bankers must be called to account by a fiscal crimes tribunal and sent to prison for a VERY LONG TIME!" Sadly, there isn't a single sorry politician (other than Ron Paul) or so-called financial journalist that will stand up and say the same. No sir, in the USSA it's all about "Go along to get along." After all, the slimy politicians need their palms greased and the so-called financial journalists need advertising dollars. Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called "experts." ____________________ Larry Levin Founder & President of TradingAdvantagetm (888) 755-3846