Reading Charts in Real Time

[Marko23 10]

One contract sold at HOD, one contract sold at gap close.

Last contract with stop -3t, a bit more risk than break even.

 

[Marko23 10]

Last contract sold with +2t.

The "runner" didn't run and I didn't wait for the stop.

 

[Marko23 10]

Gets choppy

 

[Marko23 10]

EUR/USD with 3 pushes up since June.

 

[thalestrader 14]

Gets choppy

 

Good to see you back, Marko!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[Marko23 10]

The third contract is for this kind of move

 

[Marko23 10]

Good to see you back, Marko!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

 

Hi Thales,

 

this "race" thing had to cool off.

Looking forward to your blog.

[Marko23 10]

Elliottians may have spotted a triangle within the chop zone.

 

That is not necessary to trade the breakout with good profit.

 

Edited August 3, 2010 by Marko23

[Marko23 10]

Last posting for today: 129.03 was my last target.

If you think of Darvas, when you see this chart, yes!

 

Darvas and 1-2-3 are a good match. So we wait for Thales' blog...

 

[thalestrader 14]

Darvas and 1-2-3 are a good match.

 

Funny you should say that, Marko, as I just posted the folowing on another thread a few minutes ago:

 

This is true for the day trader, the short-term swing trader, and the long-term, long pull position trader alike - keeps risks small relative to your gains, protect your capital during unfavorable conditions, but have a method that gets you in at the earliest possible moment when the right conditions are potentially materializing. What is the 1-2-3 trade, after all, if not a method that allows one to attempt to get into the market just as a potentially out-sized swing is possibly getting underway? What is Darvas's box method other than a method that allows one to attempt to get into the market just as a potentially out-sized swing is possibly getting underway? What is William O'Neils's CANSLIM other than a method that allows one to attempt to get into the market just as a potentially out-sized swing is possibly getting underway? What is Loeb advising other than that one find and employ a method that allows one to attempt to get into the market just as a potentially out-sized swing is possibly getting underway? And what makes each of these speculative, in the sense I am here trying to get folks to see, is that each of these traders sought to make gains that dwarfed their initial risk, while keeping that initial risk as a reasonably small, reasonably well-controlled level.

 

I have read and studied hundred (sad to say and even sadder to admit) trading books, trading course, webinars, seminars, etc. and so on. But the handful of books and authors I repeatedly cite are all I found is necessary, and they all have some very important common elements running through them. Once of the goals I have for the blog is to idenitfy and make plain as many of these connections as we can find.

 

At any rate, thank you for the great charts you've been sharing lately. I have been enjoying them immensely.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[Marko23 10]

...

But the handful of books and authors I repeatedly cite are all I found is necessary, and they all have some very important common elements running through them. Once of the goals I have for the blog is to idenitfy and make plain as many of these connections as we can find.

...

 

Every trader has to distill his personal essence from the huge amount of "stuff" that's available. He adds his own observations and preferences to become a (very) individual member of "the big lab".

 

Sometimes but very seldom you may find two of them who came to similar conclusions.

 

Regards,

Marko

Edited August 4, 2010 by Marko23

[BlowFish 10]

Having said that I think there are probably some fundamental truths about 'price action', proponents seem to end up in a similar (if not the same) place. After all for price to go up it must make higher highs and, unless it is megaphoning , higher lows. For it to stop. that behaviour must cease.

 

I enjoy the charts too Marko .

[Marko23 10]

...

For it to stop. that behaviour must cease.

...

 

Exactly. Therefore in this example, a higher low was forming.

One must not read that small undercut as a down signal. At least during the minutes when it appears.

 

Later on things may look different. May be no higher high appears.

 

Edited August 4, 2010 by Marko23

[Marko23 10]

[Marko23 10]

Short has triggered, Stop will switch to Long.

 

ADP "numbers" at 14:15 local time.

 

 

No progress, I'm out, no trial of courage.

 

Edited August 4, 2010 by Marko23

[Marko23 10]

Getting out was ok.

The old setup would have been stopped twice.

 

[Marko23 10]

Recovered the small loss from early exit before ADP, couldn't post in time.

Sometimes even the 15m chart gets kind of fast-paced.

 

[SIUYA 11]

I was just reading the July 2010 issue of scientific American there was an interesting article on how babies think.

In it there is a small paragraph that I think is interesting regards trading, pattern recognition, context and systemised rules based trading, recent threads and Thales' teaching of the young un'.

 

So as I only had the hardcopy from a newsagent....the basis is on how babies learn and process things.

A basic theory is they adopt a very statistical Bayesian type model - others can describe it better than this but - "the Bayesian model comparison does not depend on the parameters used by each model. Instead, it considers the probability of the model considering all possible parameter values" Wkipedia

Basically it weighs up the odds of things occurring, rather than definite occurrences.

 

"Children reason in complex and subtle ways that cannot be explained by simple associations or rules. Further more, when children unconsiously use this Bayesian statistical analysis, they may actually be better than adults at considering unusual probabilities......."

(during an experiment using a machine) "adults seemed to rely more on their prior knowledge that things usually do not work that way, even though the evidence implied otherwise for the machine (in the experiment) in front of them."

 

In other words, when it comes to trading maybe as the great guidebook to life derived from the Simpsons suggests - "be like the boy".

[thalestrader 14]

Hi Folks,

 

So here is my plan: Sometime between now and the first full week of September, I will start a Reading Charts 2 thread here at TL. I hope to be able to resume my more regular day trading activities by then, and that thread should be something similar to this original thread. In the first post to that thread, I will put links back to some of the more important posts here.

 

Also, I signed up for one of those free google blogs at blogspot, and you can find it here:

 

The Speculator King

 

You can read the rest of my plan in detail there, but the reader's digest version has already been posted in this thread in this post:

 

My thought for the blog is for it to repeat the process I used to introduce my daughter to trading that is more or less outlined in the above quoted post. I'll move through one book at a time, and anyone interested can share his or here thoughts, ask questions, discuss the books, etc. through blog comments. As far as actual trading goes, I'd probably use daily stock charts initially and perhaps track a "William O'Neil-like" or "Gerald Loeb-like"starter account (basically a 5K[O'Neil] to 10K[Loeb] account where commitments are limited to one stock/5k or 10k unit of capital, and any one commitment must be closed out at either a profit or a loss before a new commitment is opened).

 

As I have thought about this project over the last few weeks, it occurred to me that what I did for my daughter was essentially to repeat her the same process I went through, only for her, I was able to cull the useless and distracting material from the good and beneficial material.

 

So, for the blog, I am essentially going to try to work through the material in the order in which its importance became apparent to me. This is not necessarily the order in which I actually read it. For example, the very first investing book I ever read was O'Neils's How to Make Money in Stocks. It became a very important book for me, but not until much later (and I do mean much later) after having reading Darvas and Livermore caused me to make connections that took me back to O'Neil.

 

 

I would ask though that cranks refrain from joining in.

 

That being said, I have to credit a couple of cranks here at TL for helping me to get a surprising clarity and direction for this project. Without them, I may not have realized myself how important Loeb's"speculative attitude" has been to my own development. So, since I will be able to edit and delete hostile comments and those that contain profanity at the blog, I have to say that "Cranks are welcome." I will have the ability to neutralize any harm they may seek to do, and you never know when one may spark an idea or direction that leads to pleasant, and, for me, at any rate, nostalgic surprises.

 

I'm not sure if posting the blog address here violates the TL TOS. If so, I apologize.

 

I have added the blog address to my contact info in my TL profile, which is allowed.

 

I hope you all help make the blog and the Reading Charts 2 thread as memorable and as enjoyable as this thread here has been!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[thalestrader 14]

Here are some of my thoughts on why I'm experiencing such stark contrasting results ... Thales overlays a rich contextual filter within his trade ideas...

 

As I have been going back through this thread while simultaneously re-reading the writings of some of my favorite traders, I have had the pleasant experience of finding that I do not know nearly as much as I thought I did about what I do.

 

For example, I remember balking at Midk's repeated insistence above that that there was something over and above the mechanical principles I was outlining here. I more than once asserted that this should be easy to learn, implying of course, that trading should be easy to teach.

 

While I still firmly believe it can be taught, I have come to see that it is probably not so easily learned. Of course, I knew, and have repeatedly made mention of how long it took for things to finally click for me, but I always felt the reason for that was my own inability to learn it quickly. That is still part of it, no doubt. But re-reading Darvas and Watts and Baruch and Livermore and Loeb and O'Neil over the last few weeks, as well as combing trough the many fine contributions to this thread by MidK and others has allowed me to gain a better perspective on this activity we in general call trading, and which I prefer, the more I ponder it, to call "speculating," (I don't mean to leave you others out, its just Midk's post was the catalyst for my present line of thought).

 

At any rate, I feel like I've gone back to grad school and I'm experiencing the joy of discovering new insights as well as re-discovering or re-thinking some new ones. Its rejuvenation, and I could almost convince myself that I have somehow found the fountain of youth. But alas, I am still no longer in my twenties, though I certainly feel as though I am.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[macdfx 10]

 

Also, I signed up for one of those free google blogs at blogspot, and you can find it here:

 

The Speculator King

 

I'm not sure if posting the blog address here violates the TL TOS. If so, I apologize.

 

I have added the blog address to my contact info in my TL profile, which is allowed.

 

No apologies needed. The new team at TL couldn't care less about enforcing the TOS against affiliate links anyway, so have at it. Since they're on your own blog, and not directly in TL, I doubt they'd have any issues with it at all.

[thalestrader 14]

... The new team at TL ....

 

For someone who landed at TL at basically the same time as the "new team," it might seem to some as though you are disproportionately disenchanted.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

[snowbird 10]

As I have been going back through this thread while simultaneously re-reading the writings of some of my favorite traders, I have had the pleasant experience of finding that I do not know nearly as much as I thought I did about what I do......

 

While I still firmly believe it can be taught, I have come to see that it is probably not so easily learned.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

 

We all fall into the trap of believing the key to trading is just waiting for us to grasp.

 

I fall into the slow learner camp!

 

snowbird

[Marko23 10]

That was a week ago

 

EUR/USD with 3 pushes up since June.

 

 

Here is the correction

 

[Cory2679 11]

As I have been going back through this thread while simultaneously re-reading the writings of some of my favorite traders, I have had the pleasant experience of finding that I do not know nearly as much as I thought I did about what I do.

 

For example, I remember balking at Midk's repeated insistence above that that there was something over and above the mechanical principles I was outlining here. I more than once asserted that this should be easy to learn, implying of course, that trading should be easy to teach.

 

While I still firmly believe it can be taught, I have come to see that it is probably not so easily learned. Of course, I knew, and have repeatedly made mention of how long it took for things to finally click for me, but I always felt the reason for that was my own inability to learn it quickly. That is still part of it, no doubt. But re-reading Darvas and Watts and Baruch and Livermore and Loeb and O'Neil over the last few weeks, as well as combing trough the many fine contributions to this thread by MidK and others has allowed me to gain a better perspective on this activity we in general call trading, and which I prefer, the more I ponder it, to call "speculating," (I don't mean to leave you others out, its just Midk's post was the catalyst for my present line of thought).

 

At any rate, I feel like I've gone back to grad school and I'm experiencing the joy of discovering new insights as well as re-discovering or re-thinking some new ones. Its rejuvenation, and I could almost convince myself that I have somehow found the fountain of youth. But alas, I am still no longer in my twenties, though I certainly feel as though I am.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Thales

 

What's particularly interesting to me is how you were able to convey the contextual considerations (in addition to basic concepts of charts/timeframes/how to physically trade with a platform, 123's & 2b's, position sizing, R-multiples, risk:reward, etc.) to your daughter in such an extremely short period of time (a month!). It has taken me months and months and months of full-time dedication to the approach to be able to show signs of consistency.