Hi david,
My pragmatic response to you was intended to give you a feeling of trading using SCT.
We both annotated the gap in a similar manner. The VE on bar 2 occurred and the close was in the zone. What you say is true from your observations.
Let me try to be helpful by my making a few comments and observations.
I am gald you noticed the bar 7 and the M1 and M2 on that portion of my annotated chart.
I am sure many people debrief by looking over charts. From this effort they are able to move forward in their learning, understanding and skill development. I have a shortcoming in that I cannot follow exectly what they are doing. But sometimes I catch a glimpse of their concerns.
Hypothetically I would like to review you log and see all the pages of the log for that day. I log on various intensities as demanded by the markets and, at the time, where I can contribute contemporarily to those who are logging in parallel with me or trading my calls as we sit gathered around our screens.
If on each bar you are using 12 columns (an arbitrary number to indicate there are columns for logging) and you have about 9 rows per 5 minute bar on your log, Then you can debrief at the end of the day and connect your trading print to your long and your chart annotations.
This 300 second intervals is interesting bcause there are standard times whereby the YM and ES coordinate. Then there is volume, and all the other panes on your screen. I my case I also regard another trading system concurrently to pass the time. I have two dDOM's running each in differing configurations.
After many years of mentoring, I have determined, roughly speaking, that I would need to talk four times faster than I can speak to provide a running account of what I sense, process along with my mind's inference and have the preception that results at that speaking rate.
Suffice to say there is a lot going on that needs attention and much more going on that is just digested "unconsciously". I am ussing the wrong word "unconsciously". By it I intend to convey that I am processing a lot of stuff and not having to do it in a "conscious vein of processsing. In other words much is processed and it is happening at a relatively brisk pace and all the time for up to 12 pages of logging per day.
You see that the relationship of VE and M1 and M2 is as you expresed. I see it differently and I express my position and orientation.
I would say most people visually sense the same thing for the most part. Preceptions vary widely, however.
The reason, from my viewpoint is the vast spectrum of variation in the "inference" that is summoned from each person's long term memory. Further the long term memory was built in an assortment of ways.
My view of VE and M1, M2 comes from my experience and yours comes from your experience.
Let me give you my experience of the M1 and M2 that occurred after the VE on bar 2.
The VE occurred very early in bar 2. It was not at the top of bar two. I looked for a downward move, then an upward move under the close of bar condition of being in the zone.
I saw a spike into the close and upon open of bar 3 and after 12 seconds a PRV that gave me a sub sub second move orientation (This is a pattern descriptive sentence).
So for you, your rules for VE and M1 and M2 do not work. I am, on the other hand, oriented to how my mind brings up for me the inference that is associated with what I am seeing. For me, part of bar 2 was a M1 and M2 took into consideration the end of bar 2 (close) and the beginning og bar 3 (open), after the open , then into bar 4 and to the accelerated ftt. The accelerated container included the VE and before the VE referential values, and M1 and M2.
The bar 7 VE was more slow motion.
In trading, there are parts of days that deserve various considerations. Thus, I calibrate myself for these considerations informally or unconsciously. Sometimes for the sake of communication, I do things like divide the day into parts according to volume pace. I have done, probably four or five such partitionaings using supporting kinds of illustrations.
All the aspects of SCT are subject to these various environments.
For example, take the person who is not interestd in trading but wants to make 75,000 dollars a year with one contract. He just trades to make 300 bucks a day or 6 ES points. Either bars 1 to 4 or 4 to 8 achieve the daily goal. After a couple of weeks he could add a contract or he could decide to think in terms of 150,000 dollars a year to support a life style. Either way he has to deal with a 30 minute period.
His problem is his mind and getting it to be effective (equipment considerations). He is efficient since he only devotes 30 minutes to trading daily. He only operates in one market pace environment: either bar 1's or bar 7's environment.
On the other hand, if a person looked at the calls I made for a day, then he may want to spend an occasional day trading once in a while. Full time trading is not a requirement for any life style pursuit.
So to see how VE's and M1 and M2's fit in, you must give yourself the opportunity to recognize being calibrated for a given environment.
The market's pace dictates what is observable DURING bar formation. Latter, when you looking at this "forming" process recorded on your logs and prints, you get to see what cannot be observed by looking at already completed day's worth of 81 bars.
We save camtasias of each day using the panes on the display. As day's logging using an old camtasia can take about 40 minutes. What you see is the forming of bars bar aftr bar.
In ET, people post short remarks about this and that. trading, on the other hand involves the continuity of thinking and how sensing nd inference blend together continually to provide "perception". Rules are not involved. Think of driving a car. When you come to a VE, you drive along and participate by staying in the lane provided for your driving. In various driving contexts and conditions, the things you obseerve and do, follow an order of events. You do not predict while driving; you just drive and take the profits from each segment you drive through.