Quote from jones247:
Nodoji,
thanks for taking the time to painstakingly provide the details on the fundamentals of price action trading... Please note that your efforts are highly appreciated by many.
Since you've stated that you probably won't write the book on daytrading, then perhaps you'll consider opening a trading room (with a discount to fledgling ET traders)
thanks again for your time...
Btw, which books would you recommed for becoming efficient with setups and trade management (i.e. Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar - Al Brooks; Trading in The Zone - Mark Douglas; Micro-Trend Trading for Daily Income - Thomas Carr; etc.)?
thanks,
Walter
Hi Walter,
I believe Kingjelly recently wrote my book:
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178741&perpage=10&pagenumber=1901
I really found Al Brooks and Mark Douglas to be the most useful books for me. I hadn't looked at Brooks book since reading most of it tediously over a 6-month period starting in August 2009, but I picked it up just last week and it appears that once you approach 10,000 hours of screen time, the book magically translates itself into plain English!
I was part of a Skype group for many months and discovered that every trader has to find their own path. Finding time frame, methodology and instrument(s) to trade that fit your comfort level is what will make or break you as a trader. You can read about high probability setups till you can draw them in your sleep, you can see them forming in real time, you can call them by name and you can know exactly what you're supposed to do when you see these setups. You can be in a chat room with me, and as a setup forms in real time I can tell you where to place an order, where to place a protective stop and where to target a minimum profit. But if you're not comfortable with any part of the process, you will not have positive results.
I had the privilege of spending day after day with a professional trader with decades of experience, and I couldn't bring myself to trade like he did and for the longest time he thought I was nuts for trading the way I did. I now fully understand how he trades and frequently trade that way, and he told me recently that since trading CL he decided I'm not nuts after all, the instrument I trade is nuts
One of my Skypemates relied heavily on trend lines. I remember one day we were watching CL (oil) sell off hard and in the middle a huge red bar in progress he said, "Looks like a good place to buy right here," and I thought he'd completely lost his mind, and price stopped cold about .03 from the price where he made his announcement and began running back up. Turns out he had a trend line drawn and price bounced right off the trend line like it was a trampoline. Although I now draw trend lines all day and trade off them, at that time it was simply not in my comfort zone to trade like that.
Another of my Skypemates was learning to trade and I was working with him on a particular price action trigger that had a very high rate of success. However, the method of trading required the ability to allow price to wiggle back and forth from green to red before the reward of a full profit target was attained. He had great difficulty holding trades to target because it just wasn't in his comfort zone to allow an unrealized gain reverse to an unrealized loss, even though more often than not the price went to full target or better, and average losses were significantly less than average profits.
You can learn trade setups and how to trade them anywhere, in books, on-line for free, on-line for a fee, and in trading rooms for free or for a fee. But none of that guarantees success.
Success comes from finding one or two setups you're really comfortable with, learning to trade them without hesitation, and following your rules for managing the trades.
Then as you accrue more screen time and experience, you'll begin to recognize additional types of setups and gradually add them to your repertoire.
I now trade about six different strategies whereas a year ago I traded maybe two.
