ES Journal - 2019/2020

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Overnight said:
I think you are using TA as a cover, and are using your gut to guide your decisions but are too meek to admit it. TA broke 18 months ago man!
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It got fixed under warranty. Usually a case of operator error anyway.
 
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So we got a small (in current environment) smack from 2878ish (I put 2874 below, no idea why, I was looking at the open/close of the 4H candles at the swing high and had 2878 in my journal, my mistake) of around 25 points before making a new high. We have now hit the big Daily level at 2964ish (the close before the gap lower, also big context to the left) and sold off for a couple of days. I think it is quite possible we go back to test the lows gained on the 21st/22nd in the 2730s before we make a new high. Possible we head lower, but the market still feels reasonably strong on the higher time frames.

ES-Daily-20200502.png


That is my higher time frame blueprint anyway, there are levels between here and the 2730s for scalps, but bigger picture I think that is where we are headed.

mrtimharrington said:
Not really posted too many times in here but think the action this week is worth noting.

For the first time since this up move started on the 22nd March we closed below the swing low that gave the most recent high on the 4H (to me a swing is at least two candles on the time frame in question, preferably in the opposite direction of the current swing), the only other time we got close was in early April (note the swing low I have drawn from 3rd April is a few ticks above the swing low of 29th March that we did not close below). Thinking of this in basic TA terms, the trend on the 4H was broken on the 21st as we closed below the swing low that gave the most recent high;

View attachment 226113

What does this mean? To me in my trading it is a sign of weakness, the first real sign of weakness since early April and the first time we have lost a level I would consider significant (in terms of swing lows) on the 4H. It does not mean we short at that point and expect a big dump, indeed it is usually a buy signal from the next level in the progression (I had 2724 and 2718 next, levels gained from swing low on the 13th April, 4H and 15M time frames respectively).

We now look to be back on our way up to test the highs we lost on the 16th (2874ish, but that has been tested already if you look at the 4H). It is possible we get smacked from there to a new low below the 21st, but more likely (imo) we get a new high above the 16th and then get a more sizeable smack from the next level in the progression at a new high. It is then possible we get a bigger smack to below the 21st - this is how the market tends to set up the bigger moves (think of it as accumulation/distribution, we are simply testing levels of supply/demand to setup the bigger move - to me that is all a/d is - testing of levels before the bigger smack/pop).

This is all part of my process of mapping out what is most likely to happen going forward and gives me a framework for decision making.
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Overnight said:
I think you are using TA as a cover, and are using your gut to guide your decisions but are too meek to admit it. TA broke 18 months ago man!
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Much (almost all) of what passes for TA is not TA. Or maybe it is - but it has nothing to do with trading by price. Heck, most who post to ET, stocktwits, Facebook groups, twitter etc. don't even know how to draw a correct trend line. And yet it's just the simple toddler exercise "connect the dots." A child can do it!

But most adults here and elsewhere who wish to employ the technique to help analyze the market can't do it at all from what I have seen. The problem is that most adults think themselves much more clever than they are. Trading by price requires a level of humility before what one can and cannot control to which most cannot rise.

Here is the market before we begin to see it for anything other than a bunch of seemingly random data points. How the heck can we trade that? It's random! There is no order! Any and every trade is a crap shoot!:

Which Trader Are You.PNG


But, we are told, there is order. All is not random. And if we learn a few tools to analyze the market from a technical perspective, its order will be revealed and we can then trade profitably. And this is true. Done correctly, we can connect the dots and find what the "hidden order" is, so to speak, in the market. And doing so is beauty and happiness (profits):

Do you trade the market you see.PNG


But what in fact happens for most folks is that they disregard the order of the dots. They "see" dots where there are none or project dots into a future they have no reason to expect.

They interpret the question: "What do you see?" to mean "What do you want to see?"

And as a result, they do not trade the market as it is. They trade the market as they would have it be. Same data, presented to their eyes in the same order. But they then use their minds to order it differently, and to add information that isn't there. And so the market, to them, looks like this, all ugliness (losses):

do you trade the market you want to see.PNG


If only folks would simply connect the dots as they unfold before them, they would be much more happy trading the market as it truly is.

I trade by price. Every trade I make has a known probability before I Place the trade. There is entry, stop loss, and profit target that are selected by the market and what it is likely to offer, not what I wish to take from it. TA may indeed be broke.

Trading by price is forever. It's connect the dots.
 
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NQurious said:
Much (almost all) of what passes for TA is not TA. Or maybe it is - but it has nothing to do with trading by price. Heck, most who post to ET, stocktwits, Facebook groups, twitter etc. don't even know how to draw a correct trend line. And yet it's just the simple toddler exercise "connect the dots." A child can do it!

But most adults here and elsewhere who wish to employ the technique to help analyze the market can't do it at all from what I have seen. The problem is that most adults think themselves much more clever than they are. Trading by price requires a level of humility before what one can and cannot control to which most cannot rise.

Here is the market before we begin to see it for anything other than a bunch of seemingly random data points. How the heck can we trade that? It's random! There is no order! Any and every trade is a crap shoot!:

View attachment 226746

But, we are told, there is order. All is not random. And if we learn a few tools to analyze the market from a technical perspective, its order will be revealed and we can then trade profitably. And this is true. Done correctly, we can connect the dots and find what the "hidden order" so to speak, in the market. And doing so is beauty and happiness (profits):

View attachment 226747

But what in fact happens for most folks is that they disregard the order of the dots. They "see" dots where there are none or project dots into a future they have no reason to expect.

They interpret the question: "What do you see?" to mean "What do you want to see?"

And as a result, they do not trade the market as it is. They trade the market as they would have it be. Which looks like this, all ugliness (losses):

View attachment 226744

If only folks would simply connect the dots as they unfold before them, they would be much more happy trading the market as it truly is.

I trade by price. Every trade I make has a known probability before I Place the trade. There is entry, stop loss, and profit target that are selected by the market and what it is likely to offer, not what I wish to take from it. TA may indeed be broke.

Trading by price is forever. It's connect the dots.
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Excellent, hope it doesn't fall on deaf (or stupid) ears.
 
NQurious said:
Won't affect me one way or the other.

"We are the most free people in the world. One of our freedoms is a right to ignore science and do dumb things." - Al Brooks
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Thanks for the analogy NQurious.!! been guilty here of using my too complicated mind for connections that only existed in my beautiful/crazy mind..lol...connecting dots is a great comparison..
 
NQurious said:
Much (almost all) of what passes for TA is not TA. Or maybe it is - but it has nothing to do with trading by price. Heck, most who post to ET, stocktwits, Facebook groups, twitter etc. don't even know how to draw a correct trend line. And yet it's just the simple toddler exercise "connect the dots." A child can do it!

But most adults here and elsewhere who wish to employ the technique to help analyze the market can't do it at all from what I have seen. The problem is that most adults think themselves much more clever than they are. Trading by price requires a level of humility before what one can and cannot control to which most cannot rise.

Here is the market before we begin to see it for anything other than a bunch of seemingly random data points. How the heck can we trade that? It's random! There is no order! Any and every trade is a crap shoot!:

View attachment 226746

But, we are told, there is order. All is not random. And if we learn a few tools to analyze the market from a technical perspective, its order will be revealed and we can then trade profitably. And this is true. Done correctly, we can connect the dots and find what the "hidden order" is, so to speak, in the market. And doing so is beauty and happiness (profits):

View attachment 226747

But what in fact happens for most folks is that they disregard the order of the dots. They "see" dots where there are none or project dots into a future they have no reason to expect.

They interpret the question: "What do you see?" to mean "What do you want to see?"

And as a result, they do not trade the market as it is. They trade the market as they would have it be. Same data, presented to their eyes in the same order. But they then use their minds to order it differently, and to add information that isn't there. And so the market, to them, looks like this, all ugliness (losses):

View attachment 226744

If only folks would simply connect the dots as they unfold before them, they would be much more happy trading the market as it truly is.

I trade by price. Every trade I make has a known probability before I Place the trade. There is entry, stop loss, and profit target that are selected by the market and what it is likely to offer, not what I wish to take from it. TA may indeed be broke.

Trading by price is forever. It's connect the dots.
More...



Excellent!

For almost every truly successful trader, he/she mostly always has obtained/acquired/distilled something out of ordinary wisdom and reach the realm beyond the common platitude that if you are smart and work hard and follow the plan you can succeed, for trading is such an unusual profession/business that failed so many intelligent and super working hard people; look around you can see so many engineers (including rocket scientists), doctors and lawyers have tempted in this business, and you can guess how many can eventually claim true success; in the meantime, you can see how many people spending thousands of hours studying and having traded for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years or more and are still struggling to achieve consistency.
 
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