Nothing Beats Price Action, Everything Else is Derivative

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gymratnyc

Kind of early to ask such tough questions. .. :)

Let me try to answer as i understand price action in my world of a daytrader on a 5 minute chart trading the ES.

Looking at price on the screen your job is to identify what has happened during the day and interpreting that with a view what is coming next. Myself i look at where in my mind the different price levels caused fear and greed within the other traders minds. There are many different players in the game with varied tactics etc but one common thread that runs through all traders heads are those two basic human emotions. That can not be denied.

My job is to "ANTICIPATE" what the other players will do when price does what price will do. I care less WHY price will do what price will do, thats not my problem. My problem is to predict the next level either up or down based on price relative to the fear and greed from others.

Follow?

If i see a trend day as example and notice we have had 2 legs up and with narrow retraces along that intraday trend i am anticipating a 3rd leg as a continuation and might even consider to "add-on" if we get a "HOOK" up past the previous high. A 3rd leg up will cause more fear from those that are in losing trades and might throwin the towel. A 3rd leg up might cause greed in others like myself might consider doing ad-on, others might decide to jump on the trend because the peers are outperforming them. Price action is all you need to be in the other players shoes. Have fun, hope this helped.
 
Quote from austinp:


Every trader makes mistakes, zero exceptions. That's part of our profession as gamblers. Exiting those mistakes and entering the next favorable decision is critical to success. The fewer data points of decision necessary to take clear action, the greater our success will be.

.

beauty...
 
Quote from MandelbrotSet:

WOW, SPEAKING OF SURPRISES!

Look at today's (5/15/08) market action.

The financials were on a bull tear, volume was in alingment with the move, the internals confirmed it, and the bankers supported it.

So what happened at 2:30pm ET?

Blamo!

The market reverses, catching all the Bulls by surprise, and the Bears too I might add, who (no doubt) were reluctant to jump aboard what proved to be a substantial drop, closing the days' GAP UP for the ES and NQ, and nearly so for the YM.

What was the one tool that a trader could have used to determine what the most appropriate action to take would have been, out of all of those mentioned?

Price Action


Hey, thanks for posting ... :D



Bob Pisani on CNBC explained the reason for the sudden decline yesterday. VIX was too low, and traders got complacent.

So next time, if the VIX goes too low (whatever that means),
we can just short the market like crazy.
 
So if you are using price action you can't trade too early in the day, because you can't read peoples emotions or know where price is going? You have to wait for a trend to be established? Let's say you were trading S&P500 futures, 10:30am might be a bad time to get into a position versus 12pm, when the trend has been established.
 
Quote from greddy:

Bob Pisani on CNBC explained the reason for the sudden decline yesterday. VIX was too low, and traders got complacent.

So next time, if the VIX goes too low (whatever that means),
we can just short the market like crazy.
LOL ... I hope you're joking, but just in case you aren't, thanks for the input. :)
 
Accept it, if you need indicators you can't read price action well enough.

Nothing wrong with using indicators to complement your readings just accept the fact that you will be slower and by definition, inferior.

NN
 
Quote from Joab:

The only thing that I scratch is "my head" at how complicated all you folks make a simple process.

Trading is only a "3 horse" race - up down or sideways.

Figure this out and follow the path of least resistance and your golden.

But if you really want to add all that math then go for it.

I will be at my new 6000 sq ft cottage in Muskoka most of the summer relaxing while all you smart guys keep making life more complicated then it needs to be.


:)

:) Area of least resistance is easy to find.

The problem is holding in those inner demons for most people.
 
I am going to wade in these waters and risk sounding like a fool, which probably happens often, however:


there are many factors to the lag that we are discussing here

clean data is one,
filtered data is another,

if for example you use a PATS data feed and compare it to another, like RealTick, Tradestation or eSignal or otherwise and watch the two sources of T&S side by side

(obviously this is an exercise for your personal down time, not during a trade or waitint to take a trade)

then you will see lag in its purest and raw form. Choose from there which gives the best unfilitered data on the same high volume contract, whether you trade it or not. Pick any high volume contract on CME or CBOT or NYMEX and watch the price data being reported.

Now that you have selected whichever is best, whether the dome, or your charting package, or your broker's feed, then proceed from there.

Now,

T/A lag (technical analysis indicator)

the micro fraction of a second that it takes to assemble a bar and calculate the Close, or HLC/3 or OHLC/4 or wait until bar close and then calculate is all the lag that one can expect...

secondly, when you magnify that delay along with a filtered feed of tick or time/sales data, then you have a visably significant delay in chart recognition of what has happened and is happening at present.

(hope I haven't lost too many people thus far)

shoud I continue and finish this?
it might be surprising what can be derived from a honest expose'

((pm me))
 
Quote from athlonmank8:

:) Area of least resistance is easy to find.

The problem is holding in those inner demons for most people.

Could not have said it better and those true scalpers who consistently make money each week have mastered this... I am still working on the "master" part with my manual trading even after 10 years in the business.
 
Quote from MandelbrotSet:

Not long ago I (and several other ET regulars) got into a long drawn out discussion (ie, flame fest) regarding Indicators vs. Pure Price Action.

Whereas I had been on the fence before now I have to jump off of it and say that nothing beats price action, everything else is derviative and there is an inverse relationship between the complexity of the indicator (if one is used at all) and it's usability as a reliable trading tool (iow, if you do use an indicator, keep it to one, and KISS).

This one's for you, Stealth Trader. :)

Hope this helps anyone who's searching.

Good trading.


The important thing is that you found what works for you/Makes Money. That's all that counts. Good job :)
 
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