Perfect example of why Al Brooks is impossible to follow

[limitdown]

Quote from ChkitOut:

In his book he writes..

"The one-bar selloff at the Bar 9 M2S (a Low 2 at the EMA) was followed by an inside bar signal bar, creating another Breakout Pullback short entry on Bar 10."

Ok, here is the problem, what he calls a M2S is simply a second push down off the EMA but guess what? Bar 9 was the 3rd push down! you would have been stopped out at the second push down.

His entire book is filled with this crap. Simply impossible to follow someone who just makes things up as they go along.

<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=3770792>


The chart is from wiley website available for download to anyone even if you dont own the book.

very well said,

either too many hedge funds and massively large trading operations have programmed their systems to look for these patterns and break them, knowing that, that is where they can turn over a rock, and find so many retail customers there, waiting for the picking-off, or

or, those methods described no longer work. Either way to sunday, the description and the thought process is either frought with too much complication to be conveyed, or too many things are being included and tried to be explained, and are not necessary to convey the thought.

 

[lcranston]

Quote from limitdown:

either too many hedge funds and massively large trading operations have programmed their systems to look for these patterns and break them, knowing that, that is where they can turn over a rock, and find so many retail customers there, waiting for the picking-off, or

or, those methods described no longer work. Either way to sunday, the description and the thought process is either frought with too much complication to be conveyed, or too many things are being included and tried to be explained, and are not necessary to convey the thought.

Actually, assuming certain criteria are met, they do work. But, as you say, it needn't be nearly this complicated.

If there's some reason to suspect "7" (double top, lower high, etc), then one can short at either "9" or "12".

That's all there is to it. No need for all the kerfuffle.

 

[usrx201]

After spending a lot of time reading through Al Brook's original book, and having attended his live session for weeks. I saw that there are some serious discrepancies between the book and the actual live trading comments. What frustrated me the most was the term "always in long" vs. "always in short" which often invalidated setups referred to in the book. Another set of live comments would be "too many bear/bull bars previously".

But strangely Al has the incredible turtle patience to sit through the whole session and watch each 5min bar interminably form and Al is present most every trading day like it was a job where he had to show up and make the commute for. Seems like way too much an effort to put forward an elaborate ruse of non-trading.

I've since moved on to other more indicator dependent methods. But a few Brook's patterns often do occur like mentioned in the books. to name a couple: "3 push pattern", "breakout pullback", "two bar reversal". And realize Brook's isn't the only one teaching price action. There are other website vendors claiming to teach something similar. But Al so far seems to be one of few who put the topic into some series of textbooks. How does Suri Dudella's "patterns" book compare which I haven't read?

It's just too hard to see those patterns the way Al sees it. Much less learn to do it while waiting and watching 5 min bars form for hours. Maybe Al needs to have videos or some software training program where one is exposed to a set of 2000 "flashcards" of each pattern and viewer is asked to answer "is this a good H2" , or "is this a good M2L?" , or "is this a good EMA gap long" etc. like an optometrist going through their lens-flipping. "yes or no" ? next one, and the next and the next..

OP, you don't need feel this is the end of the road. You can take what you've learned from Brook's materials and form your own developing puzzle.

 

[lcranston]

Quote from usrx201:

After spending a lot of time reading through Al Brook's original book, and having attended his live session for weeks. I saw that there are some serious discrepancies between the book and the actual live trading comments. What frustrated me the most was the term "always in long" vs. "always in short" which often invalidated setups referred to in the book. Another set of live comments would be "too many bear/bull bars previously".

But strangely Al has the incredible turtle patience to sit through the whole session and watch each 5min bar interminably form and Al is present most every trading day like it was a job where he had to show up and make the commute for. Seems like way too much an effort to put forward an elaborate ruse of non-trading.

I've since moved on to other more indicator dependent methods. But a few Brook's patterns often do occur like mentioned in the books. to name a couple: "3 push pattern", "breakout pullback", "two bar reversal". And realize Brook's isn't the only one teaching price action. There are other website vendors claiming to teach something similar. But Al so far seems to be one of few who put the topic into some series of textbooks. How does Suri Dudella's "patterns" book compare which I haven't read?

It's just too hard to see those patterns the way Al sees it. Much less learn to do it while waiting and watching 5 min bars form for hours. Maybe Al needs to have videos or some software training program where one is exposed to a set of 2000 "flashcards" of each pattern and viewer is asked to answer "is this a good H2" , or "is this a good M2L?" , or "is this a good EMA gap long" etc. like an optometrist going through their lens-flipping. "yes or no" ? next one, and the next and the next..

OP, you don't need feel this is the end of the road. You can take what you've learned from Brook's materials and form your own developing puzzle.

The fundamental problem with Brooks -- and others of his ilk, like VSA -- is that he isn't really teaching (or trading, if he's trading) how to trade price action. He's teaching how to trade bars and patterns. The attention becomes so focused on the bars and patterns that they become indicators in themselves and the behavior of price itself becomes extraneous.

What is most unfortunate is that those who don't trade price begin to equate trading price action, or "PA", with this sort of nonsense and conclude that it's all a crock. Thus they continue to avoid looking at what is the basis of understanding how markets work and instead pour more money and time into efforts which are unlikely to provide success.

 

[ChkitOut]

Quote from lcranston:

The fundamental problem with Brooks -- and others of his ilk, like VSA -- is that he isn't really teaching (or trading, if he's trading) how to trade price action. He's teaching how to trade bars and patterns. The attention becomes so focused on the bars and patterns that they become indicators in themselves and the behavior of price itself becomes extraneous.

please explain more about this. your post sounds interesting. what would be an example of trading price action as opposed to trading bars or patterns.

 

[lcranston]

Quote from ChkitOut:

please explain more about this. your post sounds interesting. what would be an example of trading price action as opposed to trading bars or patterns.

Price moves continuously, not in bars. The most obvious example of this is a line chart. The market couldn't care less what kinds of bars or candles or whatever you use or whether or not you use any at all. You could also use a 1t chart or a T&S display.

If someone focuses on bars, you are most likely looking at a vendor with something to sell.

As to patterns, price of course creates patterns. So do clouds. But if one focuses on the pattern rather than on the trading that created the pattern, then he's trading geometry, not price action.

 

[ChkitOut]

Quote from lcranston:


As to patterns, price of course creates patterns. So do clouds. But if one focuses on the pattern rather than on the trading that created the pattern, then he's trading geometry, not price action.

so what would be an example of focusing on the trading that created the pattern.?

for example, if you see a triple bottom and you like trade trade triple bottoms looking for a reversal, then what?

 

[lcranston]

Quote from ChkitOut:

so what would be an example of focusing on the trading that created the pattern.?

for example, if you see a triple bottom and you like trade trade triple bottoms looking for a reversal, then what?

Well, it depends on whether you're just eyeballing it or you're using some aid, like a trendline or volume.

You don't know it's going to be a triple bottom until after the fact. So if you want to make the most of it, you have to be prepared to take the first "bottom", which you probably won't be able to do unless you've mapped support in advance. If you have, and you take it, you have to be prepared to exit immediately if price continues its decline rather than reverse to the upside.

If you choose not to take it, and price does not test the low, then you're left watching price take off without you. If price does test the low, then, again, you have to be prepared to take it and exit immediately if it doesn't do what you expect it to do. If you're using volume, volume should be lighter on the test. If you're using a trendline and it gets broken, then the odds of a reversal are a bit more in your favor.

If you insist on a triple bottom, you may not be trading much. When price reverses, you want to see buyers pouring in to shove price higher. The longer they crap around and make bottom after bottom, the more likely they don't have what it takes and price will resume its move down, like Friday with the NFP report. But if it's going to work, volume will be at its lightest on the third bottoming attempt. Volume is lighter because buyers are able to advance price with little interference from sellers (if sellers were being more aggressive, volume would be higher).

 

[wrbtrader]

Quote from ChkitOut:

so what would be an example of focusing on the trading that created the pattern.?

for example, if you see a triple bottom and you like trade trade triple bottoms looking for a reversal, then what?

Answer: Must have market context.

Without it...patterns, trade signals are tough to apply consistently profitable by themselves. Simply, there's a lot more to successful trading than just patterns and trade signals. Therefore, the issue is "what" caused that triple bottom in your example. If you know the "what"...you understand the market context for that particular price action on that particular trading day.

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from wrbtrader:

Answer: Must have market context.

Without it...patterns, trade signals are tough to apply consistently profitable by themselves. Simply, there's a lot more to successful trading than just patterns and trade signals. Therefore, the issue is "what" caused that triple bottom in your example. If you know the "what"...you understand the market context for that particular price action on that particular trading day.

I'll argue that if you understand the "what" and "context"--- the delusion of patterns becomes clearly unnecessary. suf