Once one has worked with the SLA/AMT for a few months, or even a few weeks, he may find that he is able to pick up on behavioral nuances easier and faster than he thought. Why this is, I don't know. But some clearly go with this faster than others. If and when he is able to do this, he may find that the AMT half provides a better fit, and the SLA will become secondary. Or he may find that AMT is a continuing mystery and rely instead on the SLA to keep him out of the weeds and on the straight-and-narrow. I say this here because I may say things during the upcoming discussion that are not strictly kosher according to the master that is laid out in the SLA/AMT pdf. So if you start thinking Wait a minute, he said . . . , keep an open mind. Stay flexible. Breathe deeply.
I used hourly bars in the pdf because they are far easier to use than anything less and easier even than daily bars, though if daily bars are fine, then go with that. But bar intervals less than 60m present problems. The most obvious problem is that there are far fewer opportunities for entry, the chief reason being that there are far fewer retracements. A 1m interval will of course present far more twists and turns and moves and countermoves and so on than a 60m interval. This presents far more opportunities for entry and profit. But it also presents far more opportunities for loss. The undisciplined trader who also carries emotional baggage will not likely do well under these circumstances. Add to this the fact that the SLA is a trend-following approach, not a scalping approach. If price spends the day in a range, as it so often does, the trader will have nothing to do if he relies on the SLA since the SLA goes out of its way to prevent him from trading ranges.
The SLA, therefore, on the whole, presents far fewer opportunities using a smaller interval than the AMT approach does. Sometimes price launches itself into a trend right out of the gate. Sometimes it does nothing until late morning. Sometimes it sits there until the NY session is nearly over. So those who focus on the SLA without incorporating AMT into their trading aren't going to have a whole lot to do. (For what the AMT does all by itself, see the first post.)
The prep begins as all prep does, whether trading the SLA, AMT, or both: the weekly chart. Here I'm posting the weekly from the previous week, of the 6th (the weekly for the 13th couldn't be done until the end of the day). It shows that, while we had been in a down-sloping trend channel in the daily, the previous three weeks had failed to make a lower low. This led me to postulate that we might be creating a range, which is what accounts for that tentative demand line at what looked to be a good spot (I mean three weeks is three weeks; seemed to me that something was up, no pun intended).
In the meantime (meanwhile, back at the ranch), the dailies had been working their way higher. The first is from the day before. The second is of the morning of (pre-trading for the 13th). It this makes no sense, just go with the pictures. They're self-explanatory.
And then the hourly, to see what traders were up to during the night:
And then we focus on the territory for the upcoming session. A few minutes before the NY session begins, a range has formed between 54 and 59. But there's also a half-assed range from earlier in the night between 46 and 52 that may be important later (doesn't really matter what bar interval is used for this; 30m is too big, 1m is too small):
And here's where the trouble starts. Those who want to trade the SLA intraday are faced with a range from 54 to 59. Unless and until price breaks up past 59 or breaks down below 54, there is no trade unless one focuses on the AMT approach (post #1). If one insists on trading the SLA anyway, the losses can most likely be minimized, but the profits aren't going to amount to much, if only because by the time there's been a retracement after bouncing off the top or bottom, price is very nearly to the other side. Therefore, whatever profits might be made will be minimized as well.
Let's instead revisit the 60m bar interval, the one used for the pdf. In this particular example, AMT is helpful in locating a range. Once price breaks out of it, the SLA takes over, sort of like a tag team:
