Sounds like the books, but at least I won’t be flipping pages back and forth 20 times for a single example to try and figure out what he’s pointing out.
Question regarding Brooks' book
- Thread starter Ego
- Start date
The video course is a lot easier to negotiate than the books. While Al is no Shakespearean actor, he makes his points clear and if he repeats many points, they are points which bear repeating. The value in studying Al and it's considerable, is he will teach you to understand the story price is telling. If you can strip away bias and ego and observe the market as it is you can learn to trade. If you are simply looking for "setups that work" or magic indicators to tell you when to enter and exit, you will remain frustrated. I've spent thousands over the years on books, seminars, courses etc. and have found value in some and little to none in others but none have packed as much punch as Als videos.
I’m in, will spend the holiday break digging through it all. It’s not so expensive, it’s like 2x my average loss and if it can help prevent just two of them it pays for itself.
All the best.
@Ego That. The market is always, at all times, in a channel on some TF. A channel is simply a range that is tilted up or down.
The key is to learn the techniques Al teaches for trading the different aspects of the market cycle, as he calls it. You got spikes or BO's ….channel...range (sideways) followed by a BO. There are techniques for trading each. You will see the cycle over and over on any single TF you are focusing on. Use the wrong trading techniques in a market cycle and and the odds go against you. The cycle is the context you want to "see" before you start trading setups. Like I said the market is always in a channel. If you are on a 5 min chart in a sideways range go to a larger TF and you will see you are in a channel. That is the larger context. But since you are not trading a 1 hour chart but instead a 5 min chart you may look at the larger context but your focus is on the setups in market cycle of the 5 minute chart. Your concentration has to be on the 5 minute chart (if that is the TF you are trading), looking for setups in whatever cycle the 5 minute chart is in.
Look at todays chart in MES or ES for that matter. The first chart is a 5 minute chart. Bottom left (which I don't really show that well but you can look it up) from around 4:30 a.m. to around 7:45 a.m. chicago time there was sideways motions. That is a range. Around 7:15 a BO started. We get a PB around 7:35. That is the start of the channel. Channels start when a BO has a PB. RTH starts and we see this bull channel till about 9:30 The bull channel begins to morph into a range. We can see after the morphing that the range actually started around 9:00 a.m. maybe a little earlier. After 20 bars sideways we know we are in a range. So I start range scalping using range techniques. Actually I started scalping a few bars before 20 bars of sideways action using some other techniques I won't get into here. So from about bar 10:30 a trader can start scalping using range techniques Mr. Brooks teaches. By 11:50 we are in a successful BO out of the bottom of the range. This is usually good for 2 legs down. We are now in a tight channel with an implied PB on the 12:00 bar. I can't get into the difference in implied and actual PB's here (brooks teaches it all) but suffice it to say that the channel phase of the cycle begins at bar 12:00. Actually if you look at this on a larger TF the entire tight channel down on this chart is just a strong BO. But on a 5 min chart, which is what one is trading, it is a tight channel. So one is hopefully short by bar 12:00. What comes up next? Probably more down movement then an actual PB on 5 min chart likely followed by another leg down.
In summary...range...BO..channel..range..BO channel.
Remember I said the market is ALWAYS in a channel on some TF. Now look at a 1 hr chart of the same PA. See the channel? [/QUOTE]
So what happened on the 5 min chart? Well an actual PB. Then another leg down as I mentioned in my previous post that that is what was likely.
A way of gauging profit taking on these sort of BO's besides just saying "I will wait for a second leg down." is:
Look for measured moves. See two? Red one starts at top of strong move down to implied PB then same distance down or profit taking. Or use a nest MM. The nested is the dark blue MM. From around BO point (out of bottom of the range) to middle of implied PB to same distance down.
A way of gauging profit taking on these sort of BO's besides just saying "I will wait for a second leg down." is:
Look for measured moves. See two? Red one starts at top of strong move down to implied PB then same distance down or profit taking. Or use a nest MM. The nested is the dark blue MM. From around BO point (out of bottom of the range) to middle of implied PB to same distance down.
Wedge low, bear trap and a HLMTR
Standing back and viewing the forest.