Most of us draw channels by hand since none of the approaches you listed work. The reason that they do not work is because of how they are programmed by programmers. I keep the right1/3 of my screen to the right of the forming bar. This space contains three channels of differing duration. The channels form shells.
Using channels is done to form an envelop of possible price movement. what happens on my charts is that the forming bar is stationary on my chart and as time passes the bars on my chart move, gradually, more and more to the left and then off the screen. this means that the annotated channelsals move at the same pace to the left as time passes.
You have never seen this happen before, I imagine. I believe that most people haven't either and this is quite foreign. 1,000's of these charts have been posted in ET over the years, however.
I give line weight and color to the channels. the brief channela are given thelightest grey width and they are callled traverses. The traverses are contained in channels that last longer and often there are 5 traverse of such a channel. It is common tohave two of these channels in the morning and twoin the afternoon. I refer to this as a daily M or W in appearance. Outside of these channels is a longer channel that is referred to as a shrt or intermediate term channel. This channel more or less sets a dynamic R and S.
So there is a punch line here. All of these channels have, as their right line, a line known as a trend line and the other side of the channel is drawn parallel to the trendline. This other channel line I call the left channel line.
At all time the price bar is forming inside these three shells of channela all of which extend into the future. This is not familiar to you at this time. there are many many people who expect their platform to give them everything needed to trade in an expert manner. That is simply not possible because of the quality of the available platforms. most platforms do not allw you to move where the forming bar is located and none of the automatic sheels or boundary representations ever project into the future.
This is the state of the quality of how people operate and how the trade. It does not go beyond advanced beginner or early. intermediate.
There are some things about channels that allow a person to continually make money and the concepts of drawdown and heat do not apply to these efforts.
Drawdown, heat and being "outside" of a mediocre platform contruct are high risk uncontrolled beginner trading situations caused by lack of experience and skills.
An expert approach must be deployed when a person gets to recognize: eliminating risk, no staying in trades on the wrong side of the markt, holding a position that is losing capital and losing time when the market is offering potential profits.
All of these conditions are recognizable by a person who is using the channel approach, especially if he is projecting them on three levels. Anyone who is not projecting annotations to the right of a forming bar is very deeply handicapped in trading. Not knowing the future envelope of price movemnt in advane is inexcusable since it is at all times available.
I will post a separate focussed post to make the above point.
Yes I am always in the market and whether it is a long or short; it depends upon the market direction. I stay on the correct (right) side of the market at all times.
There is no drawdown concept associated with this style of trading. The reason is that the actions taken are timely and that preclude a drawdown condition.
The "taking heat" is not a thing that should be part of any trading plan. People who do this have a much higher risk tolerance than I do. My risk tolerance is about 0.
