Spydertrader's Jack Hershey Futures Trading Journal

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SPyderTrader,

Are we looking at the same chart?

I relabeled my chart to include bar 4. Don't VE bars occur when the LTL is pushed out. Bar 4 isn't anywhere near the LTR ( blue line ).
Same thing goes for Bar 10.

This might be a major misconception on my part.

Thanks for your reponse.
 

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Quote from 8833broc:

SPyderTrader,

Are we looking at the same chart?

I relabeled my chart to include bar 4. Don't VE bars occur when the LTL is pushed out. Bar 4 isn't anywhere near the LTR ( blue line ).
Same thing goes for Bar 10.

This might be a major misconception on my part.

Thanks for your reponse.
More...



I did the same thing myself, as Spyder.
I was looking at 9:30 as bar 1.
Then realized , you have 11:25 labeled bar 1.

Small error on my part, easily cleared up.
 
After some detective work this weekend, it seems the person resposible for the work producing the tick charts I posted on Friday is txuk.

I would like to thank txuk for his hard work in making these examples for us.

-Mike
 
Quote from FilterTip:

snip . . . Is there a difference between waiting to know what the market is doing
and waiting for the market to do what we know?
More...

When the latter happens you'll know your mind has made the shift. - EZ
 
Take a few days off, and I once again find myself 15-20 pages behind some excellent discussions. :) People are indeed still workin' hard - I'm convinced the efforts will be rewarded!

Just had a recollection after reading the posts about identifying FTT's and such. Spyder visited with several of us in Bearbelly's chat room back in June, at which time he offered several very helpful tips in regard to FTTs and flaws. Here is the link to Bearbelly's post where he provided access to the chat log. If anyone perhaps passed over it earlier, I'd highly recommend a thorough review of what Spy was telling us:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1493145#post1493145

Good luck on the journey ...
 
Quote from bundlemaker:

I would tend to agree with Spooz. When I used to sit and keep looking for FTT's, everything looked like FTT's. When I sit and watch for continuation or change, constantly asking myself what must come next, and being aware on what resolution level I'm on and need to be on; then and only then, the FTT's just sort of pop out at you.
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I recognize this very much. If you don't worry too much about the FTT you see the real ones. For me channels are more important at this moment than FTT's. I am happy if I know there was an FTT on a RTL break.

regards,
Ivo
 
Quote from Spydertrader:

Just over a year ago, I received an invite to attend a meeting out in Tucson. The participants of the meeting, for the most part, were individuals who wished to work together in an effort to nail down cold the 'Futures Methods' and to help build a web site. Prior to that meeting, I had never even looked at a Futures Chart. I had attended some of the Paltalk Futures Discussions back 3 or 4 years prior, but it all sounded so confusing back then (2003). As a result, I chose to stick with Equities. When I arrived at the meeting last June and looked at my first chart of the ES, I watched in amazement as I could 'see' the same patterns and sequences (I had followed for 3 years trading equities) repeat, over and over again, in futures. The difference was - what took a month in Equities to develop occurred in the span of 30 minutes on the ES.

So, I began to call the market during the meeting. "Better get short guys, that is Peak Volume right there. The market is going down," I'd say. Or, "That's a 'Bruno R' set up, so you all need to be long." Time after time, my ability to catch the turns seemed almost uncanny. To prove to myself that this wasn't just some fluke, I continued throughout the day to repeat the process, and then, I did the same thing the next day. By the end of the meeting I realized I needed to learn how this stuff all was supposed to work. In other words, I could 'see' the signals, but I had no idea why or how I could 'see' them. Because I had never read any of the Futures stuff, I then had to ask questions of all the others in attendance, "I'm I supposed to look at this indicator, or that? Why do I care about Volume again? Sweeps Chart? Huh? WTF is a damn flaw?!?!?!" I also had to learn the new vocabulary (Gaussian?? WTF is a Gaussian?). The same road you all travel now, I travelled last summer.

My problem was this. I could do it from the start, but had no idea why or how. The reason I could do it was that I had spent three years 'seeing' the same signals on Equities without recognizing it. In other words, I knew when to exit on Equities ("Well that Stock looks like its moved far enough. Time to sell."), but had no idea why I knew (it was because of an FTT it turns out).

As a result, I spent June until November (2006) trading and learning to follow the steps to knowledge. I started learning to draw channels (and oh you should see some of my crappy channels from back then), and followed Jack's Indicator Sequences" logic, but something seemed to be missing. I used all the tools, but still, something wasn't there. I could trade (and trade pretty well - even in tight range days of late summer), but I still didn't know why. Sometime in November of last year, the light bulb flashed, the lightening bolt hit, the fog had cleared - however one wishes to describe it. I simply closed my eyes, mentally went back in time to the days 40 - 50 years ago when Jack traded this stuff full time, and peered over his shoulder to 'see' what things occupied his desk.

As I mentally looked over Jack's shoulder back in the day, I could 'see' the contents of his desk. Phone, Pencils, a whole lot of Butcher Paper to draw the charts, Ruler to draw the lines. Now, what was on the charts? Hmmmmmm. MACD? Nope. Stochastics? Nope. T & S? Tic chart? DOM? Nope. Nope. Nope.

That left Price, Volume and maybe Str /Squ. O.K. So If Price and volume is there, that means Channels and Gaussians need to be there too, but what could Jack be looking for? What 'signal' did he hope to find? AHHA!!! The FTT!

After snapping back into reality and the present day, I immediately reviewed all my trades (posted to the Final Page of Journal One) to see where the FTT's fell. Sure enough, if I missed an FTT on an equities Trade, Price always went against me and I lost money, but if I caught the FTT, I did quite well in the trade. Once sure I had found what made the whole process work (differentiating between continuation and change), I made this post which described my 'overall' understanding of the methods. Since then, I have from time to time, stumbled across several AHA! Moments derived mostly from occasions when one part of my brain allows the other part of my brain in on what it already knows. In addition, I have shared everything I know (among these many pages) with respect to how I view the markets and 'see' the methodology unfold in real time.

To sum up this rather long story, many similarities exist between the road I travelled one year ago, and where you all find yourselves now. Differences exist as well. I stumbled through the same questions (only with answers scattered across ET and USENET) and relied on the generosity of others (Aurum, excav8Tr, Ireland, Jack, Koamana, Liz, Mak, Mikeytrader, Nwbprop, SVRZ, Txuk and a host of other usernames) to answer my questions at the time. The difference is I had three years of experience using the same methods in a different market. As a result, I understood things much faster, and I could 'see' things much clearer.

Believe me when I say, everything I have posted in this Journal has, at one time or another (at one location or another), been posted by someone else in the past (going back all the way to 1998). I simply filled the role of 'Rosetta Stone' and helped with the translation. Hopefully, many have found such a role useful to their endeavors.

Good trading to you all.

- Spydertrader
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Uh Spydie, real time volume has only been available since about 1997 with the advent of electronic GLOBEX trading. Prior to GLOBEX there was no live volume information reporting out of the pits. No Volume, no gaussians JUST PRICE. So how'd he do it ?
 
Quote from ^^^^^^:

Uh Spydie, real time volume has only been available since about 1997 with the advent of electronic GLOBEX trading. Prior to GLOBEX there was no live volume information reporting out of the pits. No Volume, no gaussians JUST PRICE. So how'd he do it ?
More...

I've personally seen the hand drawn charts with Volume included for equities dated prior to 1997. In fact, the last of the charts end in 1997. To be fair, these were EOD charts. How he obtained Volume for Intra-day charting, I do not know, nor do I care. I've never asked.

For all I know, Jack hired a guy to sit in the pits and count the number of dudes screaming at each other, and by using a second derivative of decibel level vector analysis, performed a boolean algebra test in an effort to determine continuation or change.

I bet if you asked him, rather than me, you'd get an answer though.

Good Trading to you.

- Spydertrader
 
Spydertrader,
Thanks for your contribution and service to educate us.
And, for putting up with the crap that some people spew.
sscott
 
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