Quote from gmst:
Hi Logic_man - Very useful post. Thanks indeed.
Those unplanned trades were a blunder. I am confident that I won't take any such trades going forward.
I dipped my toes into E-W theory 2 yrs back but left it after working on it for a week or so. Currently, I am going through logical trader, and I do find it very useful. I am certain in future, I am going to overlay this framework upon my current trading practice.
From the way you describe and going forward if it works, what you have achieved is truly a masterpiece!! You are correct in saying I have disparate set-ups but no overarching theme to unite them => leading to discipline issues. Actually, last night, I have started thinking about classifying trading days into some groups - at the start of a day - so one classification for one day. The approach is pretty rudimentary right now, and I am hoping that overtime, I will be able to evolve it into something useful. However, its a very lofty goal indeed.
Let me ask you a question regarding your classifications into 55 different structures. Do these classifications change with intra-day data - so at 1000 EST, ES market might fall under one group and at 1100 EST, it might fall under another group OR is the classification fixed for the whole day? IMHO, classification fixed for daily data will be much easier to accomplish compared to classification that changes with intra-day data. If your classification does change intra-day, how many times on an average day, do you change the group under which ES falls? Thanks for your wisdom.
The variations are fixed in the way that Elliott Wave is fixed into patterns like flats, triangles, etc. Only, instead of a few patterns like Elliott Wave, I have 55 of them and there is no subjectivity involved in interpreting them, so that, unlike e-wave, any two people using my form of analysis would reach the same conclusion. It is possible that this number will grow in the future as the market evolves, but it has been pretty stable. I would say that my approach is "wave theory meets quant trading". One possible area of research for me would be in trying to discern subvariations within the "wildcard" pattern. It's relatively infrequent most of the time, but better understanding of it could lead to additional profitable trading opportunities.
I have another tool which enables me to classify price action with regards to time of day, so that is something separate. Since developing this tool, it has been a lifesaver in the sense that it has kept me out of numerous trades which would have been losers.
Anyway, getting back to your situation, I am glad to hear you are acquainted with both of the approaches I mentioned. One other approach which meets the same "mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive" criteria a lot of traders swear by is DeMark Indicators, although I am not personally familiar with them.
There is a famous (well, to some people) image of Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time in my opinion, where he breaks down every possible pitch location and how it relates to his hitting success or failure. This is what you want to do with the markets because it directly applies to trading.
http://www.thecrosshairstrader.com/2009/05/stock-traders-and-ted-williams-happy-zone/
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