switching gears to Price Action via SLA

So I decided to take a page out of Eminiman414's book with regard to replay. I sped everything up to 4x. What I hoped to accomplish by doing so was to see pace acceleration more and also notice more significant pauses. I think both occurred.

I marked some points of interest prior to the open on 12/2/13:
Overnight High = 97.50
Previous Day High = 96.50
Overnight Low = 87.25
Previous Day Low = 80.50
50% mark of up move since 0530 = 91.75

  1. Right at the open there was a bit of down movement, but it met the LSL but no more.
  2. Pace was definitely in play after the brief down move.
  3. Felt like a slight tug of war between buyers and sellers.
  4. Price plummeted quickly - was a strong reaction.
  5. Price screamed down through the 50% area (revised after HH).
  6. First slight pause.
  7. Seemed like the bottom fell out - definitive pace.
  8. Was 0951/0952 just a test of the overnight low?
  9. Lower High. First sign that it wouldn't be a "real" up move?
  10. Price seemed to camp out for a little bit. More hesitation from both sides.
  11. Though price wasn't just sideways, the movement felt more like that - not forceful.
  12. Price went through the LSH - marched right through that level.
  13. Yet another lower high after a push up.
  14. Another bounce off - more like a hot potato kind of response.
  15. Price making it's way back up to 92.
  16. Lower high - again? Same pattern as the last 2 times?
  17. Higher low this time too.
  18. Same high, but couldn't move any higher.
  19. Price did make a LL.
  20. Price didn't stay at this level for long.
  21. Popped back up past the LSH but it wasn't much of a push.
  22. Higher low.
  23. Rebounds up seem more fierce than the down moves.
  24. Felt like buyers took control. Stormed up and some pullback, but nothing pushing down.
  25. Buyers couldn't get price back up to what it was 30 minutes prior. Followed by a series of LHs and HLs - mostly LHs.
This was an interesting way to watch price because quick moves were much easier to see and the pauses that were more significant were seen while those that were just mini pauses sort of illustrated to me that they're just not that big of a deal. I will have to continue in this manner.
 
I hope this helps you out it def did for me. I speed up the replay for two weeks then once I went back to regular speed everything started to make sense. Another thing that helped was just using the lines, swings, and half way points as nothing more than reference points to compare the behavior of the ticker/price to. Example would be a slight break of a previous swing then a pause of price vs a rapid break etc. when the pauses, dead stops, accelerations and decelerations happen I look left.
 
eminiman414 said:
I hope this helps you out it def did for me. I speed up the replay for two weeks then once I went back to regular speed everything started to make sense. Another thing that helped was just using the lines, swings, and half way points as nothing more than reference points to compare the behavior of the ticker/price to. Example would be a slight break of a previous swing then a pause of price vs a rapid break etc. when the pauses, dead stops, accelerations and decelerations happen I look left.
More...

I still have some issues about seeing the traders under the bars, I will give your exercise a try and let you know how I do.
 
Something else that helped was basically ignoring the bar as a whole. When a wave of buying or selling is set and price begins to move in the opposite direction I focus on the activity of the ticker alone in relation to the high point, halfway, and low point of the previous wave basically using those points as almost a bracket and again the jumpiness or lack thereof on the ticker tells me what's up. When we move out of that bracket I look left and give myself a new reference point. I dunno it makes sense in my head. We will see how it all plays out once I make my plan.
 
Back to replay on 12/3/13. Started out with the replay speed at 4x, but had to slow it down to 2x as everything moved so quickly, I couldn't get a real feel for what was going on.

Prior to the open, the market had been in a mostly sideways shuffle from 0600. Inching up and then inching back down. Buyers and sellers were pretty comfortable in a 3.5 point range. About 10 minutes before the open, prices started rising.
  1. Opening pressure was down.
  2. Sharp rise with lots of pullback within the bar.
  3. As quickly as price rose in the bar, it had immediate pullback.
  4. Pressure to push prices lower.
  5. Pace down was incredible - like free falling off a cliff. Back to the overnight and previous day low range.
  6. Higher low.
  7. Lots of volatility
  8. New lower low, but price bounced off it like it didn't want to hang out there for long.
  9. Pushed past LSH and motored up. Incredible pace.
  10. Pullback occurred, but almost reluctantly.
  11. Higher high but not convincingly - like it gave everything it could to get there, but couldn't hold on.
  12. 2nd time at the same price and couldn't push any higher.
  13. Pullback, but not lower than the LSL.
  14. Busted through the previous high price and even higher than just after the open.
  15. As quickly as price rose, it fell in the same manner but didn't get back to the LSL.
  16. And then price went crashing through the LSL.
  17. Bouncing back up or a retrace for going down?
  18. Definitely not moving down. Back to the price just after the open.
  19. Easily moved past the overnight high area. Hung out there for a bit. Slight pullback, but nothing drastic.
  20. Price just seemed to pause for a while.
  21. Then it dropped quickly and paused again.
  22. Price seemed to want to go down, but was struggling to make it happen.
  23. Lower high or just a stopping point on the way back up?
  24. Higher lower high, but the pullback was more forceful than the price push.
  25. Flew through the LSL.
  26. Hesitation before heading back down and then it was steady - not crazy.
  27. Lower low occurred, but price bounced off it, past the LSH and seemed like it wanted to head back up to 87.
  28. But it didn't - took a turn south again.
  29. Previous pullback sure faked me out.
  30. Made it to 87 on that try.
  31. Couldn't go higher. Let's see how low the pullback is.
  32. Higher low but same low on the pullback - not lower than LSL.
  33. Barking dog but price didn't want to stay there. Bounced right back up.
  34. Then sellers took control.
It was almost nice for me to not want to speed things up and feel the swings back and forth of who was in control. I'm not saying I'm that much better at it, but I'm not rushing for something to happen - unless it's almost 11. The first hour and a half after the open tends to bring movement and some drama. Super fast speed isn't needed to keep my attention.

I still don't like what seems like violent pullbacks at times, but I see that if I were trading and using stops, sometimes I'd screw myself by putting in a particular level. So often, price hits a level and just bounces off in the opposite direction so damn fast. What a waste it would be to exit at that point??
 
I haven't gone away - just taking some time for reflection without an audience. I found myself focusing so much on what everyone ELSE was doing, seeing, learning, thinking that it was clouding my own work and how I was processing. It seemed that I was so easily influenced that the last thing I heard/read was like the "bright shiny object" that would be the key for me to figure it out -- and that doesn't work since trading is such a solo gig.

I'm still watching price and making observations. Public posting and a return to the chat room will hopefully occur again soon.
 
So I've been watching price and feeling like I have more of a handle on what I'm seeing. I've also been doing more reading on AMT because to be honest, the last day or so has seemed like magic with regard to those concepts.

Both the NQ and ES have had very similar movements and the ranges, midpoints and reversals have sort of been uncanny. I've re-read some of db's stuff on TL and have tried to really dig in. I don't think I was ready to understand some of this even just a few weeks ago. However, I still have so many questions. I'm hoping that the ET crowd can fill in some of the blanks for me.

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/trading/12809-getting-down-cases.html
This provided a great overview for reviewing prior history and determining what one might be looking for. I think I'm still messed up with regard to vocabulary.
---What does the "line of least resistance" mean?
---Support - keeps price from falling, right?
---Resistance - keeps price from rising, right?
---Based on how price moves up and down and different trading ranges, what used to be a line of support may become a line of resistance, correct?

http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/trading/12805-daytraders-only-tickq.html
This seemed interesting as it seems like a check point to see if there's harmony between the broader market and what the individual trader is seeing.
---Is TICKQ another data stream?
---Is it a symbol that one looks at like the NQ or ES or CL?
---What does it mean to buy strength or sell weakness?

dbphoenix said:
The message at this point is to focus on price, not on lines, and give price a little room to breathe. A lower high is a lower high, a rejection is a rejection, LLs and LHs create a downtrend, even though it may not be as pretty as the one in the book, and all of these convey a message that tells you who's in charge. If you know who's in charge, you'll be fine.
More...
Seeing certain price moves play out today sort of made things click more for me, but I still have some missing links.
 
gears said:
---What does the "line of least resistance" mean?
---Support - keeps price from falling, right?
---Resistance - keeps price from rising, right?
---Based on how price moves up and down and different trading ranges, what used to be a line of support may become a line of resistance, correct?
More...

The LOLR was a phrase coined by Wyckoff having to do with the direction providing the least resistance to price movement, i.e., who's in charge, is buying pressure heavier than selling pressure or vice-versa, are the upwaves of greater extent and duration than the selling waves or vice-versa? And so on.

I've tried all sorts of ways of explaining support and resistance over the years and never had much success. The primary accomplishment has been to motivate people to cover their charts with all sorts of lines. Therefore I now suggest that the trader just ignore it and go with the SLA. After a relatively brief period of time, he will develop a sense of when price is encountering resistance or finding support and whether or not each instance is important or trivial. If one just focuses on the SLA (the behavior), working one's way around support and resistance becomes automatic.


---Is TICKQ another data stream?
---Is it a symbol that one looks at like the NQ or ES or CL?
---What does it mean to buy strength or sell weakness?
More...

The TICKQ is the Nasdaq version of the NYSE TICK. You can google all this.

As far as buying strength and selling weakness, I'd need some context. Usually it's the opposite, though that requires some explanation. Otherwise you have the situation we've had in several of the journals over the past couple of days of traders shorting uptrends and buying downtrends. If you do a Ctrl+F of the file you're talking about using "strength", you should find the explanations you're looking for.
 
dbphoenix said:
Price formed a double top at the mean of the Nov TC a couple of hours ago (I'll assume nobody was up; Europe?). This may set the mood for the morning (the lower limit is around 3550).
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Posted by db in the Ghost thread this morning. This kind of info is so far off my radar at this point and I wonder if it's better for me to let this go for now, or if it would shed more light on things.

The first issue is that I don't know where the NovTC starts. I'm also not sure about the difference between the midpoint and the mean.

If I focus on this kind of thing, is that distracting me from really just paying attention to price?
 
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