The Trouble With Scribbles
- Thread starter Buy1Sell2
- Start date
I love how anyone who challenges you with facts and charts you call a troll.
Had a friend who used his "magic circle", he would have to have chart have gridlines on chart that were so much height and width, one of Ganns patterns and buddy would put his plastic circle on screen, price would get to circle and he would either go long or short, surprising how many times it worked. But here is the thing, without money management rules in Trading Plan like price patterns and time, it was a losing entry method. Entries to me define risk, am in the market so I am risking so much and where I enter will dictate amount of risk, I already know getting in with a breakout of so many ticks, guy on other side of trade is taking profit. Longer I stay day trading, I am seeking just about anything will work if it been tested and don't stay in long.
Thank you, Handle. This is largely what I was trying to point out when I mentioned Chuck LeBeau's story about the old guy who was trading according to radio signals from Mars. One has to have at least some idea of where to enter, but the exact entry price is irrelevant. There are two ways to trade a breakout: up or down. The rest is trade management.
To tell Trader X, who happens to be terrified of taking the trade at all, that he should enter two points (or whatever) into the breakout with a ten-point stop would loosen his bowels. To tell him to use a one-tick stop would be no different that telling him to flush his money down the toilet. Both recommendations are arrogant as the Big Cheese is assuming that he knows what's best for everyone, least of all Trader X.
The trader, beginning or otherwise, who cannot spend a few hours or even a few evenings with replay in order to determine exactly how wide his stop should be when trading a breakout should pursue some other strategy. The width of somebody else's stop is of no pertinence whatsoever, much less their exact entry.
And yet, this is exactly what someone would say if they wanted to appear all knowing and wise, but at the same time, not really end up saying much so as they they cannot be made accountable in the future.
Here you say that its just a matter of figuring out how far above or below the line to enter, and yet, all along, we are supposed to also at the same time be following the balance between demand and supply. So you're advocating entries based both on behavior and simple math.
Perhaps my biggest beef is that between all the charts that you and 40D post, you make it seem like there are only a few suggested trades each day and because you point these out in your charts, that it should be obvious where the trade should have been taken and that there are no losing trades. Since there are no trades shown anyway, this of course absolves you of any need to back anything up.
It would be enlightening and extremely helpful for all the experts out there to show actual trades that don't work out but were in fact decent to take at the time. Without this, all we have is hindsight chart after hindsight chart of what could have been done, and many of us beginners are pretty good at that now.
When we hit 4419 at 13:50, there could have been reasons to take both a long and short. I sure do wonder what each of our so called experts did with this.
The following is from From wrbtrader, post #2 to this thread:
"I saw too many posts by traders that could not easily see the range or had problems understanding why its a range...there own words in the replies about posted charts by the scribble folks here and elsewhere online.
There's no mentoring occurring nor any hand holding. The scribble folks (those sharing their SLA method) are just sharing a "part" of a trade method and its your responsibility to develop your own complete trading plan around that partially shared trade method. Yet, I've seen others trying to learn how to scribble...some are making an effort (they understand their responsibilities) to develop a complete trading plan and they do discuss where they place protective stops, trailing stops and other trade management issues. I guess you've missed their message posts.
Lets take it a little further. Successful trading involves more than a trade method. Simply, even if the scribble folks discuss a trade method from entry to exit, trade management rules and such...its still only part of a trading plan. Thus, if you truly want the complete trading plan...you would then expect the scribble folks to teach you about proper capitalization, discipline, proper trading environment, proper trading equipment, market context, stress management, proper broker platform for the type of trading, proper trading instruments and many other things...all that stuff that completes a trading plan. You should also expect the scribble folks to examine all your trades and help you in real money trading conditions while the scribble method is being applied...along with the scribble folks ensuring that all the above tenets are in place for each trader learning the scribble method considering most folks put too much emphasis on a trade method while ignoring everything else that's equally important.
Seriously, why read just a few chapters about a trade method when you can read the entire book called trading plan...a book like that has never been written nor shared online.
My point, all the above tenets are equally important in a trading plan and its not realistic to expect someone to spend their time and energy teaching you everything...unless its real mentoring in person where the mentor verifies the student has all the above in place prior to placing a single trade. In fact, for most traders, the above tenets are the difference between being a successful trader versus being a losing trader. In other words, if you're going to complain about only getting a few pieces of a trade method...you should also be complaining about not getting a complete trading plan and you should be complaining about the scribble folks not ensuring you have all the tenets in place prior to trading.
Once again, there's no mentoring occurring at this forum and its just folks sharing a few pieces of the puzzle and everything else is the responsibility of the reader. Yeah, if you want to know a little about the other stuff I mentioned above...that too is your responsibility to ask questions instead of expecting to be spoon fed or nipple stuck in you mouth when you're hungry.
You're implying that your way of trading is the only way to make a buck. That's not true. Therefore, there's other ways to be profitable and consistently. Too many other types of traders like institutional traders, hedge funds, spreaders, professional traders are able to profit consistently while not trading your way.
By the way, a few of the most documented (verified) profitable traders do tons of analysis. To them its not over-analysis...just review some of the real-money trading competitions and the interviews of the top performers. My point is that everybody thinks differently than you. Thus, some folks are able to manage a lot of analysis while others like you can not or don't need to. That's life in any career. Also, keep in mind that the more experience in trading that someone has...the easier things may seem.
A simple method that's consistently profitable is accomplishing such because the trader has a deep and complex understanding of today's markets.
P.S. I see folks using scribbles posting real-time trades on twitter and stocktwits. In contrast, I do see real-time analysis (not trades) occasionally being posted here at Elitetrader.com to go along with the hindsight analysis. I think you're on a different planet.
P.S.S. I like the name scribbles...its catchy"
"I saw too many posts by traders that could not easily see the range or had problems understanding why its a range...there own words in the replies about posted charts by the scribble folks here and elsewhere online.
There's no mentoring occurring nor any hand holding. The scribble folks (those sharing their SLA method) are just sharing a "part" of a trade method and its your responsibility to develop your own complete trading plan around that partially shared trade method. Yet, I've seen others trying to learn how to scribble...some are making an effort (they understand their responsibilities) to develop a complete trading plan and they do discuss where they place protective stops, trailing stops and other trade management issues. I guess you've missed their message posts.
Lets take it a little further. Successful trading involves more than a trade method. Simply, even if the scribble folks discuss a trade method from entry to exit, trade management rules and such...its still only part of a trading plan. Thus, if you truly want the complete trading plan...you would then expect the scribble folks to teach you about proper capitalization, discipline, proper trading environment, proper trading equipment, market context, stress management, proper broker platform for the type of trading, proper trading instruments and many other things...all that stuff that completes a trading plan. You should also expect the scribble folks to examine all your trades and help you in real money trading conditions while the scribble method is being applied...along with the scribble folks ensuring that all the above tenets are in place for each trader learning the scribble method considering most folks put too much emphasis on a trade method while ignoring everything else that's equally important.
Seriously, why read just a few chapters about a trade method when you can read the entire book called trading plan...a book like that has never been written nor shared online.
My point, all the above tenets are equally important in a trading plan and its not realistic to expect someone to spend their time and energy teaching you everything...unless its real mentoring in person where the mentor verifies the student has all the above in place prior to placing a single trade. In fact, for most traders, the above tenets are the difference between being a successful trader versus being a losing trader. In other words, if you're going to complain about only getting a few pieces of a trade method...you should also be complaining about not getting a complete trading plan and you should be complaining about the scribble folks not ensuring you have all the tenets in place prior to trading.
Once again, there's no mentoring occurring at this forum and its just folks sharing a few pieces of the puzzle and everything else is the responsibility of the reader. Yeah, if you want to know a little about the other stuff I mentioned above...that too is your responsibility to ask questions instead of expecting to be spoon fed or nipple stuck in you mouth when you're hungry.
You're implying that your way of trading is the only way to make a buck. That's not true. Therefore, there's other ways to be profitable and consistently. Too many other types of traders like institutional traders, hedge funds, spreaders, professional traders are able to profit consistently while not trading your way.
By the way, a few of the most documented (verified) profitable traders do tons of analysis. To them its not over-analysis...just review some of the real-money trading competitions and the interviews of the top performers. My point is that everybody thinks differently than you. Thus, some folks are able to manage a lot of analysis while others like you can not or don't need to. That's life in any career. Also, keep in mind that the more experience in trading that someone has...the easier things may seem.
A simple method that's consistently profitable is accomplishing such because the trader has a deep and complex understanding of today's markets.
P.S. I see folks using scribbles posting real-time trades on twitter and stocktwits. In contrast, I do see real-time analysis (not trades) occasionally being posted here at Elitetrader.com to go along with the hindsight analysis. I think you're on a different planet.
P.S.S. I like the name scribbles...its catchy"
And yet what good did it get me?
So what this essentially tells me, as I suspected, is that even though you want to teach by showing one or two things, what's really going on is way more complex that you need tons of screen time to learn. Its not as simple as a line break and then buying or selling the next RET. Its not as simple as shorting or going long at a predetermined level. This could very well be why nobody is showing consistent profits, other than supposedly 40D and Db.
This may also very well be why neither show their entries. There are tons of places where a trade could be initiated based on the rules they suggest, but where trades aren't in fact initiated because of some other sub-rule. If they showed their actual trades, they would perhaps hardly ever be according to the plan.
On the surface, we are presented with a rather simple trading plan that can be followed, yet when you get down to the nitty gritty, along with this has to actually come a very deep understanding of price action.
This is why, once again, for the 10th time at least, I keep suggesting that instead of these guys teaching what they think is important, they could just show their trades, because this would allow me to actually learn what they are doing, not trying to learn from what they are telling me they think is important.
There was a great dating study done where subjects were asked to describe their ideal mate, and after a speed dating session, notes were compared to see who they in fact wanted to go out with. Surprisingly, or rather not, depending on how you look at it, most people were attracted to someone not anything like what they described.
So with trading, I say instead of teaching me how to trade based on what you "think" you do and look at, why don't you show me how you actually trade. I bet that none of Db's entries are based on 1 point above or below a RET that is on a 1 minute chart.
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In some respects, I think spinning wheels is still better than totally giving up. I should be applauded for my continued perseverance. So many people on here whose stories I've read said they lost of years before they figured it out. I only started last February, and although I do feel quite behind, I do still feel quite in the running.
How you assume that life is passing me by I'm not sure, but thank-you for the inconsiderate jab.