Probably not. Levels are price areas. I did not mean to imply that you should expect price to always or even most of the time make trade to a specific price value. That pullback you note in your last chart was a retest of the opening range low, imo. In an earlier post I said "at times price doesn't get as far as expected - that is information too." I doubt you grasp how I'm using these levels, and I'm sure you do not understand the why of my use of the tick charts - that you keep referring to it as "lower timeframe stuff" shows that you really miss what's important to me.
You do not need a tick chart or a 5 second chart, or even any chart at all, you could do the same thing on time and sales or even just watching the bid ask in your platform - All I'm watching for is to see which is moving the market - are prices being offered higher and higher, or bid lower and lower. It's about spotting the turns as Richard Wyckoff would say. Think like an old-time floor trader. A floor trader wouldn't think "ok, if 5 seconds from now price is higher I'll buy" or "well it looks like everyone else is buying, but just to be sure let me wait 'til 10:05 and then I'll buy too if price goes even higher sometime between 10:05 and 10:10." If you were in a pit of traders, you would have in your head certain price levels at which price had turned before, let's call them support and resistance prices, and then you would wait for price to get there, and then you would trade based on what you saw the traders around you doing - are buyers willing to keep paying higher and higher leading sellers to continually raise their offers? Or does the expected demand not materialize, and sellers begin offering to sell at prices below the prior support level to entice buyers to buy what they got to sell? All I'm trying to do is "listen" and "see" what other traders are doing. You seem focused on small stops (ironic for someone who let a trade run 20+ points against himself). But I'm not trying to trade with a small stop - that is not and never was my goal. The ability to do so is the result of my learning to spot the shifts where buyers or sellers yield to the other as early as possible and creating a trading plan that enables me to do so at areas where there is a higher probability of such a shift occurring, imo.
I certainly do not have the knowledge to address much of what you say, but it is my feeling that much of what you say culminates in the transaction price. If each next transaction is at a higher price, then buyers are willing to pay more than what sellers are willing to accept. This then creates an up wave until everyone gets a little exhausted and sellers now overwhelm the buyers in that they are able to offer less and less without buyers stepping in. If enough buyers step in to push price higher before we even reach the previous low point, then we have a higher low. If this buying surpasses the previous high, then we have a higher high, and now an up trend. If this should happen at a level that has been important in the past, then its very good reason to assume that we can go long.
As you say at the beginning, the fact that price didn't even reach 4119 two hours after the open shows that buyers were too willing to buy, and hence is extremely bullish. This is how I understand it.
I am quite intrigued to actually read more of what you have to say, but to be honest, I am getting a bit frustrated.
I've got excellent people here helping me, but each of them is different and trades completely differently. Db would say that every transaction is important, but ND has put anything below the 1 minute bar in the category of noise. This certainly works for her, but I imagine that both you and Db would disagree with this. I also believe that KDASFTG trades what would mostly be patterns, and this is completely in the opposite direction of what Db would encourage. Absolutely each trade will have a random outcome since we never know if enough buyers will step in once we go long, but watching these buying and selling waves is certainly much better than watching bars.
I absolutely respect ND, but when she writes in capitals that I am on the wrong path, this is extremely discouraging, and nobody here is backing me up who has been on this same journey and trading via the imbalances between demand and supply. I also very much respect KDA, but his points are that my analysis is not particularly important when I would counter that is has actually quite opened my eyes and I explained quite well in my charts why most of my trades today should not have been taken... based on the market, not by how I feel.
To be honest, I'm also a bit sad that you feel as if everything is lost on me. You might be right, but it doesn't feel that way to me. Holding a losing trade for a 20 point loss is not a reflection of my understanding, its a reflection of my hopes and fears and lack of discipline. You have also so clearly outlined what you look for to go long and short, and shown this to me in the charts you so kindly put together, but now you steer off in a slightly different direction saying that its about something totally different and that you doubt that I even grasp what you're doing with these charts. The reason why I keep saying lower time frame is because the buying and selling waves are lost in the one minute charts, but when you zoom in, right down to the tick level, then its there. But now I'm still left wondering why after illustrating so well what you look for in charts, you're almost taking away their significance.
I really hesitated posting my results today because each time in the past, I feel as if I just had people jumping on me. But at the same time, I have always gotten something useful out of doing so.... I have learned something new. But today it honestly feels like everyone is ganging up on me.... and I'm already down for my stupidity as shown with my trading. I've managed to get right back up on the horse and do some damn good study, but here I'm having do defend myself from every angle and its not easy.
