Trading the NQ: Take 2
- Thread starter k p
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LOL... I completely drew up that chart as a joke actually. Db was saying how he wanted to see an example of someone trading the hourly bars, which I found funny that he is asking to see how someone is trading an hourly chart given that he never provides any example of how he is actually trading. So I drew up this lovely hindsight chart.
In truth, I find it very difficult to draw these lines because swing points are all over the place, and even though I know I didn't do them right on this sample chart, its even harder in real time.
I just wanted to make a funny post to Db's thread as a jab since I found it very odd for him to be asking how someone else is trading.
That's then why just some of the lines are drawn well and are dynamic in time. Joke or not, the diagonal lines are much more effective to use than horizontal lines. If one were to look at the journal of Lajax, they would see that a lot of times, the diagonal lines could be used to trade by (break up or down etc). However, there is way too much analysis of horizontal lines and "boxes" that have no basis on the trading that is done. I think it is very telling that no one yet has called a trade using SLA and I am in agreement with you in this regard.
Yeah, scalping isn't just about trying to capture ticks only. You also need the infrastructure to do it properly. For example, all the scalpers I know (not many) and some of the most famous scalpers...they all have an exchange seat so that they can get the special commission rates.
They are heavy into their DOM or anything that relates to it for their trades. Yeah, some use charts with DOM stuff but the charts are not their primary decision maker. There's other issues such as your location to the exchange, special dedicated lines, brokerage system that supports scalping and many other things.
Simply, retail traders walking around calling themselves "scalpers" without the proper infrastructure for such...they can't win.
There are thousands of different types of traders and I'm not sure why you're concentrating on two particular types of traders. Yet, the stuff those particular traders you mention...those analysis methods and trade signal methods have been around long before the ET members were born.
Those methods are discussed all over the internet (books, online articles, forums, twitter, stocktwits, Youtube and facebook) along with recorded video of live trades. Some of the Dukascopy trading competition winners use the stuff. In addition, the infamous Salon Du Trading Competition in France has a few competitors using these methods...that's an audited verified 50k capital trading competition...invitational only. Competition in front of a live audience, broker platform on a large screen for the audience to view each and every trade as they are occurring in real-time, judges auditing each trade...real trading while being questioned by the audience while trading.
My point is this, you're too fixated on folks here at ET using these methods that others outside of ET using the exact same method or versions of it with indicators...you're not aware of them because you've made your learning too personal to the individuals here at ET...above the methods itself. Thus, Elitetrader.com isn't the only place in town to learn about these methods. Simply, just because you can't persuade folks at ET to put on live demonstrations for you or can't get them to explain things for you in a way for you to understand while others do understand it...it does not imply its not being done because it is being done elsewhere outside of Elitetrader.com
That's a tough realization for us discretionary traders (traders not using automation). Yet, its something we must do if we seriously want to be successful at trading. We are the key in our trading plan. It doesn't matter how good the method is...if we can not resolve our own inner issues...the method isn't going to work and it will be very confusing.
What do we do when we're lost in the forrest...go to the sidelines and keep learning about the markets, trading...most importantly about yourself via how you interact with the markets. You can learn without trading until you get your trading plan setup, attitude correlated to be successful and so on.
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This sounds just incredible.. I wasn't aware of such a thing.
I fully agree. Before I got into this, I spent some time on other forums but I thought many were far too commercial so it made me actually settle on ET being the best. At this stage though, I'm not saying that I'm searing for someone to learn from who is calling out trades because I am clearly tuned to looking for different things so I just have to make my way work, but what I would like to see is a bit of demonstration of whatever someone is trying to teach.
When NoDoji teaches, her explanations are so precise that I can go to my chart and plot everything to show. A member PM'd me after she had her great explanation of how given my 2 point risk, and given that a long had been confirmed, that it gave a specific entry price to take into account the tight stop, and the message was how he used this on his own trading and it worked quite well for him that day.
So my point is that what NoDoji shows has a certain amount of application to it. Each time we are trying to get something firm from Db about how to go long or short above the range high or low, we are only met with a suggestion about testing, or watching the behavior at that level, etc. On many of his charts.. you see price BO, and then fail. No mention of these things... all that is every highlighted is when it works!
There is never any illustration of how to deal with breakouts failing... or the failure failing and price breaking out again. Worst of all, when it comes time to getting out, there is hardly any mention of that. The only answer is "trader's choice" for a stop exit. So although we are never getting any evidence of real trading, it would at least be nice to show some indication that a person is trading this for real and hence has actual losses and knows how to handle them. In many ways, I don't get the impression that any of this is traded in real time from the Scribble experts as only the best charts are shown. When hourly charts illustrate SLA well, Db uses those. When the daily moves are good and trending, Db uses SLA on the 1 min. Every chart shown is somehow geared to show the best possible way to show what happened. Don't just pick showing entries on 1 min chart when the exit from a range is clean and then show each possible RET entry when the move goes 50 points if you aren't gonna show each time this fails on other days.
Absolutely agree. What I learned through my losses was that I was taking the losses, but never taking the profits. A quick fix of holding out for +10 profit and -2 or -3 stop changed things dramatically. Its why I started up my journal again because I was having some success, but it was a bit premature. The other thing I see is that I'm always late into the move because I wanted to see more... but confirmation has been costing me too much in terms of points. This is why I went with 5 sec charts. Even there I think I hesitate, and with tight stops, this was causing some problems. Its really interesting to see how much of the reason for my losses has been because of the way I'm doing things. Even if I have the right idea, the implementation is still not as it should be. Whats worse is that even though I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, what I see I actually did by way of my entries wan't what I intended.
The above is why I say you're taking this too personal because you keep making this comparison between members while forgetting there are others here at ET that don't understand NoDoji and others here at ET that understand Dbphoenix.
Here's an analogy. In college I had this 300 level Genetics class. The class was taught once per semester and each semester had a different professor. I took the class that was being taught by one of the top researchers in the field.
Guess what...I dropped the class after failing the first two exams. My highest score was 15% while the class mean was around 75% and I studied my butt off. I just couldn't grasp what the guy was teaching and his TA (teaching assistants) were not any better. In contrast, three close friends didn't have any problems...they both Aced the class. The following semester I took the class again with a different professor. Everything made sense and the TAs were excellent. I Aced the class with a 91% while the mean was around 70%. Yet, someone else in the class that I was dating and much smarter than myself...she failed it and thought the teaching was horrible. Same book and study material for both semesters but the exams were different in wording about the exact same topic and the topic was being taught by someone different.
The above was not uncommon. I've talked to many fellow students at that time...they had similar like experience in many subjects...history, math, chemistry, sociology, anthropology, business ethics, medical ethics and on and on.
My point is this...you understand NoDoji and others do not...many learning complaints I've seen here at ET about NoDoji. You do not understand Dbphoenix and others do...many complaints I've seen here at ET about Dbphoenix. Thus, you will just click with someone that others don't click with and vice versa...its not the method. That's the reason why I specifically mentioned that these methods and analysis that you're talking about...its old stuff and has been around for many decades. There are folks out there that get it and others that do not...maybe its the person that's translating the info to you or maybe its just you that wasn't properly prepare to learn it.
Don't make it too personal and the fact that you continue making that comparison means you're still stuck. Seriously, no one here at this forum is mentoring you. Therefore, you need to take all the advice you get for what it is and not for what you want it to be.
Let it go because if the topic is that interesting to you...you can easily go elsewhere and learn it (amazon, youtube, facebook, another forum, your local library and so on).
So first and foremost, I have mostly let it go to be honest. I wanted to reply to your posts since you took the time to reply to me, but for the most part, I am just finding my own way since concrete enough answers aren't being shared.
But I would still like to maintain that there is a huge difference that isn't just about a different way to teach. The conclusion isn't simply that NoDoji and Db are doing the same thing, but slightly differently, so its no wonder that if someone understands Db, they might not understand ND and vice versa. I think there are critical differences to their fundamental approach, not just differences in how they teach.
NoDoji has said many times she doesn't look at behavior at all... its all about the bars. Db would say that one has to absolutely watch the bar form. This makes for a critical difference. Perhaps the other critical factor is that SLA is all about bars anyway, there is nothing to do with behavior as one could trade a static chart. But when you really dig into it, you see that in order to make it successful, you have to analyze the different types of retracements you can have, you have to use context of where they are, etc. Lately he has been all about ranges and just simply says to go long above the range, or short if price breaks out below it. So to be honest, I'm not even sure what he's trying to say. He keeps pushing people to SLA which is mechanical, and yet what he really wants to teach is behavior.
To be honest, I would just love to see some sort of implementation. Just yesterday in his hindsight or foresight threads he actually said that he wants to see someone trade the hourly bars. WTF? I commented saying that I'd love to see someone trade anything, never mind just the hourly. You've got guys showing up with zero posting history showing one chart of how much they made, never to be heard from again. When you have a raging 50 point trend, is not that hard to jump on board and just ride it. What do these guys do when price doesn't move as nicely?
So nobody is really showing any implementation. In fact, I'm sure the reason why nobody shows this, or even Db himself, it because there would be too many questions about why each entry is where it is. This of course comes back to that intuition we talked about before. There are simply too many SLA trades to skip, and too many trades to enter early before SLA would dictate. So showing an actual chart with entries and exits would actually prove SLA to not be the foundation of his trading. So how's that for a trading plan when you cannot even back up your trades and exits with your plan?
What SLA is, is a trend following system, which as you say has been around forever. But since the trader himself must make all the important rules, then not much is being shared really.
To be honest, I have no idea why I continue this, why I waste my time. I would love to see some transparency, but its obvious this will never happen. I have seen Db use some logical arguments against people, and although he might be right, I can clearly see that he cannot defend himself when he is put up to the task. My honest opinion is that my opinion still isn't fully formed, and I'm curious about the real answer. He is an expert on describing how the market works and extremely well read. But there is this line that hasn't been crossed, which is a demonstration of applying this knowledge, in real time. I can mark up a hindsight chart just as easily and point to a target, either up or down, and just say "lets see what traders do with".
Being critical of things you read online is just good practice, and I'm sad that at this point, there are just too many questions. Sure you can say that all the smart traders don't waste their time posting online and all that jazz. But if anything, most of the people who come to Db's defense don't have much credibility, cannot themselves demonstrate much without transparency, and are gone at the slightest bit of questioning.
Now clearly seeing someone else's trades isn't going to magically increase my performance, and that is the bottom line of course. But its still interesting to follow the discussion and see where it goes.