Why doesn't Al Brooks use volume analysis concepts?

Consider these things:

Price is the value of volume.

Volume is simply transactions that have taken place

Volume can be low but price grinding up in a bull trend or bear trend the entire session. This Brooks calls SPBL (small pullback bull trends). It is program buying on low volume, purposely. Institutions are accumulating it. Buying every dip in small amounts. Every push by bearish forces is simply countered by bullish forces. Perhaps bullish programs are buying up in small quantities. Or perhaps sellers are backing off unwilling to sell at current prices so price is bid up and sellers are slowly feeding in out to buyers. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what is the picture being drawn…what is the story being told? It is more important “how” something happens than “why” it happens.

Why did Alabama beat Georgia yesterday? Ask @speedo..LOL. It doesn’t matter why, it is more important how. They simply dominated on all fronts. They unraveled Georgia much like the markets unravel traders. If you could chart the game it would be a bullish trend for Bama. Every bullish attempt by Georgia was countered by a stronger bearish attempt by Bama. Georgia was stuck in consolidations and BO attempts failed and Bama faded BO’s. BAMA caused the BO’s to fail then went the other way with the ball! Saban is GS taking money from Renaissance ROFLMAO.

All session long bullish and bearish pressures are in play. The stronger side will win for a bit then the other side will win for a bit. Markets cannot go straight up or straight down without opposite forces acting upon present forces or we cannot have a market. As these forces play out, the chart it drawn. A chart is nothing but a graphical representation of the extent and reach of market pressures as they are created and play out. Read that again! This is why price is king and volume is queen. But the queen often is the neck that turns the kings head! A cursory glance at Anna’s work (as I had never heard of her) would indicate she would probably appreciate that analogy.

See, those evolving pressures tells a story. Since 95% of the pressures are connected to institutions and 5% to retail it is imo safe to say we retailers don’t move the market. The market is “made” by institutions trading with and against each other. GS is not interested in yours or mine 10 ES contracts and the profit from them. They are interested in taking millions from some other institution or HFT firm…hedge funds etc ad nauseam. We retailers are potato chip money for them. We don’t comprise enough $$$ to be worth their time. That kinda shoots holes in the idea that smart money is out to get dumb money. Look the battle is smart money out to get smart money.
 
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Absolutely correct. A trader can use Brooks ideas of reading the markets and trading them for larger intraday trends employing things he teaches like measured moves…the type of day price is panning out….etc. I have in particular keyed in on applying Brooks ideas in scalping as that is my preferred way of trading. I don’t like sitting there watching price for 2 or 3 hours waiting to get a larger intraday setup to appear. I see many more scalping in and out opportunities as they abound, and can very often compound the profit from a previous trade by using scalping techniques.

The truth is profit can be made on almost any of the 81 bars of a 5m time frame chart. Price may move ..then stall…but it is going to move again. Price is constantly probing. One can learn to scalp the probes. And I usually don’t need volume to do this. I have done it both ways, with and without volume on the chart, and just find that for my preferred way of trading that seeing volume bars is not essential to success.

If you are curious in seeing price and volume combined into a one glance chart then equivolume charting may catch your interest. It is an oldie written originally in 1971.



Actually, my style is also scalping. It is mentally easier to take profit at specific small targets with higher probability. I am still trying to hold just a bit longer to get better profit. Like you, I also do not use volume (as I am trading CFD indicies which do not support volume like futures trading).
 
IMO, volume is more useful for stock trading (it can flags out fake moves where there is low volume but big price increases or high volume but low price increases). VWAP is a very useful thing to use as well.
 
he does not use indicators too.

he does briefly explain why he does not use indicators

in fact he does not fully explain his own concepts...such as entering a pb:H1/2 ....a H1/2 that occurs just after a consolidation...is suspect and usually does not go very far......this can be seen by studying historical charts very easily......if market is swing cleanly then this works like a dream.
he does not explain this or even point it out: Brooks throws you in the deep end and most sink.

whether price drives volume or volume drives price, chicken and egg situation....the fact remains is that volume does not determine profit.... only the value of price does....

there can be no doubt that volume leads the price.....but there is also no doubt that there is no way of knowing the exact amount of time in minutes that the volume leads.so you have to wait for an entry signal from price.......
and then that begs the question why bother with volume if you have to wait for an entry signal from price.

i have seen markets go up for 20-30% on very low volume........

IT is usual to believe that high volume is necessary to drive prices up when a sell vacuum can just as easily have the same effect.

if 75-85 % of the market participants do not sell what do you think will happen to price and what will the volume of transactions be?

price is the only reality and only price determines your profit
Good job in this post padu! Volume is a leading indicator. But I would argue that price is a BETTER leading indicator. “Price is the best indicator of price”. And as you say money is made on price not volume.
 
What is in the heart…our core beliefs…desires..passion…is what our mouths will blab about. It is also central to our actions. As I have quoted before…”we create our own reality in the markets”.
 
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What is in the heart…our core beliefs…desires..passion…is what our mouths will blab about. It is also central to our actions. As I have quoted before…”we create our own reality in the markets”.

I wish we could create the reality :D Market is always fickle. Just 1 bad trade will wipe out all gains.
 
What one believes about market manipulation…market noise…retail traders…institutions…price…volume….price patterns…risk….profit targets….R:R will affect ones trading strategies, techniques and executions. We also tend to read books that validate our underlying concepts. But they can be “rat poison” as Saban like to say. Saban said this time it was yummy rat poison ROFLMAO. The media fed it to Ga and Ga gobbled it down.

It is often more useful to read books that pick our underlying assumptions apart. Most assumed GA would trounce Bama or at minimum walk away with a win. A lot of people lost a lot of money betting on that assumption and belief. My own Dad who is a Bama fan at 88 years of age but who lives in MS said “Bama is gonna get a whipping”. That reminds me I got to call him and needle him a bit. People underestimated Bama because of the 2 point last minute win over Auburn. It was “how” Bama beat Auburn that boosted Bama’s psychologically and mentally and made them believe they could “do it”. Georgia likely believed it would be a Sunday afternoon picnic for them…a little stroll in the park on a sunny afternoon.
 
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