I think you misunderstood what I meant by no one gives you a chance, you are correct no doji has helped me a ton and db is no doubt a terrific trader that knows the market, i mean you have to do this yourself, any chatroom or journal following will not make you a good trader, you must have to have confidence in your own method to be successful and the only way to do that is by yourself, db won't admit it but I've learned more in the last 6 months following his thrreads than the last 10 years reading brooks and volman. I most certainly mean no disrespect to no doji or db.Well, I disagree, there are good people who give you the chance to learn how to do this properly, Db and ND have posted plans, and almost nobody has performed the basic tasks required to internalize them.
You cant trade other people´s plans, period, but you can use them as a base to build something you can test and be comfortable with while trading. There I agree with you, you have to do the homework in order for it to stick.
I guess is like learning to multiply by reading the multiplication chapter in your elementary math book, it just doesn't work that way.
By now I think we are hijacking Green´s journal, so we can follow this up somewhere else if you want.
Wyckoff's Monster
- Thread starter green.green
- Start date
I've decided to start again from the beginning so that there is no confusion about what this journal is about.
The First Step - is deciding what kind of trader you want to be...
- I want to make my living as a trader.
- I want to day trade as I like being in and out of the market most days. (Especially out when I'm done). I don't know if there is some ego involved in this or its mostly more engaging to me to "surf the smaller waves". I'm not exactly sure where the line is between "scalper" and "day trader" but I'm pretty sure I'm on the day trader side of it.
The Second Step - is deciding what your going to trade and when you're going to trade it...
- I'm currently studying the NQ and sim trading the NQ. I picked it for a lot of different reasons. Obviously it matches well with what others using this method are trading. I find the size of the tick to be psychologically easier for me than bigger tick values. It has plenty of liquidity and is therefore can be easily scaled. I also live on the West Coast and wake up at 5 am to trade the NQ pre-market. That's about the limit to how early I am able to wake up and function well.
- I currently trade off of a 133 tick chart. This affords me plenty of trades and enough time to think about the unfolding price action. I look at hourly and daily charts for support/resistance and the bigger picture.
- I have set aside the time to trade from 9 am (EST) until 1 pm every day. I suspect this is too big of a window to keep my focus up but that is the time I've carved out and I can end trading earlier and use the rest of the time to study or review the market.
The Third Step - is to develop your system...
- I am studying and plan on only trading SLA. This really speeds up step 3. I am currently in part 1 of step 3 - observation. Part 2 is develop a set of preliminary hypothesis, part 3 is to determine what strategy takes advantage of the hypothesis, part 4 is to define the setup for the strategy in part 3 and back test it.
My understanding is that everyone needs to complete part 1 and part 4 but SLA takes care of part 2 and 3.
The 4 key concepts to keep in mind during part 4 are demand/supply, support/resistance, price/(volume) and trending/ranging. So at some point after the observation phase I need to forward-test SLA and make sure I have rules I'm comfortable with for entering, managing and exiting trades for the three types of trades (reversal, breakout, retracement). Currently I am doing replays after the market closes and just working on drawing lines and studying price action.
Once these rules are in place then forward test them and make whatever modifications are necessary while collecting data on the results (win %, maximum loss, max # of consecutive losers etc.
Lastly comes paper trading then real money trading with regular re-evaluation.
I think that should bring us up to speed.
I have two questions about the process.
1 - I see other traders doing a scratching exercise but a search didn't turn up where this fits into the process (or even what exactly the exercise is). I'm not sure what phase this fits into?
2 - DBP has mentioned multiple times that SLA has been thoroughly tested and there is no need to test it further. If in step 3 I'm supposed to come up with my own rules for entry, exit and trade management then aren't I creating a new system which needs to be thoroughly tested on its own?
I will get to today's charts soon.
The First Step - is deciding what kind of trader you want to be...
- I want to make my living as a trader.
- I want to day trade as I like being in and out of the market most days. (Especially out when I'm done). I don't know if there is some ego involved in this or its mostly more engaging to me to "surf the smaller waves". I'm not exactly sure where the line is between "scalper" and "day trader" but I'm pretty sure I'm on the day trader side of it.
The Second Step - is deciding what your going to trade and when you're going to trade it...
- I'm currently studying the NQ and sim trading the NQ. I picked it for a lot of different reasons. Obviously it matches well with what others using this method are trading. I find the size of the tick to be psychologically easier for me than bigger tick values. It has plenty of liquidity and is therefore can be easily scaled. I also live on the West Coast and wake up at 5 am to trade the NQ pre-market. That's about the limit to how early I am able to wake up and function well.
- I currently trade off of a 133 tick chart. This affords me plenty of trades and enough time to think about the unfolding price action. I look at hourly and daily charts for support/resistance and the bigger picture.
- I have set aside the time to trade from 9 am (EST) until 1 pm every day. I suspect this is too big of a window to keep my focus up but that is the time I've carved out and I can end trading earlier and use the rest of the time to study or review the market.
The Third Step - is to develop your system...
- I am studying and plan on only trading SLA. This really speeds up step 3. I am currently in part 1 of step 3 - observation. Part 2 is develop a set of preliminary hypothesis, part 3 is to determine what strategy takes advantage of the hypothesis, part 4 is to define the setup for the strategy in part 3 and back test it.
My understanding is that everyone needs to complete part 1 and part 4 but SLA takes care of part 2 and 3.
The 4 key concepts to keep in mind during part 4 are demand/supply, support/resistance, price/(volume) and trending/ranging. So at some point after the observation phase I need to forward-test SLA and make sure I have rules I'm comfortable with for entering, managing and exiting trades for the three types of trades (reversal, breakout, retracement). Currently I am doing replays after the market closes and just working on drawing lines and studying price action.
Once these rules are in place then forward test them and make whatever modifications are necessary while collecting data on the results (win %, maximum loss, max # of consecutive losers etc.
Lastly comes paper trading then real money trading with regular re-evaluation.
I think that should bring us up to speed.
I have two questions about the process.
1 - I see other traders doing a scratching exercise but a search didn't turn up where this fits into the process (or even what exactly the exercise is). I'm not sure what phase this fits into?
2 - DBP has mentioned multiple times that SLA has been thoroughly tested and there is no need to test it further. If in step 3 I'm supposed to come up with my own rules for entry, exit and trade management then aren't I creating a new system which needs to be thoroughly tested on its own?
I will get to today's charts soon.
This simply means that the trade isn't doing what you expected it to do. The SLA will take you out when price breaks one or the other of the lines. But some people don't want to wait that long. Or they want to give price more room to breathe. All of which are perfectly okay. The SLA is adaptable. Unfortunately, some use this as an excuse to chicken out when they ought to stick with it and others use this as an excuse to hang on too long after the break. But the SLA will not shock you when you don't follow your plan, so there's really nothing that can be done about this unless one knows how to act as his own coach.
You can do what I do, but not everybody does, which is perfectly okay. If one is substantially FU, I can understand why he wouldn't want to trust anything or anybody until he's done his own testing, but, no, you don't have to come up with your own rules for entry, exit, and TM. Most beginners are so paralyzed by fear that the whole idea of "rules" is amusing at best.
As I've said my BS meter is pretty good and I trust my judgement on these things so in that sense I'm not substantially FU (in many others I am).
As for doing what you do - I'm comfortable with that and it seems like the fastest route to where I want to go. I'm just not sure what you do in all situations yet so there will be a research component for ironing out some of the smaller details.
Do you think part of doing what you do is using a 1 minute chart (vrs. 133 tick)? Or is that difference largely irrelevant?
I use a 1m chart because time is important. As for the other details, they're in the posts. If you've read the 40+ that are recommended in the first post to the Ghost thread, everything should be there.
As per DBP's recommendation I will be moving to a 1 minute chart. I've been studying Wyckoff's course and want to some day add volume to my analysis and tick chart volume obviously doesn't say much by itself.
Today's price action...
Feel like I getting a little crazy with S/R on the hourly.
Feel like I getting a little crazy with S/R on the hourly.
Nice lines, do you have replay? If you do, trace them again in real time. They will look different.
I do have replay and thanks for the suggestion. I actually charted live today but on a tick chart. I just drew new lines on the 1 minute after the market closed. I'll try to do a replay tonight. I'm not sure if I should pick a new day entirely or replay today while the price action is still in my mind.
you can't assume that any wannabe guru knows what they are talking about until you see trade statements. that goes for anyone.
.... you have never and will never see any wannabe guru post any trading statements.... ever.
.... you have never and will never see any wannabe guru post any trading statements.... ever.