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I wasn't sure where to put this, so the powers that be can move it if they see fit. I put it here for anyone who is just starting out and wondering what it really takes to become part of that elite club of profitable traders. I lurk on several trading forums. I join a few and make a few posts. One thing that I rarely see is the painful path one took to becoming successful. So for all you beginners here is what becoming successful took. For my fellow brethren that are already in the club have a good laugh. The markets had always lured me as a kid. I would read the paper and make predictions. Sometimes they were right; sometimes not. Then one day I got that famous commodity-trading flyer, sent my money off and took the plunge. My first stab at trading was commodities and I started with $5k in 1991. I was using the strategy as outlined by the guru. The account was gone within a few months. Well that didn’t work. I thought, people do this everyday and make money why not me. So off to the library. I read every book the Memphis library had on trading and investing. I paper traded the strategies I found while I built my bankroll back up. I learned exits, set-ups, position, expectancy, market psychology, and portfolio management. I soon realized that I was reading the same thing over and over no matter which book I checked out. Time to build my strategy. I am ready to do this. I bought a new computer, Metastock Pro 6.0, and opened an account with $30k. Its 1995, and this is my shot. By 1997 I was toast again. The family life went to hell in a hand basket, and I thought I could trade through the difficult times. The result was an account with a balance of $2500. Back to the drawing board. Took care of the personal stuff. Lived like a monk raising capital. Worked nights and watched the market during the day. Took a second job on the weekends to raise more money. Then one day out of the blue, the little red and green candles started to make sense. I saw patterns develop over and over in the same spots. I placed a trade and made a profit. But I had done this before. I removed the MACD from my charts. Placed another trade and made a profit. Maybe I am on to something. Removed the channel indicator that I stumbled across. I could still see the action and new what the MACD was doing and where the action was in the channel without them even being on the chart. I even stopped drawing trend lines. It was just me and the screen. I planned every trade. I knew exactly when, where, and why I entered and exited. I was patient. I became a predator. Lurking and waiting. I took every shot the market gave me. If it started to go wrong, I got out quick and waited. If the market did not give me an opening, oh well. There is always tomorrow. By the fall of 1999, I was consistently profitable and have been ever since. For those that are waiting for the sales pitch, there isn’t one. For those that are waiting for me to expose some great secret, well there isn’t one of those either. What I will give you are a few simple pointers that I learned the hard way. And the sad part is, most will stilll learn these the hardway. 1)Take everything you read with a grain of salt. That includes this post. 2)Never pay for a system. It is just not that easy. 3)If something comes up in your life that is distracting, stop trading. 4)Plan every aspect of your trade down to the smallest detail, and plan for every possible outcome. 5)Develop your own strategy. Don’t let someone tell you that you can’t trade a simple moving average if you truly believe you can. 6)Test the strategy in the market that you will be trading. If you like the results, trade it in another totally unrelated market and see if it still holds up. 7)Paper trading is ok, but there is nothing that truly tests the strategy like hard earned cash. 8)You will have to make sacrifices in order to make it. I still do. In the middle of my learning period I was working 18 hours a day during the week and 12 on the weekend. 9)You are responsible for everything when it comes to trading. That includes stop running, bad fills, limit moves, your PC crashing. I mean everything. See #4 10)And last but probably most important, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do like Edison and go, “Well that didn’t work”. Good trading to you all.

Donald, here is the pdf version of the book, if you are interested. While a bit "salesman-like" in its approach (all of what he claims cannot possibly be true or it would be the Holy Grail), it was packed full with pictures, commentary and helpful information. Enjoy. Profitable_Candlestick_Trading-HERE.pdf

I'm not one to make a habit of bumping old threads, but based on earlier discussion, this is clearly the best place to post a link to the original Wyckoff course: The Richard D Wyckoff Method of Trading and Investing in Stocks: A Course of Instruction in Stock Market Science and Technique. Wyckoff - Course.pdf

Hard to believe its been almost 11 years since we had a great year in this thread. I think of you guys still. I wish we could have a reunion week here for any of you who are still trading ... or even if you're not. Maybe the first or second week of June 2020. If interested, drop a note here and perhaps an email address if you don't plan on checking back. No more forex for me - just stocks, ES, and NQ. As always, Best Wishes, Thales

Here is something that should get pretty lively.. Since everyone keeps telling you that screen time is important, there has to be something to it. But nobody is telling you what you should be looking for. What is it going to teach you? There has to be something that those who do this for a living see that you don’t. Well there is. And just like the magician that exposed the secrets to magic tricks on national TV, I am going to tell you what we see. But before I do remember one thing. Take everything you read in a forum or book, or hear from a guru or in a seminar with a grain of salt. Question everything. Only when you prove it to yourself, does it become the rule. What I am about to share can be found on thousands of sites and in countless books. If you have done any research at all, you have come across Dr. Elder’s triple screen, or some permutation of it. You understand the principles behind using multiple frames of reference. What has most likely not been explained to you is why it works or how to apply it correctly. In most cases you are only given a single example. Single example you say? Yes, when most first stumble across using multiple time frames, they follow the rules of: Use the upper time frame to identify the trend, the middle time frame for the set-up, and the lowest time frame to enter. If by chance you are not familiar with the triple screen just goggle “triple screen +elder”. Trading instruments exhibt three different types of market action in any given frame of reference. You use multiple frames of reference (i.e. Time or ticks) to identify the current market environment. These markets are: Trending, Trading, and Volatile. Why screen time is so important is that all instruments do not exhibit the characteristics of Trending in the upper time frame, Trading in the middle, and Volatile in the lower at all times. They can be in any one of the following combinations at any given time: Trending/Trading/Volatile Trending/Volatile/Trading Trading/Volatile/Trending Trading/Trending/Volatile Volatile/Trending/Trading Volatile/Trading/Trending Or any one of 84 possible market combinations if you consider Volatile/Volatile/Volatile. Like the major pairs in Forex, the combinations I listed are what I consider the major market combinations. The elusive secret that you are looking for, and what screen time teaches you, is to identify which market combination you are in and then how to trade what you see. Or better yet, when to stay on the sidelines. Each combination requires a different strategy, and some may not be tradeable at all. If you are trading across a broad range of instruments, you only need to master one. The fewer instruments you trade, the more market combinations you may have to learn. But you have to learn them one at a time and only add the next one once the first is mastered. But you ask what about Trending/Trending/Trading? Or how about Volatile/Volatile/Volatile? Or if I use Weekly/Daily/Hourly I get Trending/Trading/Volatile but if I use Daily/Hourly/Min I get Trading/Volatile/Trending. One step at a time grasshopper. One step at a time. As I mentioned there are 84 possible combinations. Multiply this across thousands of instruments and countless frames of reference, and I hope you get the picture. You do not have to learn them all. You only have to learn the few that fit you, your chosen instrument and frames of reference. Find the market combinations that are most prevalent and learn to trade only those. This is why it takes screen time to learn to do this, and why each trader is different. It is also why three traders in the same instrument will be doing something different. Trader A will scalp, trader B will be a buyer, and trader C will be seller, and they all make money. They are using different frames of reference and therefore see a different market

To become a full time traders, it will take years. Full time trader is smiliar to becoming a lawyer, Doctors, etc. The problem is many people believe day trading es is "get rich quick." If it takes 5 yrs to become a doctor, it will take 5 yrs to become a full time trader. I have no clue why people believe they can become a full time trader less than 1 yr. If that is true, why does it take a long time to become a doctor, lawyer, etc. According to the Gov report, 97% of the people lose trading in the futures market. One of the reason they lose is, they failed to understand trading futures involves substantial risk and only risk capital should be used. All brokerages and few trading school websites have those risk disclaimer. But for some reason, most people FAILED or ignore the risk disclaimer. For those who are a successful full time traders took them yrs to get there. Plus, they fully understood that trading es is NOT A GET RICH QUICK and trading futures involves SUBSTANTIAL RISK!!!!!! hope this help

Put simply, support is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference are willing to show their support by retarding, halting, and reversing the decline by buying. Resistance is the price at which those who have enough money to make a difference attempt to retard, halt, and reverse a rise by selling. Whether one calls this money professional or big or smart or institutional or crooked or manipulative or (fill in the blank) is irrelevant. If repeated attempts to sell below this support level are met by buying which is sufficient to turn price back, these little reversals will eventually form a line, or zone. Ditto with resistance. A swing high or low represents a point at which traders are no longer able to find trades. Whether that point represents important support or resistance will be seen the next time traders push price in that direction. But everyone knows this point, even if they aren't following a chart. It exists independently of the trader and his lines and charts and indicators and displays. It is the point beyond which price could not go. Hence its importance, both to those who want to see price move higher and those who don't. The first two posts to this thread address these matters, as do others here and there. However, finding S&R in real charts in real time takes more than just a couple of posts. But one must understand the nature of support -- and resistance -- itself before he begins to look for it. Otherwise, he will find what he thinks are S&R in some very peculiar places. Before coming to any conclusions about what “works” or “doesn’t work”, and thus does or does not provide an edge, one ought to keep in mind that a given event -- such as price seemingly finding support or resistance at a trendline (or moving average, candlestick, Pivot Point, Fib level or whatever) -- may be only incidental to what is truly providing that support or resistance. A fundamental misunderstanding of how "indicators" are calculated and what they're supposed to do can lead to all sorts of off-task behavior. We think we see the indicators indicating something, or not, and believe we have made an important discovery. We then devote our efforts to improving the hit rate and the probability of whatever it is we think the indicator is indicating when our efforts ought to be focused on determining whether or not the indicator is actually indicating what we think it's indicating. In most if not all cases, it isn't. Consider the virgin being tossed into the volcano: sometimes it results in a great crop, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe tossing her in earlier or later will change the probability of a healthy crop. Maybe two virgins are better than one. Maybe six. Maybe tall virgins are more effective than short ones. And surely age is important. But does the robustness of the crop really have anything to do with tossing the virgin into the volcano in the first place? The money under the pillow is not evidence of the existence of the tooth fairy, and spring will arrive regardless of whether the virgin is tossed into the volcano or not. (Db)

Hello there! can anyone reccommend me a good forex broker?

Hello Guys!! Actually, I am new in Forex Trading and I want to learn more about it. Somebody recommend me VOLUMEFX to learn more about Forex Trading and trade with them. Is anybody from you is trading with VolumeFX? If yes, can you please share your views about them, so that I can choose the best one!

UJ hit target. I was out of town and marked some nice trades that occurred while I was away.

Well I don't know. Good is only defined by you. What might be good for me might be disastrous for you. What are your goals? How much do you have? These are some of the questions you need to answer. Do you have a trading plan? I might post mine here to help. Most of all, you need to be sure of your own decisions. Asking for what trades are good is a sure way to lose your money. I could tell you what to trade then trade against you and basically just rob you. Learn your own system to trade. Do you have good resources?

Hi, all I am Samuel new to the forum and very much in love with the forum Hoping to make some new friends here. Thank you.

Binaries aren't designed for you to win in the long run learn to trade spot and get better at risk management, you'll do better overall vs binaries

:haha: I hear you say. But really. I think that this is perhaps the single biggest factor in the high failure rate of new traders. Perhaps it would be better put that you should not expect to make money. Let me put it in a different way. A beginner will come into trading and have had very little experience of anything similar. The market will however look familiar somehow and tease them into thinking small successes are down to skill. After all, humans like certainty and are quite happy to congratulate themselves when they think they are good at something. Would you expect to pick up a guitar and then a month or two later be playing at a rock concert? Would you expect to pick up a paintbrush and shortly after have an exhibition on display at the Louvre? Probably not. The difference is though that poor trading costs you your money. Coming into trading, you will be pitted against seasoned professionals, massive hedge funds, banks and computer systems to name but a few. Losses early on affect more than just your bank balance. They affect your emotions and your ability to learn and develop confidence in your understanding of markets and methods you use to trade. If you don't understand how to 'take a loss' this can be catastrophic. Do yourself a favour, when you start trading, trade to trade well, not to make money!

Are you constitutionally illiterate? https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/suspending_the_constitution_in_america_today_the_government_does_whatever_it_wants ... btw, the 'statists' started whittling away on the 'constitution'/ concept on day one... centuries ago... no surprise 'it' is in jeopardy now...

I agree. Share prices change because of supple and demand. If more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. Conversely, if more people wanted to sell a stock than buy it, there would be greater supply than demand, and the price would fall.

If you want somethin done, guess you have to do it yourself- Bono is a virtue signalling, hypocrite boring traitor ignorant cunt.... and a fuckin RACIST https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=396&v=TjIORAjYWng

Actions for the 6th. Another day with high volume and big movements.

Noobies, PAn said "Indicators are absolutely worthless" To be more accurate, PAn should have posted "Indicators are absolutely worthless to me." Indicators are like any other measure or representation - worthless if you don’t know how to use them. When I first started trading I studied indicators in depth then moved on... it was not until many years later when I got into automation that indicators and learning how and WHEN to use them became not “absolutely worthless” but extremely valuable. ... PAn, somewhere a noob is in a Price Action thread trying to integrate new material. Someone like you pops up and says “Price action trading is absolutely worthless. Indicators are all I need” . Helpful? No. To really be accurate PAn should have posted nothing at all in this thread...

Well there you go nameat. Follow that and you will trade "without bearing any loss"

Hello forum members I am Rikita Bhave, want to share my trading experience

Adjusting Stop to 1.3202...just below entry.

Learning is the only way you can be successful in this business. There is no other way or system which can make you rich within a few days.

Scams have made headlines since the inception of the internet and with the advent of cryptocurrency, the topic is still trendy. The scam in the cryptocurrency space, both recorded and unrecorded continues to multiply on a daily basis with recent updates suggesting that about $9 million is lost daily to cryptocurrency scams. The most popular types include Ponzi schemes, fraud, phishing, initial coin offering (ICO) scams, hacking, fake application, and even theft. Although this is heartbreaking, it is believed that individuals who indulge in this awful activities both the investors and the operators of the schemes are forced to do so by their station and financial status. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts hope that the scams in the industry will be reduced to a minimal level as technology advances rapidly. However, it is clear that with the advancement scams also advances in frequency and sophistication. New strategies to scam investors are devised on a regular basis and the population of individuals who engage in these schemes grows bigger. It is believed that the scams in the cryptocurrency industry are what has set the government of many nations as well as financial institutions and experts against the notion of digital coins. In recent times, financial institutions and even search engines and social media platform have taken active steps to reduce or ban transactions and ICO ads from their platform.Financial experts have also dedicated time and resources to educate investors across the globe of the risk involved in putting cash into digital coins. Meanwhile, the number of investment in this virtual currency continues to multiply. A few financial experts have taken a different stand, stating that investors are not to blame for putting their money into something as uncertain as cryptocurrency investment, rather their impecuniosity should be seen as the culprit. It is true that a substantial proportion of the population has closed to zero investment opportunities. The heat of this situation can be safely blamed when such individual decides to invest in get-rich-quick schemes in the cryptocurrency space or even partake in such activities. For instance, Ponzi schemes promise to reward its investors with a substantial amount of money within a short period of time, which sounds exciting to individuals who tirelessly search for ways to make ends meet. It is believed that the risk in the cryptocurrency space is not half as much as that in the lotto and gambling industry, yet the government legalize it and forbid cryptocurrency transactions. Statistically, it is estimated that about half of United States adult play the lottery, with official lottery data providing that the population who participate in betting regularly is about 3 million in the Republic of Philippines. This a large number and if an average lottery player wages a dollar daily, it will amount to $365 annually, which is a guaranteed net loss. This invariably means the average amount spent on lottery by bettors in the Philippines is the annual amount spent by an individual multiplied by three million which amount to $1.095 billion lost annually. It is important to state that this figure does not include the money spent betting on illegal gambling schemes such as cockfighting and Jueteng where the figure may be quadrupled. Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, is believed to be a risky exercise that offers no guarantee or consumer protection, but this point can be safely argued otherwise. A smart and intelligent cryptocurrency investor can convert a meager capital into a substantial sum of money in the digital coins space, but no matter how disciplined a gambler is, the improbabilities in the betting industry are unimaginable. There are over 800 cryptocurrencies and this number is rapidly increasing on a daily basis. After calculating the possibility of growth and profit, an investor can easily purchase the digital coin he desires to own right from the comfort of his home with no intermediaries or involvement of any governmental or financial institutions. Cryptocurrency investment provides ample unprecedented opportunities for investors. Storing cryptos in vaults or online wallets, waiting for its value to multiply may sound like a child’s play to many financial experts but it is better than the lotto as it gives individuals a total control over their assets. Furthermore, no matter how little your investment or how risky cryptocurrency investment is, a skilled and hardworking person can make substantial returns in no time. New investment opportunities continue to evolve in the cryptocurrency space. This even gets better as digital coins are now easily procured with the development and installation of cryptocurrency automated teller machines (ATM). In March, reports states that two cryptocurrency ATMs where installed in Georgia in other to make the exchange of bitcoins and Litecoins hassle-free with support for Ethereum and Dashcoin expected in the nearest future. Many online stores now allow customers to pay for goods with digital coins with lower fees compared to the traditional currencies. In addition, a new concept known as Bitcoin IRA provides investment opportunities for retirees. It helps to create a cryptocurrency IRA investment account that can be benefited from at retirement. Retirees will only have to pay fewer fees compared to that of the traditional currency plus, they just have to sit and watch their investment grow in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocoins are rapidly growing in terms of awareness, acceptability, and investments. It can now be used to make payments for products from local and international stores ranging from the purchase of groceries to the management of online contents as well as the procurement of digital assets. Even with the risks, high volatility, scams and hacking activities in the cryptocurrency space, it still provides innumerable investment opportunities for its users and it is believed by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts that this is just the beginning. The industries are projected to grow like wildfire over the next 15 years, providing new investment opportunities and revolutionizing financial institutions in ways that were practically impossible with the traditional currencies. Digital coins provide everybody with equal opportunity to own it and take part in the growth of the industry over a period of time.

Your success depends upon the trading strategy being adopted by you. It is not only important but absolutely necessary that your trading strategy must have inbuilt strengths to make you a successful trader.

Losing because your analysis was wrong. Losing because your impatience, greed or fear stepped in. Those are the losses you can get rid off, by training self-discipline.

Im a beginner trader and just wanted to say hi. Ive bin trading with a real account for about 6 months now strictly in stocks. Practiced on a simulated account for about a year off and on and i must say the difference is like black and white, I did far better on my simulated account. Hoping for better times ahead.

Profitable Candlestick Trading (2002) by Stephen W. Bigalow

Thanks for the text. We would appreciate a post. Here’s a sample (of size, not quality ). By the time you are ‘mature’ (maturity can come at any age) enough to trade, you have typically completed standardized ‘education’ and should drop the model asap. In other words, conventional education model will not be effective for learning in trading and seeking a general education in trading, whether curriculum based or not, is a waste of time and of whatever costs are incurred. Instead, anyone ready for trading should also be ready for SELF education. Basically , to really thrive as a trader, I blve you move beyond the currently failing ‘educational’ paradigm founded on the premise that humans can only make sense of the world via communication with each other. On the objective knowledge front that means seeking out only the specific information about instruments, data, exchanges, transactions, orders, etc etc you personally need to fill gaps in your understanding. The beginning trader typically only has about 3 really (seemingly) ‘stupid‘ questions. Ask them. Get it over with. The rest of things are easy to access and learn. You don’t need no fkn ‘education’ in it. On the ‘sychological’ front, that means studying the opportunities and limitations of your own neurological and temperamental tendencies, your sympathetic and parasympathetic balance and tendencies, your own limbic system, and the degrees to which you are susceptible to each trading ‘bias’ (see Daniel Kahneman, etc.)..., your desires and what you do with them, etc. etc. It takes deep self-study. Reading about, taking courses, or even getting degrees in psychology won’t help you a fkn bit. On the methods front, that means getting in the cockpit and getting real experience with real money so you will actually learn what methods best suit your true nature. Do that before any outside training. Once you have almost mastered your method then you will also know what exactly what you need to work on. Get sufficient experience in your own best method(s), then seek an expert in that method for further increases in leverage. With trading educators there is no transference of ability or capacity. As I’ve said many times now, a teacher can never really teach you his method because there is simply too much differences between your perceptual maps and cognitive processes and his. He will be unconsciously competent at things that he will never be able to ‘share’ with you, etc etc. Wycoff could not teach you wycoff, etc. Their students can certainly not teach you wycoff, elliot, whoever. etc. Trust serendipity / synchronicity -"when the student is ready, the teacher will appear". ‘Education’ becomes a useless relic. The ‘voice of trading’ IS trading education that says you need to move more and more into just running scripts instead of ‘playing’ at trading ‘creatively’ . If you think you’re the special exception that can pull off changing yourself to match up with a ‘system’, which likely you do if you’re reading this, go for it - odds be damned. Fail forward as fast as you can. Maybe then you’ll realize you need to get beyond ‘education’. Maybe it will dawn on you that the ‘voice of trading’ has vast areas that nothing is allowed to be spoken about. But, YOU need not to wait until old ‘voice of trading’ deteriorates completely and new media, etc. emerges. Sorry I don’t have time to be queer this up or make it gender indeterminate for our precious ‘student’ snowflakes... or to be very respectful. Bluntly - if you have to be ‘educated’, you’re not ready to trade.

No seller coming on oil. Buyers building long positions.

Gamera... Just another example of seeing things differently. Considering the lines that I've added to your chart, how may you have traded differently through the session? No need to answer the question here... it's just offered for your consideration.

Capt bob i will do this just to show that i can trade bigger trends using taylor (since all here view me as a stupid scalper) AND to show that taylor trading does work. I trade all kinds of environments..ways..tactics..strategies...etc.. I do not just scalp two ticks to 4 points in the ES and NQ at a time but i do admit i like the fast action scalping 10 or 20 lots...i get bored as a chicken in a hog pen on day to day swing trading....like mr taylors (may he rest in peace) Give me a few days to get primed up and in the mood....and to determine which instruments i will trade. May be more than one..Probally will. I use to use Taylors methodolgy exclusively with stocks but gave up my stock scan program and stock data so i am not sure how well it will work with futures. I have no stock data feed nowdays. If anybody uses TC2000 for stock data could you send me a daily ascii file (export)on say 15 stocks of my choosing. I can instruct exactly how to export the data file for my purposes from tc2000 in the form i need it. Quite easy and quick to do. It really is just a small file. Just need it everyday at end of market close. I will give a list of the stocks. Takes about 5 minutes each day to export it to a file and email it to me. Who can do this? i have a certain engagement that must needs be fullfilled sept 12 thru 18th (kentucky)... But say around the 19th i will plan on doing the first mr taylor (may he rest in peace) trade. Remember now, i will be using rather large stops so do not get alarmed. I will post the basic strategy and plan for the next day before hand after the close each day. Since i use tape reading for the final entry decision (as mr taylor did ...may he rest in peace) i will post my entry as i make it. Is that agreeable to you? I also, recalculate the days under certain market conditions (my secret) so you may see that a day changes from a buy to sell day IF certain conditions take place in the market. That is, the day may start out on the open as a buy day but change to a sell day under certain conditions which I will not divulge at this point in my earthly existence. However, if there is a change in the day i will post that change and the new tactic based upon that change BEFORE i take a position. Then i will tape read and make my entry base on the new day and will post the price of my entry...stop loss...etc. Are those conditions acceptable? I may make or lose money but will most likely make money:haha: I will not divulge my taylor secrets so i hope no one wastes my time or theirs trying to wheezle it out of me....but any other general Taylor questions i will try and answer as i have time and if i am able. Just to show mr taylors method can work adapted for todays markets... I am a taylor purist except for certain adaptations.......which i will not divulge..but which can be discovered and implemented by anyone.....perhaps... Ole windbag Why? knows Taylor really well. I personally know mr. windbag...(i call him that because of his incessant yada yada yada)...but he does know all of Taylors secrets...you might could go to honduras and wheezle them out of him..just don't offer any money or he may really get good and pissed and start on his ole ...there is more to life than money sonny...speech..which will embarrass you and may take a couple of hours of your time for his lecture..leaving you filling like a naughty child who put his hand in the cookie jar.... Patuca

First of all I am not an amateur, having obtained an education in this area... The idea that people "engage" in self destructive behaviors is (as with most things that people post here) is misleading....generally people simple LET events overtake them, OR they are unwilling to accept responsibility for behaviors that produce a negative result, because they are too lazy (pure and simple)..to do the hard work of correcting themselves... The fact is that life in general is a struggle, and those of us who have made it to adulthood figure it out at the appropriate time (late teens, early 20's) and adopt an adult appropriate view of the world. The rest fall along a continuum where they may or may not possess a realistic adult view of the world, AND as a result of that immature world view, they believe (wholeheartedly) that the world "owes them" certain things.....then "when not if" the world doesn't cooperate" its NOT their fault....ITS EVERYONE ELSE..... Although its not politically correct, I believe these folks should get a brisk kick in the ass (or perhaps join the military and have someone else apply a "brisk kick in the ass" to them) until they "get it".... The subject is near and dear to my heart because sites like this one attract adult children like magnets (all asking the same questions over and over)...."why do so many traders (fill in the space) blah blah blah... And for the person who suggests that "all animals" do this....ah no....you see in the animal kingdom, "engaging" in self destructive behavior results in their DESTRUCTION.....there is an Darwinian process that prevents that kind of behavior from continuing along a genetic line.

Thanks Db, I'll read through the thread for sure. All the best. Note: if anyone else has suggestions on resources, please let me know via PM and I'll add it/them to this thread. Thx

I'd strongly suggest to anyone who is serious about trading to think very carefully about whether using a mobile phone app for trading is a good idea. The interface, speed, reliabilty and security issues make it something I personally wouldn't do. If you have a position and you absolutely must leave, either make sure you have a way of getting through to your broker's execution desk quickly or close the position out before you leave.

Here it is: The Richard D. Wykcoff Method of Trading in Stocks: Division 2: A Course of Instruction in Tape Reading and Active Trading Tape Reading and Active Trading.pdf

I think you may be confusing some issues here. Taylor believed the market to be manipulated over a 3 day period. During that 3 day period there would be opportunities for two type of actions. 1) Going long and selling that long position 2) Shorting and cover that short position. For instance, you can take advantage of action number 1 above on three occasions: Low made first on a buy day. In this case you sell the long on the next day or same day if you are daytrading. The next occasion for going long and selling that long was on a Day 2 of the cycle i.e. a SELL if early in the session a low is made below the low of the previous day (which would be a buy day) then you go LONG and sell that long on any good rally back to or through the low of the previous day (low of that buy day). You must complete this action the same day and not hold overnight. The third opportunity for action number 1 is on a BUY day say it doesn't trade down very well at all but near the end of the day it has held a higher low than that of the previous day (ss day) then you can take a long position. This is called buying a higher bottom on BUY day. Taylor says it is usually profitable. But generally you would hold this position until a decline starts which could be the next day or even the followoing SS day. In summary, I have just described to you 3 times which Taylor espoused taking and a long position and selling it over the course of the 3 day cycle. You can't just simply fit the actions into phases and call it a shorting phase or a long phase. Why is this? Well I have just explained that there are two long opportunies presented on the buy day and one long opportunity presented on the Sell day. You take every which one actually works out in the market. Now look at shorting opportunities. Taylor says you can short a high made first early in the session on a buy day and cover it the same day. You can short also on a SS day on a high made first and cover the same day or the next day. Look at my post #216 again. It was a buy day. It closed high on the previous day. That means that odds favored a decline in the next trading session (buy day 4-2). Therefore, I was looking to employ action # 2 above FIRST on this buy day. That is, I was looking to short on a decline made first then reverse and go long on action number one, occasion number 1, mentioned above. That is, I was anticipating the market being to be taken down first on the buy day 4-2 (why? well because it closed high on the previous day). Then I was anticipating a market reversal thus giving me an opportunity to cover my short and to take a long opportunity per occasion #1 under action number #1. Maybe I haven't confused the issue even more for you. In summary you can't just divide it up into a shorting phase and a long phase. You can go long or short on the very same BUY day. There are no shorting phases and buying phases. There are only shorting opportunties and buying opportunities and they are multiple and they occur over the three day cycle.There are no mini campaigns. There are only shorting and long opportunities over a 3 day period. Hope this explanation helps.

You are welcome. I have never tried adapting Taylor that way but my guess would be that it may work. I have just never been interested in investing in long term trends. I have adapted his method on intraday charts and seen some promising stuff down to 15 minute charts. Perhaps there is an element of human nature (as markets do reflect that) and perhaps Taylor discovered a manifestation of that in a 3 day cycle senario. Humphrey Neil in Tape reading and Market tactics said "the ticker tape is simply a record of human nature passing in review". I suppose if it does record human nature on a minute by minute basis it would also on a 5 min chart...15 minute..daily..or weekly..even monthly. The old timers of course read the tape from a ticker machine which served pretty much the same as a time and sales screen of this age but on a much slower basis. However, what I find interesting when these old timers discuss tape reading they do it from a chart and use a chart to show examples. Therefore, that makes me think; can the tape be read from a chart? That is, can the chart be considered a useful, grafical, representation of the ticker tape/time and sales and in itself be called "the tape". I decided it was so. Therefore, I call this classical tape reading. It really isn't the way they "read" the tape in those days but it is the way they "explained" the tape. See, if the ticker machine and time and sales can be seen as small increments of the tape why couldn't the tape be seen in a larger way such as a chart. After all, the chart is a representation of the ticker/time and sales. Cliff Drokes thought along these same lines and mentioned it in his book tape reading for the 21st century. A quick look at the old timers. Neil, Gann, Wycoff..their explanations of the tape were done in chart form. Actually, Tom Williams work does the same thing. It is reading the tape in the form of charts looking for institutional activity. So anyway, when I refer to reading the tape in some of my posts I mean all the way from the time and sales/DOM/Orderflow to a hybrid version of reading the tape from charts. Of course, the DOM/Orderflow/time and sale is basically meaningless when you are talking about a trend of several weeks. Gann (in The Truth of the Stock Market Tape) read and explained the tape for these sort of longer trends from a chart. The time and sale/DOM/orderflow have gotton so fast now days (unlike the ticker tape of days gone by) that with algos and all the HFT out there the tape moves faster and faster (even at a nano second level) that the human eye cannot pick it up. Some daytraders/scalpers have taken to using computers to help them read them tape and stitch back up big orders that have been broken up to hide footprints..etc. However, in the final analysis the product of the tape volume/price shows up on a chart. So, I have taken to reading the tape from the charts. I say all this about tape reading because it is my belief that to be able to use Taylor properly it will require not just a knowledge of the cycles ..etc... but also a knowledge of how to read the tape from a chart. That is how one is going to conclude if a decline has stopped at a probable Taylor Low or a Taylor High has been reached. Or failed to reach it. It helps one to anticipate failures to penetrate previous days cycles and stopping point for declines and rallies. Just calculating the average of Taylors decline/rallies...coupled with the three day cycle theory etc isn't enough to get the job done. I know this to be so. Taylor himself mentioned several times about reading the tape so I know that he did so in conjunction with all his analysis and averages and figures. He basically clocked the market like one would clock a slot machine but his final pull from the trigger came from tape reading. That is why for years I have talked about in my Taylor posts when I say my entry here or exit there depends on the tape. Most folks never catch it or maybe they don't understand the tape? That is why I listed those books in my pompous post as my intent was to give some resources to folks where they could learn about tape reading from what I call a classical view i.e. a chart. IT IS THE FINE TUNING OF THE TAYLOR METHODOLOGY. Trust me Taylor will only work well if one can read the tape for entries. On less than ideal day cycles one will miss the trend if they can't read the tape. Take my last Taylor chart (I refer you to post #216 and the post #212 anticipating the price action of #216). It was an ideal Taylor taylor BUY day. The market is taken down overnight for a shorting opportunity and I said that was what I was looking and I expected it in the night session (re-read my post #212..this was made before the fact). Then, when the day session started we had the reversal and a chance to go long and make a killing. But notice something here. The low didn't make it to the taylor projected low of 3-30 1395.75 or 1394.56.... my softaware forecast. The reversal came. If I couldn't read the tape and see that the reversal was here then I would have waited around for the market to make the Taylor projected low and I would have missed the move up. So, it was an ideal Taylor BUY day in terms of the Taylor Strategy (look to short and go long) and the direction (take the market down then back up early in the session) BUT it WAS NOT an ideal Taylor BUY day in terms of the projected low. Nor in terms of the projected high. My software projected a high of 1406.19 when the actually high after that great rally was 1419.75. Nothing but tape reading would have kept me in the Taylor moves for that day in spite of the facts that the direction being right and the short/long opportunities being righ (as not all Taylor buy days give a short/long opportunity.) This is a long way around the block to answer your question but me thinks it may be relevant to your question. So........ It is possible there could be a 3 week cycle? Or a 3 month cycle? Me thinks it is possible but then again tape reading, in the sense that I am discussed above,..well...it will be necessary as the time/sale/dom/ will be totally irrelevant to a 3 week cycle. You will have to use the sort of tape reading I am talking about. As much as some people don't like Tom Williams and VSA he did have alot of good stuff that is useful for tape reading. Wiliams is good too in the sense that this sort of tape reading I am talking about requires an analysis of the spread. The size of the spread says alot about the tape. The volume of trading on that spread size says alot too. We have volume and we have price and price spread and open and closing. I have never understood why pure price action people want to leave out that piece of important data, namely, volume. It tells how the price was made. And indicates the value of the price in terms of money and money is what moves the market. You and I don't move the markets. Institutions move the markets. And their foot print is the volume. Anyway I better shut up about volume. I will say two more things about volume. To read the tape like I talk about in this post one will have to take volume into consideration. The second thing is IF anything is a leading indicator it is VOLUME. I ahve nothing like it that helps me better detect probable future price action. Of course it can be wrong sometimes simply because institutions can be wrong sometimes. And institutions are battling out with each other and they all approach the market in their own way. One institution may start aggressive buying and that pushes the price up when a stronger one beings shorting and wins out. Either way the story is told in the tape (chart). And so much faking out goes on. Make the market look weak to drive down a few ticks so they can really buy at a discount price because their real plan is to take the market up. As much as some don't like Gann his book I mentioned it as being useful and especially Drokes book. Also,Silver mentioned Neils book which I had somehow left out but yes, it is important too. Why don't you make some books up on on these longer time frames and let us know what you find out? For those that are interested in extreme scalping based on tape reading the order flow and using a computer to do so can take a look at jigsaw trading. Google it. I have absolutely nothing to do with jigsaw so please mitt don't think that. I mention them as a resource only. For trading order flow from DOM look at NO BS Trading by John Grady. However, this sort of tape reading is very short-term and for scalping and isn't relevant to Taylor trading. It can be somewhat useful for scalping via Brooks methods if one likes to scalp and take longer Taylor positions also like I like to do. Hope all this makes sense. Probally won't be back for a bit. Why?

There's no future with those automated trading systems. They are made by marketers to grab your money, not by traders. Trading is hard work. Trading is an art which must be mastered over time. In all my trading years, I have seen many automated systems. They all crash and burn at some point, however, there were two systems that showed promise... They had huge drawdowns which exceeded 45%. That's a deal killer for me as my maximum allowed DD is 15%. It's best to learn how to trade "manually" first, as a profitable trader for several years, before you consider automation. Just sayin' My two centavos.

Traders lose primarily because the primitive part of the brain is wired to avoid loss and the primitive brain makes all the decisions. Once we incur a loss trading, we try to recoup the loss. This usually means riding the loss down to greater losses until the pain gets too great. Then we bail at a huge loss, with a lot of emotional pain. This loss is burned in our memory and subconsciously we we start trying to get the money we lost back. Let's be clear. This is occurring subconsciously. You are not aware it is happening. That is why you repeat the same behaviors, and lose over and over again even thought your higher brain know it is wrong. By the way, the higher brain will think of sort of excuses to justify the primitive brains actions. None of which are true. How do you counter this strong, unconscious force? First you need a plan. The first part of the the plan is cash management. You need goals based on the type of trading you are doing. You need strict loss stops above all, how much money you are willing to lose for the type of trading your are doing and if you hit it, you are DONE! The same go for profits. Once you reach you profit goal, never, never lose it. You can keep riding the the profit train in the market let's you but if it reverses and returns to your min profit level, you are OUT! Once you have experience in the market, you can alter the latter part by taking partial profits and increasing your position size for really obscene profits but never, never violate your daily loss rule. Never. Keep a log and study it. You will find the best ratio of win to lost based on your trading style. Why is the stop amount so important other than the obvious? Because starting out, you are likely going have more losing trades than winners. But you can still make money: Say you set a stop at $100 and it cost $2.00per buy and sell and the slippage is $.01/share and you profit goal is 4 times your loss amt. This means you could lose 3 times for every win. A 75% loss rate in trades. After 3 losses, you will have lost $312 + the slippage. That amount is based on the number of shares. Let's say it is 300 shares. so the slippage is $3. So your total loss is $315. The next trade in profitable, so you gain $396. You have profit of $81. If you do this every day, your profit is $405/wk. Couldn't live on this amount in America, but by increasing the amount, you can get to the point you could. But the best way is getting a win / loss ratio greater than one. Then you really make money. The only way to do this is accumulating trading time. If you could get to 3 wins for every loss, then your gain per day is 873 or $4365/wk. You could live on that! Note: this would be a very good winning ratio and depends on the stocks you trade and the type of trader you are. The fist part of your plan is cash management. The next is a plan of when to buy, when to sell, when to take profit, when to increase your position size. Is there one better than another? Yes, depending on the type of trader you are and the market. Also different plans are needed in different market phases. But every plan fails if you don't relentlessly stick to it. Never vary, never vary, never vary. You can alter your plan when you are not trading, but while you are trading, sick to it. Is there a fool proof trading method? No. If there was, that method would soon get all the profit in the market and everyone would use it, resulting in it's failure as the rules would now have changed. Anyway, if you had a system, would you let anyone know about it? Not likely! At best, you could come up with something that work for the market conditions at that moment but would fail when the conditions change. "The market is always the same, the market is aways changing." There are plenty of adaptive black box systems that supposedly are using fuzzy logic and neural programming. From what I know, their ratio is 35% winners, 65% losers. And they make money hand over fist because they have strict rules and they never vary from them.

I agree with cuttshot. Once you have a sizable account I find it necessary to remove all profits for the week from your trading account. Take physical delivery of that money and go cash it at the bank, touch it, hold it in your hand, and then deposit it into your check, savings, and investment accounts. I think this process is important because it makes what we are doing tangible and real. Perhaps its mostly for psychological purposes, but if you leave the profits in your account, they are "at risk" of the market. Removing them each week keeps it structured more as a business.

Shuanna... Are you from the Planet Vulcan, where they don't have emotions? Lol...

How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?................... One. But the light bulb has to really want to change.

Young John had just completed high school in the bush, and was off to the city to college. He had a faithful cattle dog, 'Bluey', and insisted on taking the dog with him. Of course, the attractions of city life were quite new to John, and during his out-of-college time, he spent-up rather big on enjoying it all. Eventually, the money ran a bit low, and John was a bit short. He decided to ring his father for a little advance. "Hello ... Dad? You will not believe what is happening here - Bluey is learning to play the piano." "Go on, son. You're kidding me!" "No, Dad, honestly - you should hear him. But the dog teacher had to be paid, and I am a bit short" "No worries, John. The cheque's in the mail." Well time went by, and John again got a bit short of money, and he decided to ring dad again for some money. "Hi Dad. Bluey is so advanced that he is now playing the piano and dancing at the same time. He is a big hit down here. But the extra lessons are not cheap." "Don't worry son, the cheque's in the mail. It's a good thing you got going there with Bluey." John was happy until the day came for him to go home. He knew he had to face the family with a dog that could neither dance nor play the piano. The day he got off the train, Dad was waiting there to meet him. "Where's Bluey?" said Dad, "I was hoping to watch a performance." "Well Dad, Bluey became so advanced, that he began to talk. We used to have long conversations about the things we've seen and done. One night he told me about you and that little red-haired sheila down at the pub, and he told me what you and her ..." "Crikey, John," interrupted Dad, "I hope you shot him!" "Yes, Dad, I did. I sure did. "

The CIA had an opening for an assassin. After all of the background checks, interviews, and testing were done there were three finalists — two men and one woman. For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside this room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. You have to kill her.” The first man said, “You can’t be serious. I could never shoot my wife." The agent replies, “Then you’re not the right man for this job." The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. Then the agent came out with tears in his eyes. “I tried, but I can’t kill my wife.” The agent replies, “You don’t have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.” Finally, it was the woman’s turn. Only she was told to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one shot after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “You guys didn’t tell me the gun was loaded with blanks. I had to beat him to death with the chair.”

Regarding MT4---I am not aware that volume information reported in MT4 is truly accurate or valid. I know for currencies that the volume in MT4 is only the volume reported by each individual broker, thus it is not really an accurate representation of what is really happening. There are many forum posts that talk about this issue of forex and volume... Since this indicator needs an accurate volume picture, I'm not sure that porting this to MT4 is the best idea unless you know that the volume in the MT4 feed is truly accurate... Best, David

In 2002, Paul Desmond won the 2002 Charles H. Dow Award for his work in identifying market bottoms and new bull markets. Since this work nicely supports Wyckoff's hypotheses regarding selling climaxes, technical rallies, and "secondary reactions", or tests, I've posted Desmond's study below in pdf form. I've also excerpted several points which are particularly pertinent to Wyckoff's aforementioned hypotheses and which will act as an introduction to the study. Please note that all bolding is mine. To spot an important market bottom, almost as it is happening, requires a close examination of the forces of supply and demand – the buying and selling that takes place during the decline to the market low - as well as during the subsequent reversal point. Important market bottoms are preceded by, and result from, important market declines. And, important market declines are, for the most part, a study in the extremes of human emotion. The intensity of their emotions can be statistically measured through their purchases and sales. [P]anic selling must be measured in terms of intensity, rather than just activity. It is essential to recognize that days of panic selling [in which Downside Volume equaled 90.0% or more of the total of Upside Volume plus Downside Volume, and Points Lost equaled 90.0% or more of the total of Points Gained plus Points Lost] cannot, by themselves, produce a market reversal, any more than simply lowering the sale price on a house will suddenly produce an enthusiastic buyer. As the Law of Supply and Demand would emphasize, it takes strong Demand, not just a reduction in Supply, to cause prices to rise substantially....These two events – panic selling (one or more 90% Downside Days) and panic buying (a 90% Upside Day...) – produce very powerful probabilities that a major trend reversal has begun…. Not all of these combination patterns – 90% Down and 90% Up – have occurred at major market bottoms. But, by observing the occurrence of 90% Days, investors have (1) been able to avoid buying too soon in a rapidly declining market, and (2) been able to identify many major turning points in their very early stages – usually far faster than with other forms of fundamental or technical trend analysis. Impressive, big-volume “snap-back” [technical] rallies lasting from two to seven days commonly follow quickly after 90% Downside Days, and can be very advantageous for nimble traders. But, as a general rule, longerterm investors should not be in a hurry to buy back into a market containing multiple 90% Downside Days, and should probably view snapback rallies as opportunities to move to a more defensive position. The following is of course a chart of the Nasdaq over the past few months up through yesterday and is intended as an example. The calculations are not guaranteed to be accurate. Anyone caring to verify them and point out any errors is welcome to do so. Readers are encouraged to read the study in its entirety. 2002DowAward.pdf

Welcome. There is more than one definition for No Demand. In the book the base definition is given as a narrow spread bar closing up with volume less than the previous two bars. The Trade guider definition, also in the book, is a narrow spread bar closing up on volume less than the previous two bars AND closing on the middle or low of its range. Joel Pozen would define a No Demand as simply any bar closing up with volume less than the previous two bars. Or a bar closing equal, on volume less than the previous two bars with the previous bar higher than the bar two bars ago. Still others would include any buying bar (a bar with a higher high, but not a lower low than the previous bar) that has a narrower range and with volume less than the previous two bars is No Demand. If it closes either up from or equal to the previous bar. The underlying element is volume less than the previous two bars on equal or up closes. Note if the close is down and the we have a buying bar with the close on the low, the we have a hidden Upthrust in the form of No Demand. Sorry, I don't think I have really answered your question. I guess the reason is, the question you should be asking yourself is "How am I comfortable defining No Demand within the context of market behavior and amidst the various possible elements set forth?". I have added this beautiful pic from Monday. Note the two No Demands on the right of the Dotted line. The first one obviously closes on its high and has a smaller range than the previous bar. Plus it has volume less than the previous two bars and is a buying bar. The second one has a greater range than the previous bar and closes near its low. It has volume less than the previous two bars. It is a buying bar (positional relationship), but the low closes signals no real buying going on. This is a Hidden UpThrust in the form of No Demand. TG software would NOT pick up either of these.

Hi Gordon G, remember weakness apppears on up bars not down bars, you have marked all down bars with volume less than previous two not up bars. so simply put,. down trend looking to go short look for weakness in up bars up trend looking to go long look for strength in down bars regards sheptrader

It really depends on the persons passion for the markets. One year is definitely not the norm. Your friend has done an amazing job in just one year. It took me 2 years of intense studying and trading to get to where I am. I was quite a journey. I would say on average it takes 2-3 years before one can start trading for a living. This is just my opinion, I am sure some may find me a slow learner.