thalestrader

I like what you did with the first entry, the second entry was tricky. As you get more experience, you will probably find that so long as your entries are in response to price action responding to S/R levels, you will "see" the 123 earlier. What I mean by this is that a more favorable risk/reward will be obtained by buying (or selling) the first L-H-HL (H-L-LH) as viewed on, for example, a one minute or even a tick chart, or the DOM itself. For example, you identified an important potentialsupport area prior to the open. Once the market traded down into that support area, you would be advised to "drill down" beneath the 5 or 10 or 15 minute timeframe and look at what is really going on in "real time." Look at the one minute chart: You had the support level properly identified. The market traded right down to it, and look and see if you do not see a 123 right there at that support level. Also, you must not only note the prior day's high and low, but you must be aware of when price is trading at those levels, and wathcing what it does once it gets there. The rally failed at yesterday's low. Yesterday's support is now today's resistence. At that point price offered a short. Had price broke above yesterday's low, then you would look for a 123 as a continuation pattern, e.g. price rallies a bit above yesterday's low, pullas back to test that low as support once more, and you buy as it resumes the rally. Having failed to break and hold above yesterday's low, it would now be permissable to look for a 123 short. I think, overall, you should be pleased by what you accomplished today. Best Wishes, Thales

Hi there Humbled (love the name), I presume your intention is to day trade. In addition to the levels you have annotated, I would suggest that you maintain an awareness of where price is in relation to the the prior day's high, low, and midpoint when you go about your work. I do not mean to imply that you simply buy or sell at these levels; rather, you want to watch what price does once in reaches those levels. Consider that the market put in two range expansion days and managed to eke out another higher high this morning. The subsequent price action - pullback and then ranging - is quite common. You will see this pattern repeated many times. Tomorrow I would be watching to see what happens if/when price tests today's high/low (given today's contracting range, I'm inclined to disregard the midpoint 0 the most important midpoint right now will be the midpoint between today's high and last Thursday's low. (For more on the importance of these levels, I strongly recommned you spend some time studying DbPhoenix's work here at TL in the Wyckoff forum - it is a truly invaluable resource). Best Wishes, Thales

Haven't seen him. Best Wishes, Thales

It's your thread Mr Black and you can run it as you see fit ... but a chart from time to time showing you entries and exits might make it more interesting to folks. I'm pleased to see that your are enjoying success, as always. Best Wishes, Thales

Too bad you've given up. The changes to your trading outlined above are interesting, and I would think that many would find your insights useful to their own trading. Best Wishes, Thales

Mr Black is back ... I'll bookmark this thread if you enter this fray. Good to see you! Best Wishes, Thales

I would not be surprised by such a rise and within the timeframe you propose, MM. I think we could go 2500-3000 without anything more than 3-13% pullbacks through 2016; but I do think it is more likely that we get a bear market that wipes out 40-50% of market cap first, and then we reach the levels you propose (and possibly all within the time fame you project). In the end, it does not matter which is right. If your scenario plays out, I will be quite content staying long. If my scenario plays out, I will be just as content to play the short side and then switch again when the inevitable bull rises again. At any rate, if you go back to my previous posts in this thread from November, you will see that you and I are in fairly strong agreement as tothe role an effect of Fed liquidity programs on the overall trend in stock prices. Best Wishes, Thales

The recovery here in the states has been far more robust than the aveage joe will acknowledge. The Fed has done its job. Unfortunately, an unintended, though predictable side-effect of its actions will be to go too far on the side of inflation, which causes it to put on the brakes, which causes recessions and depressions. The creation of central banking did not repeal the business cycle. What it did do is made the business cycle a fairly regular, and hence somewhat more preictable than it had historically been prior to 1913. It also caused price inflation. Whereas prices through human history had been fairly stable for hundreds and even thousands of years, prices since the advent of central banking have taken on a staggering, yet regular, projectory. At any rate, the current recovery is likely nearing the end of its run. The next recession is perhaps even already quietly taking hold beneath the surface. However, the market will likely continue higher from here, with a top in the SP-500 coming somewhere between 1550-1800. We will probably see one or two 3-5% corrections along the way, perhaps one 9-13% correction, and then the top. We will then have your bear market, which will likely reduce the SP-500's market cap by 40-50%. Depending upon the actual high, that would project a bear market low somewhere between 750 and 1000. Along the way, price will tell you everything you need to know. But if you want a fundamental edge, I suggest you pay attention to what the Fed tells us it is doing with its money, how much money it is deploying, and then compare that to what the market does. Money moves the markets. And X dolars will usually move the market y%. It sure helps your TA if you have a real money reason supporting price action at a given point in time. Best Wishes, Thales

Well, Ingot, had someone listened to me back on Monday November 19th, they'd be long the SP from 1386, or 127 points. At $50 a point on just one ES, that would be $6350 to the good. I presume you are here to make a profit, are you not? Do you have a stop loss on your opinion? Best Wishes, Thales

Well, like it or not, the US markets are within kising distance of all-time highs, "in spite of" Bernanke's policies. Best Wishes, Thales

Hi there MidK, I knew you had been impacted by the earthquakes but I had no idea to such a degree! I am happy to hear that you were able, quite literally, to move on. But I do feel sorry for your suffering. There is no way that I could endure half as much distress and continue to trade soundly. Moving on and putting such circumstances behind you as best you can is likely the best strategy for you. I wish you and your family well, and I hope the earth shakes as far from you as possible. Best Wishes, Thales

Greg Capra, Pristine, and Oscar Velez - that is all you need to know to run the other way. If any trader, new or otherwise, is out there looking for the holy grail in the form of trader education, Pristine is the last place you should look. Do your due diligence, search the trading forums, and do not allow you and your money to be parted by these dudes! Best Wishes, Thales

Markets go up and markets go down. No one ever said price would move in a simple moonshot. Based upon recent price action, there is a better that 50% probability that the recent correction ended on Friday morning. If so, then we are either seeing a resumption of the bull market that began in 2009, and new bull market highs near the prior all time highs are in the offing; or we are in a bear market, and the ensuing rally is a correction of the new downtrend, which means price will likely retrace 50-100% of the decline from the September highs. Since the Fed is still buying 40 billion/month, I would bet that a resumption of the bull rather than a mere bear market rally holds an edge at the moment. The money the Fed has spent has been spent on behalf of the country as a whole. Had the moeny instead been spent on direct aid to overextended borrowers, the benefits would likely have been limited to those individuals, and would probably not have redounded to the nation as whole. Faced with the choice of saving John Doe's house or saving several thousand jobs (and thus helping several thousand others keep their homes) was the better bet.

A Bayesian calculation, i.e. one based upon the probability of B occuring, given that A has already occurred. Interesting that that is what you chose (not) to respond to.

I do not know what you mean by asking what is the S&P doing today, nor do I understand why it matters who appointed Bernanke. SP was 666 at its low of March 2009, and today it sits at 1360, or +104% from its low. The day the Fed announced the expansion of QE1 to 1.4 trillion the S&P was at 720, and it then rose to 1220 by the time QE1 ended, or +69.4% (1.4 Trillion//20 Billion = 70). The charts are there for all blessed with sight to see, and the basic arithmetic will do the rest, so long as you know which numbers are important. Measurable actions have been taken, and measurable results have followed upon those actions. In addition to these quantitative differences, there have been qualitative changes to the real economy as well (the return of rush hour traffic, lunch time crowds at restaurants, the proliferation frozen yogurt stores) which indicate that the real economy is not so weak as it was at the height of the crisis nor as many continue to think it to be. At some point, if not already, the economy will enter a new recessionary period and thew stock market will enter a new bear phase. And while it will seem exceedingly bad to many, it will not be nearly as debilitating as it would be had Bernanke not acted as he had, and had instead followed the example of his 1930's predecessors.

For every $20 Billion of Fed Open Market purchases, the stock market has risen 1% from the the inception of each program. Every QE program (except for the latest) has been launched as PCE was contracting, and in each instance PCE reversed and expanded. There are a lot of American Idiots - Bernanke isn't one of them.

I meant your blog here at TL where you had marshalled so many wonderful Wyckoff resources. I have been referring folks to seek it out since I found it back in 2008. It seems as though it has been demolished. Too bad, it was a wonderful resource, and it would certainly have been a good place for 40d to start. Is the whole blog gone, or has it been preserved elsewhere? Best Wishes, Thales

If all TL readers read as thoughtfully and as carefully as SpideySense, vendors and charlatans would have a much shorter shelf life here than they currently seem to enjoy. Most would have read that line and thought nothing of swallowing what follows whole without a thought to viewing it through a critical lens. Best Wishes, Thales

Hello Cory! You quite made my day seeing your name and hearing that you are doing well! Thank you, and know that I think of you and our other friends from this thread often. Best Wishes, Thales

Hi Folks, Just posting a "bump" for no other reason than to say Hello to old friends and see if any of the old gang still lurks from time to time. I hope you all are doing well. Best Wishes, Thales

What happened to Db's Burrow? Best Wishes, Thales

I would think that the current proprietor of TL ought to be both cognizant of the degree to which Db's contributions early on contributed positively to the growth and quality of TL, and also sensitive (accutely so) to the subsequent decline in TL since Db's withdrawal. As such, I would suppose that Db would be given a wide berth to maneuver here as he wishes. I know that if I were the owner of TL, I'd roll the red carpet out for Db. By the way, while I have not purchased his eBook, I have to say I have no idea why that is so based upon the quality and clarity of the presentation of the material in his preview. Eventually, I will take the time to log into my paypal account and get a copy for my own library. Best Wishes, Thales

Welcome back, indeed! The quality of your posts played no small part in making TL a place where I chose to visit and contribute rather than just another search engine result from a long forgotten google search for who knows what I was looking for that day. I haven't visited TL in a while, and today would have been no different had the words "Hinges" and "DbPhoenix" not caught my eye in a TL email I was about to delete. Best Wishes, Thales

There is no value to reading Covel. Throw his book(s) away and look elsewhere. Covel more quickly than most made the progression from wannabe trader to failed trader to vendor to wannabe traders. No doubt his publicist will find this thread and he will soon post here - like anyone who depends on a perpetual stream of suckers rather than his own talents and abilities, he can stand no negative criticism. His inability to acknowledge his own shortcomings no doubt played a substantial role in his failure as a trader. Best Wishes, Thales

It seems to me that this thread has degenerated into a witch hunt, and not all vendors are witches. If someone posting here has had to be "discovered" and then "outed" as a vendor, then it stands to reason that he or she was posting here as a community member and not as a vendor. When a long time solid contributor such as Blowfish can stand up for someone like wrbtrader who seems wrongly to have been accused of witch craft can then get ripped as he has here, then the witchhunt is on and any value this thread or its subject matter may have has is gone. I'd rather deal with a thousand shills than have one person on a vendetta drive off a gem like Blowfish. And for anyone familar with Blowfish and his contributions to TL, well, if he vouches for wrbtrader then that should be enough to give wrbt the benefit of the doubt. Now, I haven't read all of this person's posts, but he seems like a regular guy to me. Are we to brand him with a scarlet letter because he runs a business that has never been mentioned on TL except by the with hunters themselves? And one more thing folks, I have no idea why this is so, but traders (or those who wish to become such) seem to be clueless when it comes to business and capitalism. A survey of traders would likely reveal that each considers himself a capitalist, or at least pro-capitalism. And yet almost to a one, those who populate forums seem to think that anyone who seeks to profit on legitimate knowledge is somehow taking advanatage of others. I have wasted money on vendors whose product was little more than dirty bath water. I have benefited and profited handsomely from the information I bought from other vendors whose products were as precious as a little baby. This thread is a good example of how an emotional over reaction to a legitimate concern can lead to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Best Wishes, Thales