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I am not a profitable trader of this method, and I don't wish to clutter up this thread with "frivolity". Any post is done in the spirit of seeking understanding. I also wish to say that I am pleased that Gucci's efforts have bought a bit of life back to a long dormant thread. I think most people in my position have/had just given up. Now, with somebody who has been through similar struggles, and yet who has finally made it (work), and who is willing to try and help others, there is the thought of maybe just giving it one more try, maybe some more pennies will drop. (Excuse the pun). Pardon me if a think aloud, what follows might be obvious, but I am trying to clarify things in my own mind. Price is a continuous variable. The most accurate graphical representation of the market, (leaving volume aside for the moment), would be a continuous line graph, with time on the horizontal axis and price on the vertical. It is not practical to have the time measured in seconds (say), but if we did we would get a very long graph, showing all the tiny up and down variations/waves in price over the period. So price is like a video. We have chosen to use a 5 minute OHLC bar graph. This like a series on photographs taken at 5 minute intervals from the video. I think that perhaps we should not mistake the photo for the substance which is the video, and to bear in mind that when we look at the photos we are getting a simplified view of the video. That being said: In a uptrend FBP – two bar formation, with second bar having an equal high and a higher low. Price fails to advance in the trend for a least 5 minutes, some movement in the opposite direction of the trend (down) EH – two bar formation, with second bar having an equal high and equal low. Price fails to advance in the trend for at least 5 minutes, some movement in the opposite direction of the trend (down) SYM – two bar formation, with second bar having a lower high and a higher low. Price fails to advance in the trend for a least 5 minutes, some movement in the opposite direction of the trend (down) FBP – two bar formation, with second bar having a lower high and equal low. Price fails to advance in the trend for at least 5 minutes, some movement in the opposite direction of the trend (down) IBGS (down) – two bar formation, with the second bar having a higher high and higher a low (if not an outside bar), with closing price lower than opening price. Price does advance in the trend, but the net result of price movement is that price is lower than it was 5 minutes before, therefore, some movement in the opposite direction of the trend. I agree that for an FBP, the movement in the opposite direction of the trend (down), maybe a bit more pronounced than in the case of a FTP, but essentially you have a 5 minute period where price does not advance in the direction of the trend (Up). There is downward movement in price. Thinking in terms of Wyckoff, who I have been reading, this is either due to a reduction in buying activity, or an increase in selling activity. A stall (from Jack) Stalls are longer hitches and the volatility may not be less than prior bars. Picture it as a definite pause and dwell period that occurs not too close to the left fractal channel line. Volume will oscillate somewhat by flagging and then refreshing and flagging again. Hitch As dominant traverses proceed the price change there is, at first, an almost continuous advance. Therefore, from bar to bar, the offsets and the bar length repeat one after another. Progress can soften after a period of time and it shows up as a momentary one or two bar repeat. Repeat means that consecutive nearly identical bars show up. The bars often do not have the volatility of the prior advancing bars. Volume will flag somewhat preceding this phenomena. Then the price resumes its prior advance. The market has momentarily caught its breath, so to speak.

I'll have to disagree with you on this one. Not that it makes much difference, the market will decide. Our charts are a graphical record of transactions by thousands of buyers and sellers, divided (arbitrarily) in 5 minute periods. If one of those buyers or sellers transacted one second later or earlier, it might effect the shape of our formation, but would not fundamentally alter the overall market situation. So for me it does appear logical to place the FTP with the others. Maybe we should look out for examples in the market.

Hi Gucci, This is an old quote. Is the shape of the containers i.e "equal weight" important? If your first dominant movement (R2R) in this case consists of a down tape, then up tape and then down tape, must the third dominant movement (2R) have the same shape. I suspect this is not the case and that I misunderstood. This is not the case in the brown container referenced in my previous post, (the B2B has a SYM pennant, but the 2B, has no non dom formation, at least none that is visible on the 5 minute time frame).

Thank you for your reply. The above being the case with can't you include a FTP in your non dom formations (for an up trend) , as there could be only a one tick difference between a FTP, and an IBGS or a sym pennant?

Here is my effort in adding Gaussians.

Hi gucci, Thanks for your efforts. Here is a snippet of one of your charts. (Excuse the manual annotations). The purple container (I) consists of three, "equal weight" bbt tapes. The next container is brown. 1. My first confusion is that the point 2 on the price pane does not match the point 2 on the volume gaussian. I thought that gaussians should match trend lines. 2. My second confusion is that the movement of price to point 2 (corresponding to the gaussian) is a "complex bbt". It contains a sym pennant corresponding to the volume trough. However the movement for price from this point 2 to point 3 and then from point 3 to the end are simple bbt's. So I don't understand how the concept of equal weight containers applies.

Thank you for this. Complex = a container (BBT) within which we are able to annotate non dominant trend lines as per the 10 x 2 bar cases. Non dom trend lines in an up BBT = FBP, EH, SYM, and also IBGS and OB. I don't understand how to annotate a non dominant trend line in the case of an ibgs (say in up BBT), which makes a higher high and higher low relative to the previous bar. It seems similar to the FTP. Spyder made no reference to bar open and closing prices in the 2 bar cases.

no danger of that !

Hello NYCMB, Spyder was commenting about a trade by LittleMac. The trade was in a stock named MELI. See http://http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1973881&highlight=take+care+with+your+MELI+trade#post1973881

Thanks cnms2 ... I'm sorry too:bang head: I am a secondary Maths teacher. I have always found that Maths came easy to me, and I am amazed sometimes at how some of my students struggle with things that to me are so easy. But its seems that with regard to trading, I am ironically in a similar situation, after years of reading threads and staring at charts :doh: I read a quote from Spyder about the maths of trends, quote "The second derivatives of Price and Volume define a trend". The second derivative of a function changes sign well in advance of the function value (which only changes direction when the first derivative changes sign) and I don't know how the second derivative of volume let alone both together would work... but thats not my main question. I am posting an old chart of Spyder's from ET, with the tapes and traverses annotated (by Spyder). I have annotated the Gaussians. I would like to know if my Gaussians are correct and if not what I should do differently. Secondly, Spyder's point 3 of the blue traverse occurs on an IBGS, WITHOUT INCREASING VOLUME. My understanding is that for a point 3 to be a point 3 there must be increasing volume, I would appreciate any comments about this i.e. am I being too rigid, what about the bar before with increasing volume and decrease volatility, ibgs means "guassian shift whether on increasing volume or not etc. I started reading some of Spyder's posts at the beginning of the thread. He says "unless and until the Volume Cycle Sequences reach completion, the current Price Trend cannot end". I understand volume sequence (up trend) to mean b2b2r2b with the last 2b being increasing volume after point 3". I cannot reconcile my understanding to the attached chart:confused:. If somebody could enlighten me I would be most grateful. TIA.

Thanks for your comment. This was done end of day in an effort to get the basic/"bigger picture" correct, because I found myself totally confused during the day with faster fractals. Of course this is by no means a "thoroughly annotated chart", I guess what I want to know is do the trend lines and gaussians that I have drawn accurately reflect the market or is there something that I have missed.

This is my attempt to annotate yesterday (done end of day). I would be grateful if one (or more) of the more experienced traders could take a look and let me know what's right (if anything) and what's not.

From me too ... here's wishing everyone a happy and successful 2011:)

Hi emac According to my understanding, if you have a faster fractal b2b2r2b establishing the first dominant leg of a traverse (B2B) and taking you to the traverse point 2 (as here according to cnms2), then you should anticipate a similar volume sequence (b2r2b) in the second dominant leg of the traverse (from the traverse point 3). As this second volume sequence has not completed at 1325, I don't think that your r2r is valid as this implies change in dominance and we don't have permission to look for change until the faster fractal volume sequence of the 2B (from point 3) is complete. I have tried annotating some more faster fractal traverses. What I find interesting is that after the blue traverse container under discussion, the R2R annotated does not consist of a faster fractal r2r2b2r (at least not one that I can see). It is as if the market "jumps fractals" - I seem to recall Gucci using that phase:) But this is followed by a faster fractal r2b2r for the second dominant leg 2R (from point 3).