[DGC]

Hi Everyone,

I'm thinking of purchasing the Wyckoff Course online from the 'Wyckoff Stock Market Institute' and I was wondering if anyone had also purchased it and what they thought of it. Is it roughly the correspondence course version of the one taught by Hank Pruden in the Golden Gate University, San Francisco? Is it all written notes or are there some videos as well, and does it also cover how to create the point and figure charts needed for some of the analysis, and how easy is this aspect to grasp?

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks,

DGC.

[Eiger]

Hi DGC,

It is a wonderful course and it is what Hank Pruden bases his course on at Golden Gate University. Most all of it is written text (no video), though the third unit (there are five all together) is audio. Lots of charts that are well-described. Point and figure charts were a fundamental staple of Wyckoff's analysis. Very odd we never see them presented here, but I couldn't tell you why that is. In any event, the course has ample instruction on how to construct and read P&F charts. Like everything in Wyckoff, P&Fs require study and experience, but all well worth it. FWIW, the person I learned Wyckoff from and who learned it in the 1970s when the latest edition of the Course was published, said that people studying the Course at that time revered it so much they used to talk about it in whispers. IMHO it still deserves that respect.

Hope this is helpful,

Eiger

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Eiger »

Point and figure charts were a fundamental staple of Wyckoff's analysis. Very odd we never see them presented here, but I couldn't tell you why that is.

Not so odd. As I've noted in the forum, no one is interested in pursuing it. Anyone who wants to do so is welcome to begin at any time.

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by theonlyone123123 »

I've been following a 'Wyckoff' type of approach, but didn't know that it had a specific name until I found this site. So I've just been eating up all the Wyckoff material...I could have saved tons of time if someone introduced him to me when I started trading. Anyways, while its easy to find out what a point and figure chart is, I would love to hear your take on it, and how Wyckoff implemented it and its usefulness in this method.

If you were so inclined of course. Thanks =).

deVilliers was responsible for popularizing P&F at the time when Wyckoff and Livermore were hitting their stride, but I've never read his book, so I can't tell you what sort of modifications Wyckoff and Livermore made to the work, if any. But Livermore, at least, saw it as a form of shorthand, and perhaps Wyckoff did as well, though I don't recall his actually ever having said so.

P&F was a solution to a problem. Traders were much more attuned to the tape back then, but keeping a record of what one was seeing was a challenge, to say the least. One could not possibly write down every trade with its volume that crossed the tape, and even if he could, making sense out of it would have been extraordinarily difficult. If one were able to get into the rhythm of the tape, though, he could see where prices were clustering, and he could detect those little pokes out of those clusters that suggested that price was about to do something.

P&F, as I said above, provided a shorthand way to record these clusters in order to (a) avoid having to write down every single trade and (b) detect the moves out of these clusters. Imagine, if you will, standing in front of the board with a pad of paper -- or even just the back of an envelope -- and a pencil and noting the price level of a certain stock with an x. But you ignore fractions and you don't take any other action until there is a price change of a predetermined amount. That saves a hell of a lot of record-keeping. And envelopes. Nowadays, of course, we have streaming real-time data and computerized charting. One can track anything he likes and display the information in a myriad of ways, instantly. Even so, P&F enthusiasts like this type of recording for its simplicity (particularly since it doesn't include volume) and its elegance. For them, the behavior of price is far easier to see in a P&F display than in a standard vertical bar time chart. Many Constant Volume Bar chartists see their charts the same way.

As for how Wyckoff implemented it, there is an excerpt from Wyckoff's "Forms of Charts" chapter in the original course in the first post of the P&F thread. There is also quite a lot of information on his use of it in his Studies in Tape Reading, or Day Trader's Bible (he also provides a tape reading course along with his more comprehensive course, but I find Studies in Tape Reading to be an easier read). I don't use it, and I'm hardly an expert on it, but, as I've said several times over the past year, I've been hoping that someone who does use it and can provide at least informed knowledge if not expertise would pick up the P&F ball and run with it, but so far there have been no takers.

Is it useful? For me, no. But that doesn't mean that it may not be absolutely essential for somebody else, and the fact that I don't use it should not discourage anyone.

[motorway]

All Charts are a form of short hand

Wyckoff said you were better of not to use one
IF you had a memory that could hold every transaction in every stock
in relation to each other ( Impossible )

The tape unfolds in continuous time

How to condense this over whelming coast line of prices
So we can measure and utilize it

Most charts uses time
cut the tape into equal intervals of time
open ( start ) close ( end )

P&F does not condense the tape with equal amounts of time
It uses something else that makes it very different

P&F retains the structure of continuous time
It is always the same coastline

The way up is the same as the way down

( This is lost as time is used to condense the tape )

P&F is a method of looking at prices which has a nature similar to the time/distance equivalence in Einstein's physics.

Time on a P&F chart is the speed of the postings ( same as the speed of the flow of transactions on the tape ).

Time on a P&F chart contracts and expands so as to keep the structure of the tape/continuous time.
( This is so regardless of the degree of condensation . The tape does the same thing as it speeds up and slows down)

The way up is always the same as the way down on a P&F chart
because always it is full cycles of up and down that are condensed
equally.

( With time this is not so .The more the chart is condensed the more distortion . It is no longer the same coastline ---> This as ramifications
trend illusions appear )

Wyckoff said you will do better with a P&F chart as you operate on larger swings ..

De villiers was a close associate of Wyckoff

De villiers P&F is like the VSA of Wyckoff P&F

De villiers split with Wyckoff and tried to make it more mechanical and pattern based ---> The Fulcrum


P&F is not out of date

It is just not understood and often seen to be like a deformed bar chart.

But as you condense continuous time into clock time
It is the bar chart that is deformed
and is deforming

What is deformed ?---> Time --> Intrinsic (continuous) Time..
What happens, when you measure distance with a clock instead of a ruler.

Time is Space (---> movement through space )
Postion---> The rate of change of postion

motorway

First post on the forum
So hello to everybody.

[atto]

Welcome to TL. Sounds like you have a good understanding of Wyckoff. I'd personally love more Wyckoff P&F discussion around here, but there hasn't been a lot of interest. You might be able to share some of your observations or trades.

[tape reader]

Motorway understands the situation quite well. You can subdivide price data into equal bundles of time and the trend is not lost. But when you subdivide volume into equal bundles of time, the force of the buying and selling is diffused. It is lost in time. The wave chart, in which price waves and volume are not bound by time, often provides greater insight into market direction and turning points. In his tape reading course, Wyckoff explained how to recognize intraday turns on wave charts. He wrote: [The immediate trend] is likely to change its direction from one to three times in a single session. This is how you detect the change: In an uptrend, when the selling waves begin to increase in time and distance, or the buying waves shorten. Either or both will be an indication of a change in the immediate trend. Apply the same reasoning to a down trend." The attached chart is a sample.

[motorway]

Price does not unfold in equal units of time

It unfolds in WAVES

I recognize the sentiments in your post TapeReader

and your point of distortion of Price Vs volume..

“How long is a coastline?” The surprise answer is an infinite answer. In other words it can be measured over and over again with different scales of measurement producing different answers..

Welcome to the world of fractals ( The F in P&F )

Price movement creates a graphical representation that is similar to a coastline. Based on this similarity, it only makes sense to measure price movement with the same approach as a coastline.

How do we measure coastlines and Mountains

With a clock ?

What happens if we do ? ( There no longer is a coastline or mountain )

Fractals model complex physical processes and dynamical systems. The underlying principle of fractals is that a simple process that goes through infinitely many iterations becomes a very complex process. Fractals attempt to model the complex process by searching for the simple process underneath.


What is the simple process at work in the markets

Waves of buying and selling
That push prices up and down ...

They involve volume. And they have certain duration.

But ALWAYS involve a move up and down

Waves build up and down

Most fractals operate on the principle of a feedback loop. A simple operation is carried out on a piece of data and then fed back in again. This process is repeated infinitely many times. The limit of the process produced is the fractal.

Almost all fractals are at least partially self-similar. This means that a part of the fractal is identical to the entire fractal itself except smaller.

Fractals can look very complicated. Yet, usually they are very simple processes that produce complicated results.


We start with the smallest waves... They look very simple, these waves join-->condense, build into large waves ( A two way relationship here forms large to small )

OK The Point with P&F is this

The basic pattern is of fluctuation ...The chart is made up of units of fluctuation

Think about this very carefully
If one column goes UP the next will always go down

Always

--> condense the chart ? Though four columns become two..

The self similar pattern remains The same coastline remains

one column goes up and the next always go down

The coastline retains it's structure always... Think of looking at a mountain from different distances It is Always the same

Because the up and down are not being deformed by time

Even if we made a complete Bull and Bear market
into a Two column P&F chart

It would still be the same coastline or mountain
with the same pattern of Waves . This is the only pattern RDW is interested in . Not mechanical appearances But The pattern of buying and selling of the waves this requires the use of JUDGEMENT......



OK not off topic I hope ----> POINT many of the so called,Fractal Chaos cutting edge do dahs DO NOT COME CLOSE to the simple clarity of the P&F chart or its power to reveal the true structure of trend

Wyckoff P&F is like Wyckoff anything

Waves of buying and selling
But no matter how the P&F chart is condensed
The way up is the same as the way down

The mountain always is the same mountain
Just smaller or larger in scale

Units of fluctuation of risk and reward

In a very real sense units of WORK

Work is what creates future High and lows ( The Wyckoff CAUSE--> The building of expectation )

A P&F chart follows the waves of the market as they travel
Through Time Frames .The P&F chart is not trapped in a time frame..


motorway