[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by rigel »

Guess Db has trained himself to trade from this fast timeframe charts, to get in the trade at optimum price levels with tight stops, personally I would find it difficult to focus for longer periods this close to the trees so to speak, my charting pack goes down minimum to 1min, even that on European bourses can be far too volatile, try trading Dax on 1min and you will see what I mean

Anyway would be interesting to hear Db's views on this.

Depends on how you define "optimum". I don't just jump in, though some do. If I'm looking to go long, I set an entry above price. This does not give me as good an entry as it would if I were to jump in at or just before the deciding move (assuming that price does in fact move in the desired direction), but it does provide me with a little extra time, it forces price to move in my direction, and it enables me to set a stop that is nearly what it would have been if I had jumped in at a lower price (we are, after all, talking about only a few ticks here).

Once I'm a few points away from my entry, I switch to the 1m chart to manage the trade, not because there's anything particularly attractive about the 1m chart, but because I can zoom out only so far with the 1t chart, and following the trend is more difficult there. Once the opposite side of the trade is approached, I begin looking at the 1t again to see how price is reacting, if it's stalling, reversing, resting, etc.

But none of this is about how I trade; it's about whether or not one followed his plan, if he has one, and if he didn't, why he didn't, and what he could have, would have, and/or should have done differently. After all, only a handful of those who "trade intraday" are actually trading intraday fulltime and thus are able to follow the charts in real time. The rest are popping in as they can while focusing otherwise on their real jobs. I don't find this sporadic and episodic approach particularly conducive to learning how to trade intraday, but people do what they believe they have to do. The point of this thread is to help them figure out how to do it.

[Head2k]

I believe that unless I am using a 1 tick chart my entries are quite arbitrary. Not arbitrary in the sense that I wouldn't have rules or at least guide-lines for them, but in the sense that I am missing an important piece of information which my entries should be based on, too. If I want a tight stop, then I need to enter aggressively. I can have rules for what I want to see BEFORE the test I enter at, but cannot wait for much confirmation DURING the test. And I know that this is sometimes the source of my hesitation and missing trades. 1 tick chart can provide this sort of confirmation while you can still maintain a tight stop. Ideally, it gives you the optimal entry point, which is logical for you within all auction scales up to the largest relevant one for you. If you are fast enough to react, which means if you are sure what you are looking at and looking for.

(Not that I would attempt to reply to rigel or Shamal, I will leave that for Db. I just wrote what I am thinking of, as it touches the CWS topic, too, at least in my case.)

EDIT: I type so slowly that Db already answered. Good

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Head2k »

I believe that unless I am using a 1 tick chart my entries are quite arbitrary. Not arbitrary in the sense that I wouldn't have rules or at least guide-lines for them, but in the sense that I am missing an important piece of information which my entries should be based on, too. If I want a tight stop, then I need to enter aggressively. I can have rules for what I want to see BEFORE the test I enter at, but cannot wait for much confirmation DURING the test. And I know that this is sometimes the source of my hesitation and missing trades. 1 tick chart can provide this sort of confirmation while you can still maintain a tight stop. Ideally, it gives you the optimal entry point, which is logical for you within all auction scales up to the largest relevant one for you. If you are fast enough to react, which means if you are sure what you are looking at and looking for.

As regards hesitation and missing trades, at some point one has to settle and face himself. He has to be able to say that he accepts the risk involved in the trade, that he knows where he's going to enter, where his stop is going to be, where he's going to exit (more or less), and that he doesn't care one way or the other how the trade turns out. Hesitation is often the result of an inability -- for whatever reason -- to accept the risk. If one can't accept the possibility that the trade will be a loser, and if one can't be detached from the outcome, then he is right not to take it.

[Head2k]

Today Db asked me in chat to post my (performed) NQ long here. He said something like that if even Head2k can do it then it should be trivial for the others. Which is true.

I am afrad it will be quite a long story, since it begins before the open. So lets start with my preparation for today:

First 10k CVB chart for larger context:

I noticed that we broke June highs and marked both June high and pmkt high (the top 2 white lines).

Now 5 min:

A lot of lines. I don't mind a lot of lines as long as I am able to remember what they mean. Here, apart of the top 2 white lines, the most important is 1506 (green) as an importatnt R from yesterday, and 1508 (red) as an older level which was confirmed yesterday and today in the early morning (after 3 am).
Midpoints are yellow, dashed.
Here I noticed that after the yesterday high price found S almost at 1504.75 (an intraday level from yesterday), then failed to make a higher high (that is above 1520.25), but then failed to make a lower low (that is below 1504.75). Given the time it spent near the top and the manner of rejection off the bottom I was biased more toward longs. But I was ready to take a short if 1512 was broken and 1513.5-1516 was tested afterwards. I left this scenario when price broke 1516 right before open.
When that happened I decided to wait how things will develop. We were too close to R to try a long and too strong to try a short.
Perhaps this is the point where I should explain how I see ranges. In a range i don't see S and R as just two price levels. I see zones, or better to say "the extreme" and "the level which there is to be tested". Put simply, I see the extremes and the borders of value area within the range. And to get things more complicated, "the level which there is to be tested" can be peceived for a whole range or for an actual swing within the range. Here, for example, 1508 (red) pretty much marks what i percieved as VAL for the range and 1509.25 is "the level which there is to be tested" for the actual swing.

Now lets see 1 min after the open:

You can see that price almost reached yesterday high and was rejected. Then traders tried to go up again but the effort was ridiculous. I shorted 1516.75 but that's not the trade this post is about. The important fact is that I saw a relative strength as price broke the pmkt highs and was able to test the top again. I acknowledged the fact that this higher high could result in a higher low on a larger scale and I anticipated the higher low within the 1508-1509.25 zone.
When price was on its way down I noticed the high activity at 9:39 when price made a swing low at 1510.75. Later, when it poked below that, I noticed that the effort is gone and the down thrust shortened. But I waited. And since I was expecting S a bit lower i started to wonder what the hell is at 1509.75. And i found this:



So I thought ok, maybe that's it. Maybe I shoud broaden my S zone from 9.25 to 9.75. But I still wasn't convinced.

So I watched closely the 5 sec:



Trades tested 1514.25, the VAL of 4:15 - 7:15 range, and then I waited to see whether they would like to visit lower ground. They tested 1509.75 again. I still waited, because I prefer to trade off a higher low (edpected at 1510.75 here). In cases like this, if price bounces, it can easily test a midpoint (1512 here) and head down then. It did test the midpoint, but then couldn't continue down. And there was a nice TD. So I entered at the green arrow and that's it.

And this long story quite nicely demonstrates why it is so difficult to get my setups in writing. When I attempt to write something down I inevitably end with something too mechanical. But I can't trade in a mechanical way. The market is too complex for me to describe. I am a simple guy. Which brings me back to the fact that if I can do it, then it should be trivial for others.

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Head2k »

He said something like that if even Head2k can do it then it should be trivial for the others. Which is true.

Jokingly, of course

[wjrusnak]

Originally Posted by Head2k »

And this long story quite nicely demonstrates why it is so difficult to get my setups in writing. When I attempt to write something down I inevitably end with something too mechanical. But I can't trade in a mechanical way. The market is too complex for me to describe. I am a simple guy. Which brings me back to the fact that if I can do it, then it should be trivial for others.

A great point you made in this paragraph, and it really exemplifies the simple need for screen time. If traders were meant to just become mechanical in their trading, lazy suckers with forex robots and the scum bags who design them would be ruling the market. Obvious that is not the case.

I have a strong appreciation for your sense of the market, because it was developed through a long duration of screen time. Staring at charts in real time, basically getting a feel, or intuitive sense, for the market. I assume that many times you can already know what is going to happen without having a trend line broken, indicator cross, etc. and this all can come from screen time.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by wjrusnak »

I have a strong appreciation for your sense of the market, because it was developed through a long duration of screen time. Staring at charts in real time, basically getting a feel, or intuitive sense, for the market. I assume that many times you can already know what is going to happen without having a trend line broken, indicator cross, etc. and this all can come from screen time.

Thanks for the inspiration!

I should probably remind readers -- i.e., those who knew this already -- that Head wasn't detoured at the beginning. He glommed onto this approach at or near the beginning of his studies and has thus been able to save the sometimes extraordinary amount of time ordinarily devoted to unlearning a lot of stuff that is irrelevant, misleading, or downright untrue. This has enabled him to make the most of his screen time. And since he is not plagued by the ghosts of nonsense, he is often able to see trades that other "more expenenced" traders have not.

[Head2k]

Originally Posted by wjrusnak »

A great point you made in this paragraph, and it really exemplifies the simple need for screen time. If traders were meant to just become mechanical in their trading, lazy suckers with forex robots and the scum bags who design them would be ruling the market. Obvious that is not the case.

Well, I believe it's not that simple. And I am not happy with my inability to write down what I've been doing. I have guide lines. I have even my 2 main setups written down. Often I trade them by the book. But this trade, for example, was not the case. In fact I am a very lazy person and if I was more diligent with systematical replaying and testing, I could probably formulate my setups more specifically.

Originally Posted by wjrusnak »

I have a strong appreciation for your sense of the market, because it was developed through a long duration of screen time. Staring at charts in real time, basically getting a feel, or intuitive sense, for the market. I assume that many times you can already know what is going to happen without having a trend line broken, indicator cross, etc. and this all can come from screen time.

Thanks for the inspiration!

It's not a feel or intuitive sense. I just learned to perceive the market as an auction in real time. There is nothing more to it. And if I hadn't been blind for so long I wouldn't need such a long period of screen time at all. But as many experienced traders point out, beginners cloud their view with obsolete things and ideas.
I can never know what is going to happen, I draw trend lines and I use an indicator (though it doesn't cross ). Trend lines and the indicator are suplementary tools. I don't necessarily need them. The indicator I use is of my own design and it calculates and plots value area since a selected bar on my chart. Of course I can see the VA of a range even without calculating it, as well as I can see that a trend is slowing down even without a trend line. But these tools can give you some (more or less) objective measure and also a way to double-check. But it's a double-edged sword, because if you focus too much on what these tools are doing or how price is behaving in relation them, instead of how it behaves in relation to what they represent, you are detaching yourself from what matters. That was my problem for a long time.
And I don't know if all can come from sreen time. First you must have some logical framework for understanding the market (Or maybe you could even develop it while watching, but that wasn't my case). I had a logical framework in AMT and Wyckoff. They are both easy and simple to understand intellectually, but it took me way too much time to see how their principles are demonstrated in real time (because of before mentioned reasons). And that is the purpose of screen time.
I appreciate your appreciation but I am still at the beginning. Maybe I've made a couple of first steps.