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And the trolls seem to always follow and post nonsense and muck up his threads. If you don't like what he has to share don't read it simple as that. I for one am glad he is posting here. TL and ET I don't frequent as often but when I do it is to read his posts. What have you offered?
I was only able to watch the last 40 minutes of the days action and it seemed quite interesting given the recent posts, I am probably overlooking something, but, from an intraday perspective this is what I saw, of course, these things are always easier in hindsight.
There is a possible failure right after the BO, but a retest after the BO is to be expected, highlighted the hinge without thinking, must have sub-consciously applied what I read in one of DB's posts regarding the unfolding action.
The small rally off the 11th-15th MP after the DT drop fails to make much progress into the proceeding decline.
I don't get into this in the SLAB because it seems to me to be a bit too sophisticated for a beginner, or even a "damaged trader" who has so much to unlearn. Maybe I'm being patronizing ("you'll understand when you're older"), but I'd rather address it with those who are well on the path and have dug into the work with both hands. So far, there aren't many.
But, since you asked . . .
I address the hinge and its dynamics in the SLAB. I also address trendlines and "support and resistance" lines and the fact that none of them provide support and/or resistance. For most young or youngish traders this is tantamount to saying that there is no God. But I don't get deeply into equilibrium and balancing nor do I get into springboards. The SLAB is a primer, and going into all that would be like discussing existentialism or particle physics in Dick and Jane.
So this is directed to those who've been doing the work. Everybody else pretend that you don't see it.
The business of a market is to facilitate trade. It has no other reason to exist. And the participants in this activity consist of those who are interested in buying and those who are interested in selling. Naturally each of these parties want what each considers to be the "best price". They will of course disagree on what the best price is. So traders spend the majority of their time negotiating these prices and hopefully completing transactions. While some transactions will take place "on the fly" in up and down surges, the volume won't be there at any given level because there aren't that many trades taking place at any given level. In fact, if price is moving rapidly, there may be considerable gaps from one transaction to the next. If one is using a bar/candle/line chart, these gaps will be covered by the connect-the-dots nature of bars/candles/lines. If one were to view a tick chart (and when I say "tick chart", I mean one tick), he'd see these gaps, and it's important to know that they are there as no support will be there when price reverses and begins tumbling back down (or rallies after a climactic move downward, which is why reversals are often so powerful). The bulk of the volume resides in those zones where the bulk of the transactions are being completed. Hence, the "range", and more specifically the mean/median of the range (one can see this graphically by plotting "volume at price"). This process involves to some extent what's called "price discovery", i.e., buyers and sellers bidding high and asking low and vice-versa in order to come up with a mutually-agreed-upon price. Sometimes these negotiations can range widely, sometimes not. But the level or zone or area of chief interest to the amateur trader is that in which the bulk of transactions are taking place, not because it is an area where he wants to trade but because it is an area he wants to avoid, what is often referred to as "chop".
To make a long story short (too late), it is not the limits of a range or trend channel that are most important to a trader but rather the mean or median (not always the same) and how far traders venture from that mean in order to find trades. When they can no longer find trades, professionals begin the return trip back to that zone where the most trades are taking place: the mean. That's where the liquidity lies. This is why these lines don't and can't provide support or resistance: they are where they are because of their varying distances from the mean. We can draw straight lines for convenience, but these moves away from the mean are actually pulses. They do, however, provide some knowledge of where the "extremes" are, those levels beyond which traders can't find trades. And if traders couldn't find trades there the last time, chances are they won't be able to find trades there this time either. At worst, it's cheap to find out as the stop can be so tight.
In this example, therefore, which some people call a "horn", the diagonal lines I've drawn, and which may be found in books and articles on patterns, are irrelevant. What you have is an expanded range, expanded around the mean of the whole thing at 52. The symmetry of it is a giveaway. Nothing else really matters beyond the mean and the distance traders are able to travel away from it before they run out of people to trade with. Beyond these limits, buyers aren't willing to pay the ask and sellers aren't willing to lower it. This may all change in this example by tomorrow morning or even tonight. But, for now, this is the hand the market is dealing and it's up to the trader to figure out how to play it. I choose to play it by ignoring it and waiting for them to begin trending for whatever reason they choose to do so. It's just easier.
This is not to say that there aren't trades here, but they require different tactics, particularly with regard to management, and I don't find the increased costs to sufficiently balance the potential profits (I'm not a scalper). My goal is 1-3 trades a day, not 20 or 30, much less 40. I just don't love it that much. When faced with something like this, which is common after a trending day, I just wait it out rather than look for something that really isn't there.
Quite often the wisest course for a trader is to look for reasons NOT to trade rather than look for opportunities that exist only in his mind.
One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They can't just sit there and wait for something new to develop. I wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. Even people who lose money in the market say, 'I just lost my money, now I have to do something to make it back.' No, you don't. You should sit there until you find something.
I ought to post this as well, for those who are going to stay up all night to watch price:
I believe this is what the books call a "diamond". But if price bounces around within its confines, it becomes the usual hinge, and if price busts out of it before reaching the apex, there might be an opportunity. OTOH, if it works its way all the way to the apex, as I said somewhere earlier, more likely it'll just drift again. If it were Friday, I'd vote for ranging. But you never really know.
Here is some early morning action on the 6e. Pardon me for the hindsight markings and not using the correct chart format. I am still trying to improve my SLA real-time trading skills. 5 Day H on the 6e was 1.402. EU open had a small opening range that tested the MP of yesterdays closing action. A possible long on the reversal there. Then you had a pullback on the b/o of the ONH for another long exiting on the break of the DL.
Though I had a long bias I missed all of those and settled for some shorts on what I perceived was a short term trend reversal for a small scalp to retest the 5 day H bo level 1.402 and the HH failure. Some other longs on the trend reversal at the 50% which turned into a hinge for some other areas for longs to test the H. Which then ultimately turned into a failure to make a HH and it looks as though we will be settling into a 40 pip range until 8:30a news and the US open as the Volume MP shifts to 1.407. Some nice clean action today. Please critique.
Sorry, but without the context, there's really nothing for me here. It ranges until about 0410, begins to trend, then quickly begins to range again. If you're scalping, I can't advise you on that. If you're trading ranges, then the SLA can be of little help as it doesn't apply to ranges. I'll look at the 6e later after my eyes have fully opened and try to come up with something helpful.
Fair enough. I wish I traded the NQ so we would at least be on the same page. I have just grown so used to the 6e that it is hard to change. I have been through all the material and have been there since the good ol TL days. I just want you to know I appreciate the knowledge you share and it's been great to see how the method has evolved.
I don't know if the SLA can be of any use to you. Or AMT, for that matter. It's easy to see in hindsight that you've been ranging since the beginning of February. If you bought the test during the middle of April, you'd be out by the middle of May, at which point and since which point you've been ranging. You broke out of an hourly range at 1.1385 but haven't gone anywhere since. If and when you get past 1.1466 there might be something for you, but this looks like it involves a lot of waiting, unless you're scalping.
