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That seems to be the case with why people cannot take CTD.
Let's just say, from week 2's lectures, Price Action and Market Swings, I was able to hold a trade for two times my average win, just based on those concepts. The first 4 weeks are the basics and the foundation for the courses that follow.
When I got a taste of how powerful that new found knowledge was, I pushed forward and watched week's 3-6 since tuesday night. They don't suggest it but I figure if I have an idea of the concepts, why not apply them to real time trading while practicing and THEN go back and re-watch the videos to get a further understanding of the concepts. I've watched some lectures 3 time over when I go back.
I'm in the lounge and financials pit and I tell everyone just how beneficial it has been for me already. Its the best money I've spent for my trading education, next to joining TST in my development process.
When your results are inconsistent, its your method of how you define trends, support and resistance, which is leading to inconsistent results cause you do not have a consistent method for drawing those powerful tools. I neglected to draw trend lines for that reason until now.
The fact that you're posting only 1 time frame, ie, your tick chart, you're missing out on the bigger picture from the monthly all the way down to the 60 minute. Moves on one time frame may be just a retracement from the bigger picture, hence, you lose confidence in what you're doing because you don't see the bigger picture. Once you put yourself on the same side as the larger time frame traders and understand the Space Concept, you really put the odds in your favour for a profitable trade when you've identified the correct level to take profits, mean while already knowing ahead of time your Risk to Reward Ratio for that reason.
I've placed two practice trades off of my limited knowledge and both trades, although limited data, were winners, I just did not know enough to manage the trades properly.
If you go to my journal, the last few entries are from more knowledge which I've applied and today (28 June 2013) based on some trend lines I've drawn, the Bonds all triggered a trend line short, if you scale down from a 60 minute to say 15 or 5 minute. While in NG, there were plenty of trend line trades that were also profitable. Still limited data but its giving me the confidence, I'm understanding the concepts and applying it correctly.
Technically I'm still in week 1, but 15 years of doing the wrong thing, I know the right way of using the knowledge by learning how to use it correctly thanks to CTD, Bob and Mike.
I hope I didn't bore you with such a response.
It really is worth it at the end of the day, its too bad they raised the price cause I got in before the increase, mind you, its still worth the current price as you will learn something.
Oh another thing, you know how Hoag, Ray and all the TST Coaches say assess market state?
Do you even know how to assess market state with a definable method that is consistent?
That's week 2, which is why I said, its already helped me with that skill of assessing market state.
As it will depend on which time frame you are assessing as they all interact with each other.
I'm just practicing right now with drawing trend lines and significant levels on a 240 and based on how and when to redraw a trend line, I've already spotted a Trend Line Continuation trade setup on the 240 for NG going back to about 8 Nov 2012 at 0000hr EST.
The risk on a 240 is too large so you have to scale down to smaller time frames to find a suitable entry, which they teach.
The time frames I watch now are daily, 240, 60, 15 , 5 and a tick chart for NG.
Once you see the trades based on a predefined set of rules, looking back ie "back testing" you can clearly see which trade sets up and if the R:R ratio makes sense, take the trade if these other concepts are present to put the odds in your favour and my favourite concept is End of Space as a target. Already, when I look at a potential trade, that's one of the criteria that I must have, is there an End of Space target? yes or no? Is R:R Ratio 1:1.5 or greater? yes or no? If you ever hear Bob talk, he's an "If, then" trader, it makes life "easier" with that approach.
it sounds like you've found the right approach for you. keep working on it!
I've also tried trading with multi-timeframes before, in fact I began this journal with a higher time frame chart guiding a lower one. but I found that higher time-frames were really slow and limiting. and it just didn't suit my temperament to wait for things to become clear on a higher time frame chart while there were setups screaming at me on a lower one.
the biggest disadvantage I have is that I can't trade all day long. by the time market opens in NewYork it's already 9pm where I live. and I can't trade past midnight otherwise I wouldn't be able to function at work the next day. so I have only about 3 hours to trade everyday. and a swing trading style incorporating multiple timeframes simply wouldn't work for me.
but who knows, I might eventually migrate to swing trading, if my current experiment with going-with-the-order-flow style doesn't work out.
please keep posting your experience and learnings from CTD, as much as you can. I'm sure it'll benefit a lot of poor traders who just couldn't afford it.
I had a similar issue. When my rules were not as well define, it was too easy to place trades at points in the market where I should not be taking them. I don't think it is bad to tweak your rules. I'm still trying to better refine my criteria to improve profitability. You should not be drastically changing rules or entry criteria without knowing how that effects your system's profitability.
When I was trading with the trend, I had a harder time holding on to a winning trade because I often entered too early. In these cases, too often I'd end up scratching the trade at Break Even on the second retest of my entry only to watch the market continue in my direction without me. If I managed to take a reversal trade, I could usually expect a full stop out from a combination of weak entry criteria combined with poorly defined reversal criteria.
I used my daily trade reviews to take a hard look for two things
Trades I should not have taken based on my rules
Trades I missed
I found I needed to add a rule that I can not take reversal trades until I have banked profits to risk. This was necessary for me because my trading system can signal more reversals against the trend than entries to get into the trend.
I did not get any consistency until I could have clearly defined rules. I could have a good day and then give it all back the next day. I needed better definition on entry position that I first thought based on manual trade reviews that I performed. I feels the market wiggles around to let us see what we want to see to make a trade. Without a good rules definition you can not have repeatable trades and there is no way you can back test your system to know how it works over time.
I used to think larger time frames was too slow, but I'd rather see the bigger picture and wait till the market does something around those significant levels or trend lines. 3 hours is plenty to trade as that's all I do as well, from 0900-1200hr EST. If there is no trade in that window, I'm fine with it.
And what I was doing before CTD was using the lower time frames to find an entry based on a pattern, you know, head and shoulders, double tops, bottoms, etc. I was just missing out on how to properly use a trend line with consistent rules and finding significant levels that have meaning. Anyone can connect two points and find support and resistance. But how consistent has that "best fit" method worked out? I can say from personal experience, not very good.
But I really do hope you get around to taking the course, its really worth the time and money as you will look back at your journal entries and wonder what the heck you're thinking back then.
The Space Concept along with Price Action and Swings lectures helped me with holding onto a trade longer than I normally would have.
Even when prices retraced, I did not freak out and kept applying the knowledge I learned to reading price action and what it meant. Reading price action is not just watching the numbers go up and down and being all emotional with each up tick or down tick that goes for or against you.
How I know this, I traded NG for 30 days and had a winning average per contract between +9-17 ticks, one particular trade after understanding Price Action, held the trade for +45 ticks but at the time, did not know how to exit the trade based on the Space Concept.
Holding time is a by product of the market, its not something you should aim to increase for the sake of increasing. If that market reaches your target in 5 minutes or 20 minutes, its irrelevant in terms of measuring performance. All that tells me is the market either agreed with my trade quickly or it decided to take its time to agree.
I hear everyday, recruits make holding a trade longer as their goal. They are holding for the sake of holding, I've been there, done that.
Everything stated of what you will learn is true, you just have to understand the concepts and understand them fully to take advantage of what is being taught. You will no longer need any form of price based indicator cause those will always lag behind the price action it is based off of.
I've bought indicators from TTM, taken "courses" from Over Flow Edge, Trade Bond Futures, Rockwell Trading (<--total scam!) and yet, could not figure out why I could not make anything "work". I basically did not have an understanding of price action and price action alone. Just being able to recognize patterns is not enough, as that is what I was trading by until CTD and my results we're capped from not understanding the price action behind those patterns.
Be honest with yourself. You really do not know what you don't know. That saying is so true. I'm a living example of thinking I knew what I knew.
Sayounara , I am a rookie, so I hate giving advice....but.....
It seems like you are flipping back and forth, trying to trade both sides of the market. Maybe something that would help is to pick your direction that you wish to trade, and ignore all other signals for the opposite direction. In other words if you want to be short, you ignore any long setups, and if nothing short triggers, then you sit on your hands.
This seems to be helping a little bit for me. Hope it helps for you.
I should have recognized CTD. I did not think of the TST connection to place CTD. That is what I wanted to remember.
Been there too. Other people's systems just help start the learning curve. Too many systems don't seem to live up to the claims, or other people can't duplicate the results because there is so much more than just the system. Understanding the markets, Psychology, and risk management and controls also play a big part.
The Holy Grail is within each of us. We each need a system that is our own. That we understand inside out.
