The Markets, Trading & Charts Thread

[kevsta]

Market Function - "Support & Resistance"

When you look at the structure of a market, what we are actually talking about is the small area of price in between the Bid/Ask spread.

but on both sides of the current price spread are layered market orders, up and down the price range in both directions, this is what it looks like.

clearly, if you have a large imbalance here, ie sell orders at a particular level significantly outnumber buying, then price cannot get past that point, until all that selling has been done? (unless they gap it of course, happens all the time) this is resistance, and the same for support, if a large buyer has significant buy orders at a price, the market has to generate enough sells to exhaust that position and push lower.

can it be broken, yes of course. people scoff at "support and resistance", but looking at market structure like this, it's pretty obvious it exists isn't it?

even if it is temporary and evolving all the time, this is what is going on to drive price, just order flow, and large orders must affect price levels?

or what?

..can you make assumptions and trade from it? in my experience absolutely not, because it holds, until it doesn't. but are we all prepared to accept that stacked order flow and volume is what drives price?

 

[kevsta]

Euro update, took 3/5ths off at 108 pips to lock in some in case of more madness

so that's +2.6% locked in since yesterday morning with about another +1.5% floating profit currently, which could still be stopped at +0.33%

if this does turn out to be push 1 down as I'm hoping, I'll be taking the push 2 & 3 trades down as usual, but want to try and run a portion from the very top, to the very bottom, if possible. it would be the first time ever

 

[kevsta]

more predictions

we can watch along together and see how all the news all fits in

what it looked like last time, was a big news week, day after day.

added in, great work by the MM desk changeover today, wipeout for everybody else. if anybody wonders why our strategy only take trades from what we perceive to be the outside of the range, wonder no more.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

the only nonsense in this thread is coming from your keyboard as usual.

Keep posting your little "charts". We'll keep laughing. Mmmmkay?

 

[Francesca R]

Oooh pretty

 

[kevsta]

Oooh pretty

Excellent, I was hoping that at some point someone with the vaguest clue might turn up.

meanwhile EURJPY push 2 gets underway on schedule. have you ever pondered on the 3 wave cycles in markets Francesca?

 

[kevsta]

lomiller, do you remember you saying people couldn't sell the yen and buy the Nikkei?

here's the trade screen. Im profiting from speculating against a depreciating yen right now. does that make me bad?

I didn't simultaneously buy the Nikkei because I don't trust the floor yet, but its just a click of a button.

I bet Francesca could sell the Yen and buy the Nikkei too if she wanted.

 

[kevsta]

Market Cycle..

there it is, deny it all you like. hidden in plain view.

 

[Pulvinar]

there it is, deny it all you like. hidden in plain view.

That's very nice. Can you draw us a picture of next month?

What I can't figure out is that if you have a method that pays off, why wouldn't large numbers of people discover it and take advantage, thereby affect the market and negate the results?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

That's very nice. Can you draw us a picture of next month?

What I can't figure out is that if you have a method that pays off, why wouldn't large numbers of people discover it and take advantage, thereby affect the market and negate the results?

Shhhhhh!!!! Theres no place for logic when discussing charts.

 

[psionl0]

there it is, deny it all you like. hidden in plain view.

[qimg]http://clip2net.com/clip/m0/1375375446-clip-30kb.png[/qimg]

Are you saying that you can pick these "market turning points" reliably enough to profit from them.

How are you doing that? Do you just go by the price history or have you sussed out what the big players are likely to do when a trend becomes evident?

 

[kevsta]

That's very nice. Can you draw us a picture of next month?

haha, unfortunately not until the cycle reveals itself from push one onwards, at least, as then you have a good idea which direction is probably next.

if you scroll back a page post or page though I have attempted to draw one for the Euro for the next few days if thats any good?

when youre in level 3, the winners are now reversing out of their previous positions and getting into their next, and we cant know whether they are accumulating buy or sells, until the trend starts.

so in the level 3 area we just short the top and buy the bottom of the range, upon seeing stoptaking at our prelocated likely points until hopefully it breaks out, with you on the end of it.

like this

but only if you see that. it means you miss some trades, but you only have to catch one (a week) like this USDJPY one and you're doing ok.

What I can't figure out is that if you have a method that pays off, why wouldn't large numbers of people discover it and take advantage, thereby affect the market and negate the results?

me neither, was kind of hoping for some input here really.

there are reasonably large numbers of people trading (in the thousands I am sure) like this, many of them successfully. I can only assume we are just the cost of business to the opposition, those few who know the game they just have to live with.

 

[kevsta]

Are you saying that you can pick these "market turning points" reliably enough to profit from them.

yes, at this point I think I am now probably saying that.

How are you doing that? Do you just go by the price history or have you sussed out what the big players are likely to do when a trend becomes evident?

amigo, you might not have grasped the full extent of my immersion into this since I saw the potential nearly a year ago, 16-18hr days 7am-3am quite often, watching markets and price action, testing testing testing and attempting to internalize the strategy with what you see all the time. I think I am almost there now.

my problems still lie with controlling myself primarily, but this has come on leaps and bounds recently as the strategy starts to work more and more, I am more comfortable waiting instead of rushing, overtrading etc etc..

however, that said my primary (Forex) live account balance is up +9.33% locked in, and about another +1.5% live in a trade, that could end up being stopped out at about +0.7%. or it could turn into another +2 or 3%

Im not being funny, but this is valuable information, I doubt many of Francesca's traders have earnt nearly +11% since June 24th.

the main reason most people aren't profiting from it, IMO is because even if they try it, like any steep learning curve, you could fall off and fail. and especially because trading (retail style) is done by muppets primarily, and even though I can talk you through how it works, I guarantee you would not be able to just start and succeed, due to all kinds of emotional pulls and issues you had no idea that you had.

first account wipeout, guaranteed, always.

 

[Pulvinar]

me neither, was kind of hoping for some input here really.

there are reasonably large numbers of people trading (in the thousands I am sure) like this, many of them successfully. I can only assume we are just the cost of business to the opposition, those few who know the game they just have to live with.

If I were writing trading algorithms, I'd write one that recognized swing-trader activity and then automatically "helped" enlarge the swing with counter-buys and sells, waiting until enough swing traders were on the hook before it did one final humongous trade that took the swing traders to the cleaners.

But that would be mean, so I'm sure no-one ever does that...

 

[kevsta]

If I were writing trading algorithms, I'd write one that recognized swing-trader activity and then automatically "helped" enlarge the swing with counter-buys and sells, waiting until enough swing traders were on the hook before it did one final humongous trade that took the swing traders to the cleaners.

But that would be mean, so I'm sure no-one ever does that...

I don't have much to add to that.

 

[kevsta]

Trading Tips - How to Pick your Bottom

as a trader spends most of his time sitting around, this is a valuable skill, so here's a Bottom Picking for Dummies guide

1. pick an FX pair and watch it.
2. learn to count to 3.
3. when you have seen 3 clear pushes in one direction, define the level 3 range.
4. wait for the range to push slightly further and settle again
5. wait for clear break to a level slightly below it, and rejection back up again.
6. price will bounce up, then head down (at least) one more time to the line you just broke through, from the top
7. hit the button at the line (buy / sell depending which way)
8. wait for the shift bar
9. game over

trade setup shown, commentary added as it ran.

you will probably have to put up with some of this nonsense while you wait (GBP on the right)

but if you are in the right place, and did it right, this is what will happen

do not let the action in the red oval unnerve you, it is designed to do exactly that, make you modify your position, cancel etc.

and finishing up with a news based gap in my direction this second. apparently, I was in the right place again.

so I am now short Euro from possibly the top of the cycle, and long GBP from hopefully the bottom of it.

oh yes its all very complicated and unpredictable this trading lark.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Damn, I thought this was going to be a thread about global indices.

The Australian All Ordinaries, for instance, had a good day today:

 

[kevsta]

Damn, I thought this was going to be a thread about global indices.

The Australian All Ordinaries, for instance, had a good day today:

[qimg]http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w194/orphia/Market130802_zpsd8d6b20e.jpg[/qimg]

Im happy to discuss whatever markets people want to, my knowledge is with Forex primarily, but I bet I can find the cycles in anything people want to suggest, that I can chart properly?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Im happy to discuss whatever markets people want to, my knowledge is with Forex primarily, but I bet I can find the cycles in anything people want to suggest, that I can chart properly?

I bet you can also find patterns in clouds and faces on Mars.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

kevsta,

A quick note...

I'm not sure if it's something new, or if I just started noticing it more, but...

A lot of condescension and name calling have crept into your posts.

Recently, traditional investors are "rubes". I think "muppets" are those attempting to play your game, only not as well. That may be similar to "the herd" that you're so obviously smarter than. I think there are probably others, but the general tone is what I'm referring to.

Many traditional investors have steadily built portfolios over a lifetime that, in the end, allows them to retire -often on just the income that portfolio provided. I know people who have ridden up huge gains in individual stocks - Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Netflix and Google, for example, sometimes riding up gains of 10x or 20x or even much more by picking solid companies with potential and the having the patience to wait years, or even decades, as their wealth accumulates.

And most of these investors are also diversified, also steadily investing in "widow and orphan" stocks - dividend paying utilities and blue chips, systematically (and often automatically) reinvesting dividends and allowing the miracle of compound interest to work over time.

I know people who have built $1,000,000+ portfolios this way, and some who have succeeded with portfolios well beyond that amount.

Yet, they're rubes. Rubes who rarely pay tax on their gains, because they rarely take gains. Rubes that, when they do take gains, currently pay 15% while you, if successful, will have to give about 40% of your gains back in taxes.

And those silly "muppets". If only they were as bright and insightful as you, they would not get jerked around while you use all the obvious patterns in the charts to chase after pips and hope, at the end of any given day, that you've managed to tease out a gain, jockeying around in the "noise" to maybe get a percent here and a percent there.

And I'm pretty sure you're smarter that all the multitudes of "muppets" who have tried to do what you're doing now, and eventually crashed and burned, each with plaintive tales about how they could have "won big" if they had only had more discipline, watched more closely, or not been blindsided by some "black swan" market upheaval that wiped them out in short order.

What I'm trying to say is there's nothing new in what you're attempting here - it has a long, and I think deservedly sordid history of failure behind it.

I guess this ended up being more than a "quick note". Anyway, just beware when you start to see yourself as superior to or smarter than others. Maybe you are, but pride goeth before a fall.