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First, don't give up. The only sure fire way to fail at trading is to give up.
Brett's most recent book (Daily Trading Coach) is a great one. It is a gold mine of ideas and concepts to improve your trading.
Yes, on the forum everyone is looking for the next best thing. But, there is no evidence to suggest that means it is right or profitable. Most are searching because they don't know what else to do. Most are not as far along in their journey as you, and have not realized their issues are primarily to do with themselves and very little to do with the method. Everyone has to come down the path to get to the end of the road. There is no shortcut. What is the hottest area of the forum? Downloads. What is the least visited? Psychology. Now you tell me if you should give much credence to what other people are doing
I can't give you advice regarding market profile. But, I can read your post. And it seems to me you have already decided that market profile is not what makes sense to you right now, or it doesn't fit your style. Trust yourself.
It's not about trading naked or not. I believe profit has very little to do with the chart. It has everything to do with the individual. But in order to bridge the gap, we have to start somewhere. A chart helps a trader build confidence in themselves so you can get from point A to point B. That is why some traders may have 42 indicators on their chart and swear by them, and also be profitable. I don't believe for a second these indicators are what is making the trader profitable, rather it is their experience with them. The trader has learned to interpret the market through the eyes of these indicators, and with enough experience they've become an extension. The trader itself is good, or he would lose money no matter what is on his chart. I think that if you stripped away the indicators and forced the trader to trade with a blank chart, he would have problems. It's all psychological. I'm not saying that he couldn't one day overcome them, because I think he could. But he would struggle for a long time until he built up experience with the new method.
Many traders don't have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. You've read before that you want to live to fight another day -- the way to make it in trading is to not go broke before you figure out how to trade. It's quite true.
You mentioned, paraphrasing, what's the point of trading if you are going against the best -- what chance do you have to succeed? First, before you start trading again, you really need to satisfy some external factors. Eliminate any major obstacles in your life surrounding your trading so that you can focus solely on trading. This could mean financial responsibilities, it could mean relationships, it could mean health, stress factors, etc. From there, you don't have to beat the best traders, you just have to beat 95% of all traders in order to make money.
Let me put it in perspective. I don't think George Foreman would be concerned if he was dropped in the middle of some suburban neighborhood and told he had to fight 100 people (one at a time) in the ring. Let's exclude factors like getting tired or sore. What I mean is, George knows the odds are he can beat these people. They are not boxers, they are just regular guys. Now lets say that his promoter said he will pay George $1,000 for every person he beats in the ring. Even if George wins in 95 out of 100 matches, he has still made a lot of money.
Now boxing and trading are not alike in many ways. But the average person trading, and losing money, is ill-equipped for the profession. They have negative external influences, they have inadequate experience or capital, they don't have a strong passion for it, etc. You can see where you are more like George Foreman than these average people. Now you may run up against a few people over time that are better than you, and you may lose to them. But each time you lose, you learn more, and you can also learn to just not accept the fight in the first place.
I hope this makes sense. The point of my gibberish is that you are already far, far ahead compared to the average trader. Give yourself some credit. The next wave of learning in your trading career is likely to come from within, and not externally (in my opinion). That is why I cautioned against getting caught up in some new method.
I can testify that the method explained in the trading-naked website were developed by great traders.
I personally learned a lot from buffy's and jimmer's mof and slingshot setup.
I watched buffy and jimmer for years in a trading room and learned what now forms the basis of my understanding of markets.
Jimmer also was for a long time in the efuturevision room.
But I didn't apply their method blindly... I studied them for a long time and then made some adjustments to their setups to better reflect my trading style and my personality.
What I'm trying to say is that there is nothing wrong to use someone else's techniques, as long as you've understand them well and adapted them to your trading personality.
Could you go into some detail about how what you learned from Buffy and Jimmer that helped you form your understanding of the markets. When I look at the MOF and Slingshot setups their is no explanation about market understanding or anything else. They do speak quite a bit about higher time frames though.
As far as trading personality goes, how does one determine that. I never considered myself a scalper because I though scalpers go for few ticks and I would think that a good method should do better than that, but at the same time I don't think I have the patience to be a swing or position trader. Is this what you mean by trader personality?
the understanding of market I learned came from the months and years of being in the trading room with buffy and other successful traders. Plenty of discussions were made about price action and, as far as I know, there are no traces of these discussions in the net, apart from the well-know buffy's article "Price action - the footprint of the money", which you probably have read, and some chat transcripts in the dacharts website.
What I've done is basically to simplify the mof and slingshot setups, as I believe they were using too many unnecessary rules, which I replaced with a new indicator not used by them.
This is also part of my trading personality, as I'm a "keep it simple" guy, and cannot use too many rules, my setups have to be as simple as possible, but not simplier.
Regarding the timeframes and trade duration, I tried all, from scalping to long term trading, and I found that I can't trade the daily and weekly timeframes, because I don't have the patience to wait for the setups to develop and for the trades to go on.
I'm both a scalper and a day trader: I enter a position with two targets: a very near scalping target and a second "free" target, which I keep adjusting as the trade unfolds, trying to catch a big part of the movement. When I see an intraday trend developing, this second target becomes a trailing stop.
I plan to start my journal here on BM, maybe in the beginning of semptember, as I'm now preparing for august holidays.
I agree that the slingshot and MOF have a lot of rules and I think the indicators are redundant as well. They have the 2X stochastic window and the Bline window and I don't understand why. When you get back from your holiday maybe you can share how simplified the method.
I agree about day and week time frame. I lack patience as well, but don't really want to consider myself a scalper. I always thought scalpers went for a few ticks and I feel that a good setup should yield better than a few ticks. I like the concept of a shorter term target and then a free trade looking for a bigger move. I even like having 3 targets if I can trade 3 units.
There much discussion about the use of indicators or not. Many have strong opinions which is great. What is the benefit/drawback of both?
There are two charts attached. A naked 6 range and a 900 tick with indicators. I indicate, in hind sight of course, where I would have taken trades based on the indy based chart. In the Elusive PA thread I know Mike is usually taking trades on the breaks of swing highs or Lows. I don't know if he does other things or not, but assuming that is the method of entry. I know others may use a 3 bar pattern or maybe even a trend line break.
I believe because jimmer developed the 2X stochastics, and buffy developed the bline... so keep them both and no offense to anyone
Apart from the jokes, they appear to confirm everything with everything but... under the surface they understand and trade price action only. They use lots of indicators but at the same they trade naked, because indicators are used only to make price action clearer.
Their setups originate from a well defined price action pattern, and they use indicators to make it easier to identify that pattern. This is the correct way to use indicators, indicators aren't the setup themselves, the price pattern is the setup, and indicators only "indicate" that the pattern may be developing.
Once one has been trading this way for a long time, he start to "feel" the price action, can remove indicators and continue to see price action clearly, but there's no need to do it.
Seriously I feel slightly as though we were seperated at birth, lol.
It seems like we have been to all the same places and followed the same path. I am very familar with buffy / jimmer and there system and their trading room, having spent many months in there, what a great bunch of guys / girls and I also know trader rick from back then and have dropped buy his place a few times. A few from the old days of the room have gone on to teach others in what works for them ( Huddy / Rick...) at very reasonable costs and to some effect.
I also know you have checked out Mark Braun's and others fib structures. For me Mark is a legend. I have traded with him on and off for quite some time and he is always open and available for all sorts of inspiration/ money management issues / pshycological help. I have seen his trades (broker statements) and he does what he says day in day out and does very well from it even though in E.S terms he is a relativly small lot trader.
He switched me on to many things and his fib work forms the structure that all my trading is based on. However I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a hard time at first trying to work out how to execute and benefit from it!
Why?
Because i was trying to copy him, and there were certain issues I had with that. Anyway I then went to what i found to be the best solution to the problem.....I added a bit of my own experiance into the mix with the 3/10/16 as a trigger and I have attached 2 charts to try and show how I trade this way.
NB I use MarketDelta for E.S but the charts are Eurostox and as such and as with F.X I use the 3/10/16.
I have marked the swings and targets with lines rather than putting all the fibs on (I can do if you like) and I then trade the lower time frame away from the larger time frame.
It is worth noting the purple lines are where i would have price action entrys and the 3/10/16 entrys should be visable at the bottom of the charts. If the indicator makes it easy to read the price action or in my case stay in the trade longer then great!
NB. the small gartley on the lower time frame that sets up at the lows ( green lines) after the perfect ab/cd (yellow lines) also the target from the larger blue line swings.
Anyway , longest post ever for me! hope its of some help! I guess what im trying to say is I have found my own path by using bits of various things put together in away that as Mark would say "calls to my eye" I.E i can see in real time.
I really really miss the old days of the room, great traders, with the same charts, looking for the same setups, the same timeframes... that was HUGE!
I never learned so much anywhere else.
I'm always looking for something similar, but never found anything with the same value.
This futures.io (formerly BMT) forum is catching my attention now, I see some potential in it, hopefully we'll build something great
This could be one of those big "secrets" of trading: you have to adapt other people methods to yourself, this way you can feel it as yours and have the inner belief it is right for you.