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I have read that post by the mysterious Ziad several times now and I agree it's good, although now that I've read it so often, I have to re-read it very deliberately and reflect on each sentence, otherwise I just think "oh yeah I know that" but of course, to know it and to really know it are 2 different things.....
I tried to find the original post by Ziad but couldn't. Only found the quote of the post. Wanted to follow a blog by him or something but he doesn't do one. The site is really intriguing. Denise Shull is on there too.
You mentioned yourself that the 100 charts with hindsight is part of the YTC PAT programme, and you're right, as is @Bacon, as are quite a few messages on this forum: practice makes perfect - or at least profitable.
I did that, but I didn't do it properly. For me, it was too boring and I found myself doing many other peripheral things instead and so it took ages to complete 100 days and then towards the end I realised I hadn't even been analysing the charts properly according to the method.
That's why I'm reluctant to take up your suggestion of doing 100 charts with hindsight again. I was making notes to mark-up the charts and make them neat and saving them for later. What I should do if I do it again is to do it as quickly as possible, literally the bare minimum - no notes, no saved files, no other analysis, just a running total of how many worked vs how many failed. Unless you have the resolution of a saint, I would recommend trying to analyse 2 weeks every day, i.e. 10 charts a day. That way would only take you ten days. I spent more than a month on it, crazy in retrospect.
On the actual subject - break-outs - I am getting closer to where I want to be with the break-out setups, and I figure the situation we were discussing doesn't happen often enough to warrant taking a large time-out from sim trading to do hindsight analysis on the subject. While sim trading, I will carry on trying these particular types of break-out, and if I'm still no clear when I'm ready to go live with the normal break-out strategy, I'll not trade the unusual ones - I can switch quickly to sim with no great effort in NinjaTrader, so I can practice like that (hopefully).
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
My current method for entering on the stall after a break-out is definitely better for me, in particular when I have no clear bias up or down.
However I am missing entries and it still bugs me. I need to work harder to work out the bias - there's always going to be at least something that gives a bias. And then I can put an entry order in place and not miss some of these big winners. At least 3 today I missed.
One of the problems is looking for weakness when the whole market seems weak, not just the bulls or the bears. It seems the market is more likely just to stop dead sometimes.
Another problem is focus. I let it slip so often it's embarrassing. Not only do I just miss some entries through lack of concentration, but today I put in a buy instead of a sell and at another entry a market order instead of limit order. I'm going to start using a timer for 1/2 hour intervals, and I'm going to take a minute's break and do some re-focusing to get my attention back. I'll restrict everything to these breaks, so nothing in-between - no emails, no cup of tea, no sorting something out, no visit to the toilet, unless it's a break.
Otherwise, I'm getting slightly optimistic that I've actually improved. Today was not a complete disaster as it probably sounds like from this post - OK I only made 8 pips, so more or less break-even before commissions, but I think I didn't suffer from some of my earlier beginner mistakes.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Don't worry, I'm not a lawyer. And I judge ideas on whether they're useful to me rather than on who said them - even if it was my granny, if you see what I mean.
Good effort finding that blog post. Always good to have the source.
I think one of the things related to Ziad X's post for me that worries me is that I'm hopeless at seeing the 'signs' or the 'writing on the wall' even in hindsight that I should be noting down and memorising as key pieces of knowledge about price action. Maybe I've got the wrong impression but when I read people talking like Ziad, and even like Lance Beggs, saying to write this stuff down and go over it in the future, I get confused because I never seem to see the same thing twice. I don't know. Maybe my subconcious is picking some stuff up that my concious mind is ignoring.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
My concern was different. I just wanted to emphasize that I am not advanced enough for my comments to be taken as suggestion. I have to be considered as a "sub-granny", with reference to your last post.
If I may make a comment on the second chart and its "Almost a setup to go long" on the right....
It could be seen on the contrary as a With-Trend setup to go short in a downtrend.
Each of the movements before the end of your 2 arrows could be seen as bull pullback in a downtrend.
Both end with a pinbar (if you compress in 1 bar the 2 bars at the end of the arrows) which rejects the top-side and constitutes a failed HH (compared to the High in the middle of the pullback 3 bars before). Bulls are trapped in and will try to go out. Bears are trapped out and will try to chase the market.
It think that it is more or less a YTC setup: CPB reinforced by the trap. Refer for instance to fig.4.19 of YTC vol.3 which also provides for a trap.
I could personally have considered to enter short directly 1 tick below each of the 2 red candles at the end of your 2 arrows.
So easy with hindsight!
I like your thinking, I find it difficult to work out where traders are getting trapped. I need to emphasise it much more in my thinking but find that difficult.
I was bullish for that part of the day - firstly I figured it was counter-trend so at any point it might reverse (it had just reversed at the S/R in a Test setup) and secondly it was a weak swing, not moving sharp enough for me. However now that you've flagged up this idea, it's put the thought in my head so I'll be more aware of that opportunity now (hopefully).
Your analysis has one distinct advantage: it would have made money
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
there's no way of getting around doing the dirty work. if you try to do everything as fast as possible, you will miss the small details and end up going back and doing everything all over again. don't try to rush everything, you'll only end up screwing yourself in the long run. say you remember something from your studying, but you rushed through everything and didn't write it down. you will kick yourself and you will end up looking through all the charts again to find it.
i spent a lot of time going through the charts myself and did bar by bar analysis just like what was mentioned previously. i would pull the chart all the way to the right and just click the right arrow letting each bar show up and ask myself if i would take this bar, why this one would fail, etc. theres just no way of getting around the dirty work. i did however only look at the bars for the times i only trade. i only trade from 7am to 12pm, so i would only start the bars at 7am and end at 12pm. this helps you spot your setups like its second nature and you will notice all the small details from seeing them over and over again.
i do however lose focus when trading live and miss setups as well waiting for setups to occur. i'm starting to record my trading to help me focus more and i'll try to find other ways to help keep me focused. its easier to drain your energy trading the smaller time frames than the larger time frames.
Gotta learn how to fall asleep. I'm not an insomniac but I lie in bed wanting to sleep for at least an hour every night. And 1 hour awake when you need sleep = 1 hour sleep debt which your lower brain stem tries to reclaim without being so good as to ask your concious mind beforehand.
Working with my trade journal spreadsheet is getting more important now as I'm making less basic errors and logging the smarter errors I'm making
I'm really bad at placing orders, that's for sure. As an order entry clerk, I suck.
I'm also just not reacting when I read changes in the strength / weakness of the price action. Focus I guess. Pretty dumb.
I tried increasing my focus with a 30min alarm, which works to a certain extent but I need to take it more seriously, like my trading should have priority over my coffee - not so simple.
Stops are still causing an issue re placement. Wondering if paying relatively big commissions on each trade affects my stop placement. I pay $7.50 comm on a trade that makes $2 per pip per part / $4 per pip total at the start with both parts on.
I don't want another $15 loss so I put the stop closer. If I was paying less % comm, would I feel easier about the correct stops?
Another question: why can't I tell what the correct stop is and use it, instead of letting some kind of emotion affect me?
On the positive side I'm getting happier about entering at a break-out (providing I don't foobar it). With normal volatility I can enter at the break of the extreme of the exit candle rather than leaping in mid-way through the exit candle which has a habit of retracing back into the stall before closing. This only works if the volatility is moderate and the candle is not big.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
4. Do not watch TV before you go to bed, meditate if you can or read a relaxing book.
5. When you sleep, focus on happy ez thoughts. Never think about problems or issues.
GREAT!!!
Well, you know where you stand, but be careful of criticizing yourself. I do this and it doesn't serve anyone. You aren't that bad.
How would you like to react? You mean you are not changing your posture or alertness level or what? Why do you think this is?
Don't drink coffee! haha. Caffeine will create a confused mind in my opinion or it will help you fire faster... For me it confuses me.
Do you need to change brokers, go for longer runs, etc.. I don't scalp Forex because of the commissions and slippage issues.
You are in the same boat with us all. There is no 'correct', just the one that you learn to profit from and feel ok with. (My opinion, not an expert yet...)
Adamus, Ziad runs OpenTrader...at the moment, he won't blog or share his views. I regard that post by him (the one on EMiniPlayer's site as a brilliant condensed view of several good books).
In my opinion it is one of the 2 or 3 most impact-ful and powerful pieces on trading I have ever read. Your point of those words being 'just words' are twin edged.
You can only (as I did) understand the profoundness of them by "living" the market and undergoing the pain its brings to see the light of the day. it's why I rarely ever post 'setups'. Setups fail each day, other times they succeed spectacularly.
The devil is the details, when to apply them and when to back away. The only way I understood the difference was sheer screen time.
Another curious thing, I have switched to spot Euro over 6E just recently, I think spot Euro is much cleaner in its signals in my Forex account. And not regretting it one bit