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Just for the hell of it, here are a blow-up of one of the RIMM charts displayed in SJ's pdf link. Below is a "blank" non-log chart of the part of it to the right of the bold, black, vertical line (one can use the area to the left of the line for context).
For those of you who've read Wyckoff's course in the original, what would he have done here and where and why?
(Note that there is a slight difference in trendlines when using log charts, but in this segment it's not enough to matter.)
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
If it's of any interest, Gary Fullett at ltg-trading has been trying to get Amos Cohen to do a Wyckoff PnF webinar for a while now and promises that it will be early in the New Year. Not sure if it's going to be one of his free ones on a Sunday night - always worth watching anyway and I've learned more about the subtleties of Wyckoff chart reading from Gary than from any other source.
David Weis uses Wyckoff's PnF method and posts charts from time to time in his nightly free letter. Apologies if I am pointing out what you guys probably already know, but my understanding of the basic tenet with Wyckoff, is that you take the count across the row with the greatest number of 'O's and 'X's of the consolidation and then project conservatively from the base of the consolidation and more aggressively from the low of the column that the break-out initiates from. In this case (on the ES) the target range would be 1472.5 to 1473.75. You can then do sequential counts on minor consolidations throughout the trend and watching for clustering.
Weis also uses the same technique on renko 'blocks' to good effect.
Incidentally, you can also use Andrews' Pitchforks/Median Lines to good effect on PnF charts and watch for CoB signals at intersections with PnF counts.
Best
SS
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744 -1812)
I think Wyckoff would be looking for a backup test on declining volume to the prior area (#7)of the SOW area. I'm just guessing for I have not studied his original material.
Warren
I managed to estimate the dates for the chart from the brochure. (February 1, 2001 to November 18, 2003) Here is a daily PnF chart for RIMM for those dates. I know their chart is weekly, but right now I don't know how to make a weekly PnF chart.
I don't want this to come off as a trick question, but, as SJ points out, the pdf chart spans the period from early '01 to late '03. Since the only reason one would look for the test you describe would be to go short, I hope that W would be short long before this. But, yes, if one were not already short, that would be one thing to look for.
What everyone would be, and was, looking for, though, was an end to all this. Remember, again, that it's early 2001, and 9/11 gave many people an excuse to buy, but even that proved not to be "the bottom".
What one wants to do, then, is look for those clues that suggest a bottom, or at least a bottoming process, is in place. If you were around then, you'll remember how much trouble people had with this (and if the Fed hadn't intervened, one wonders just how long it would have taken). It's obvious in hindsight, and so simple that one wonders how anybody could have missed it. But if one backs up and walks it forward, it becomes not quite so obvious and considerably less simple.
One looks at the market first, of course, but since the market and RIMM were moving pretty much in lockstep, there's little that is inconsistent between the two movements, and since my RIMM data doesn't go back to 2001, let's use the market as a proxy.
Walk it forward, as they say, beginning from the left edge, and see what comes to you.
I have not read the original course, so excuse me if I mention something non-W, but does no demand part of the W vocabulary, or is that more VSA? Would he have gone short after seeing the lack of demand? If not I would think a short would be made after the thrust bar.
To begin with, W categorized his trend lines into four types: the support and overbought lines in advances and the supply and oversold lines in declines. I changed this for myself to demand and supply lines with the understanding that when price breaks through a supply line, it is overbought, and that when it breaks through a demand line, it is oversold. All of which may sound like babble until one sees it in a chart, at which point the breaks through the lines and their significance should become obvious. In any event, "demand" and "supply" are consistent with what the trendlines are supposed to do as well as being consistent with the core of W's method.
So, in a downtrend, one begins with the "supply" line, which you have done, drawn across the first two swing highs. The lower line, whether one calls it "demand" or "oversold" is drawn parallel or near to parallel with the supply line and begins with the first swing low between those two swing highs. Your demand line, therefore, should start with 9/11. The problem here is that 9/11 is very likely lower than it would have been otherwise, i.e., one may be dealing less with a market event than with the 9/11 event itself, and anything drawn off of it may be misleading. The fact that the lows of July and October do not reach this line must take all of this into account, i.e., that they do not reach the line may not in and of itself mean anything. The same cautions apply to however one may interpret any failure to exceed -- or not -- the 9/11 low.
As for volume, it is useful, mostly as confirmation of whatever interpretation one is forming regarding the price action, but it is not necessary. First, a selling climax need not be accompanied by climactic volume. Climactic volume is often associated with buyers' efforts to support the price, even though those efforts fail to halt price's progress downward (it is important to understand that accumulation takes place on the way down, not just at the bottom, which is why the stride changes well in advance of the low point). Climactic volume, then, can and often does precede the actual selling climax. Second, volume is nothing more than a record of transactions. What matters more than volume is what price is doing. Volume tells you that a transaction has taken place; what price does tells you whether demand or supply has the stronger hand.
As for whether a bar is wide or narrow and where it closes, take care. If I had to choose the one characteristic that separates so many of the Wyckoff variants from Wyckoff himself it would be that they focus on bars and spreads and closes while Wyckoff focuses on the continuous nature of price. Those who have spent a great deal of time -- and money -- studying VSA, for example, have a lot of trouble with this, and perhaps the only way of reprogramming oneself is to switch to line charts for a time and eliminate volume entirely. In this way, one can develop a sensitivity to price movement that others can only dream about.
Even before one gets to trendlines, though, it is wise to be always cognizant of the waves. These are an essential part of the analytical process. Relying on trendlines alone is bad practice.
Compare the buying waves with the selling waves in this chart. What do you notice?
Not to be dismissive, but this isn't something I want to get into. I've pointed out some of the differences between W's own work and the work of the adapters and modifiers but there's no point in picking on anybody. If one wants to trade Wyckoff, he'll not only read Wyckoff but engage it: read it, study it, play with it, practice with it, trade it, evaluate it. If he'd rather work with VSA or Evans or SMI or whoever or whatever, that's perfectly okay by me. My only concern is that he not believe that he's working with Wyckoff. That just muddies the water.
Therefore, if the answers to your questions are important to you, I suggest you download the course and scan it using Ctrl+F for things like "ice" and "creek" and "spring", which you won't find. Scan also for "thrust" and "shakeout" to learn what these terms meant to Wyckoff. Scanning for words like "springboard" will also be illuminating.