DislikedYou're kinda getting the right idea with your explanation of how I place stops. In theory and in practice, when a move down turns into a move up, it HAS to create a wave first and break that wave up. Having said that, once it has done this, it creates waves going up in steps. Technically speaking, I could enter long anywhere as long as my stops are at the base of the wave that broke up. Think about Jacko's method. Quite often he will enter at round numbers yet price may be at the peak of a move up. If he's knocked out, not to worry, he'll have the AH (keep in mind the waves going up and how this works).
When you say there are only so many ways to enter using a line chart, that's correct and I'm doing this deliberately so that I have no doubt nor do I hesitate to pull the trigger (this is actually where I think line charts have a huge psychological advantage over candlesticks/bars). When a wave breaks up or down, I know which direction I have to trade in. If it starts moving in that direction immediately I just pull the trigger although I prefer to get a pullback first but doesn't always happen.
Another thing to clarify... the large stops are only temporary ones. When a move down turns into a move up, it has to create a wave first and then break that. Those "inbetween waves" aren't as big as most think. More often than not they're around 50-100 pips.
Here's my reasoning behind using 100 TP other than what I had mentioned. Let's say trader A decides to let his trade "run" and trader B decides to take 100 pips profit. Here's the scenario...
Trader A
1. Enters market
2. Market goes 300 pips in his favour (at this point he's smiling because of looking at all those pips)
3. He's now thinking this is a great trade, it could go way up, lets hold it for longer. He has no idea how far the market could go, yes the market is going in his favour but he has no idea when things could turn around so he holds the trade hoping to get more.
4. Market starts to drop, and he's now at 250 pips. This is when he starts to think... hmmm we going down now? Probably not, I'm in a great trade lets hold it longer, this might be a retracement.
5. Few hours later... 230 pips.
6. Trader A closes the trade for 230 pips because he doesn't want to risk more.
Trader B.
1. Enters market
2. Trader B isn't greedy, he goes for 100 pips. 100 pips is hit, he's now banked it.
3. Retracement occurs, trader B enters again, another 100 pips banked.
4. Another retracement, enters market again, another 100 pips.
5. At this point trader B has collected 300 pips.
6. Market starts to drop and trader is out waiting for next trade.
Result:
Trader A makes 230 pips
Trader B makes 300 pips (without compounding)
If I was trading the weekly or daily waves as is, depending on whether it was long term or medium term, I may let it run but chances are I would probably target maybe 300-500 pips. Hopefully that answers some of your questions.
btw, I don't see your comments as negative, it's constructive criticism and I'm use to that
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