Back to the Future – My Freewheeling Journal

Great post.
Simply a great post.
Straight at the centre of the target.
Constant changing environment. And need to adapt to the "Change".

Market search constantly for equilibrium.
Traders decisions constantly modify that equilibrium.
And Market tends again to return to a new equilibrium point.
Patterns mutate one in an other following the shift in the relative Forces on the Battlefield.
We face millions little shades of variations possible inside an “ideal reference”.

There are profound reasons and technical laws that explain the "Why".
My point is... as Livermore said (and Wyckoff repeated): we absolutely don't need to know why, to be profitable.
We just and only need to "get", accept and adapt to that continuous eternal changement.
Nothing of esoteric.
Pure technique in managing the exposition!
Fluid, flexible, never rigid... as the environment that surrounds us.
As "Water in the water".

Kawa no nagare no you ni .... get the message beetween the lines.

LOL... Post #1.
Market is a b...h of teacher.
This is the Traders' Natural Selection.
The Selection of the Species.

Only the most adaptable survive.
And - horrible to say, but so it is - we need losers to win.
We are here to take the suckers' money.
We need the Ducks.
We must hunt the Ducks.
Wanna discuss who Livermore really was? The Big Manipulator of traders ignorance?

Abandon the prey attitude (squirrel) and start to think as the predator (hawk)

From one of my Moleskine.
Cut & Paste... from a blog somewhere (?) mixed with my personal meditations.
Some time ago! But perfect for this moment.


I think that... when you start trading...
you begin by looking for “the best way to trade”…or “the answer”…“the solution to the trading problem”…
in the same way you did at School as a Pupil/Student.
A classroom, an authoritarian teacher with a book in his hand giving you the correct answers standing in the front you...
You just want and need someone to “show you the path”... “give you the answer” and “tell you what’s right”...

You could find a more natural approach (Riskier? Requiring much preparation? A different mindset?)
when the teacher acts only as a guide and assistant
where students discover the material at their own pace and in their own way.

These approach works better where/when you work on problems that don’t have defined answers.
Where/when there are always many solutions.

So trading is in many ways like life.
There are some general principles you must absolutely pickup and understand. And they are LAWS. Indisputable!
Then there are some guidelines that might fit your personality and your account.
After that... the road is wide open.
There are no more correct answers... valid for everyone.

1) General Principles (Embedded trends, Advanced Dow and Basic Elliott aka waves analysis, Patterns, Peaks and Troughs, S/R, S/D, Market Structure)
2) Guidelines (TF, approach to different MO theoretical strategies, MM techniques - conservative/aggressive)
3) Application: Personal style and reactions.

About 1 and 2... study and internalise.
Price: formation, delivery, behaviours, models. Chart/Trend: the battlefield.
(You can't say anymore... “Trend is up for me and Trend is down for you!”... on this there are LAWS! Indisputable! OK?)

About three... If something works for you, then rock that. If something just doesn’t fit, you can drop it.
You can fit and adjust what is working based on your results in the real world.

Schwager asked (Market Wizard):
“Don’t all traders want to win?”.
“Surely, some people lose because they lack skill, even though they really want to win?”
Seykota answer always surprised me.
...It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us a true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them.

(Translation: Wanna die? Then die! You have tons of means in the Market.)

Bear in mind,
there is no one way to trade the markets applying that proved General Principles and Guidelines.
But you must know and identify them if you want to learn to fly and leave my kindergarten.

(you must know and understand the differences between Livermore and Gann to get my point.)

I think it’s really important to find a style that fits you.
Because my experience, my personality and temperament might be totally different from yours.

If you give something a good effort you will start finding things that fit.
It could be any style...
As long as you keep your size small while figuring out if you have an edge… you have nothing to lose, and only experience to gain.

Be water in the water.

Heraclitus (nickname "The Dark", "The Obscure".)

"Everything changes and nothing remains still.”
This is Plato referring from Heraclitus and Plato continues in this way: “You cannot step TWICE into the same stream"...
and this is the sentence we all know.
After a few pages Plato tells us that Heraclitus disciple Cratilo go over his Master stating: “You cannot step ONCE into the same stream”
You and the river are changing during the process of putting your foot in.
Wonderful. All this is simply brilliant.
But actually the original sentence, the original Heraclitus' fragment, sounds more like that (bizarrely, even more trading wise!)
"Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers."

So here is Einstein again.
And again: thanks, Piquant.

So, about change.
This is only for diligent and advanced humble student of the market (and of my videos)

Be water in the water - 2

Again. Meditation.
In intense conversation with my Personal Internal Coach.

This is waiting for the market to retest from where it began to trend?

Be water in the water - 3... Empty Your Mind.

(Again: you must be "free" and "experienced" for really understand and internalise.
Learn as much as you can and then forget it... is not simple.
Ask Roy Buchanan not me.)

Here.... for another lesson from another great guitarist.

Preplanned Sequences (study, study, study) and Extemporaneous responses.
Franco, you are so boring. Really boring.

Get me right.
This is just a start point for a long inquiry and investigation.
I use different "names" for those patterns.
I use different authors as references.
I saw much more then this during my study and readings.

Just to give you an example.
Fake? False?... absolutely not. Nothins is false.
Sometime I call it "Neutralitation!"
Sometime deception or manipulation.
In any case the effect is "Trapped Traders."

As Piquant said... thousand of variation on one pattern.
What does your Coach think about "Change"?

I appreciate the link !!

I'm not particularly fond of "trading" related books ,except for John Murphy's "Inter market analysis" and Warren Buffets "Value investing: but then again those books never touched on the technical aspects of trading. Maybe I just don't like reading about technical aspects of trading.

Aside from the ramble, I am actually very familiar with this pattern, I've seen it form many times, traded them zillion times across all TF and across most currencies, DAX included. Never actually knew it was called hikkake.

Is that a hikkake ? see the attached screenshot. <I'm revealing my long signal> but like I've been saying (so as Jupiter) even if everything's revealed infront of you, unless you've experienced it yourself and have learned to play along with the constant change you wouldn't really "get it" , get it ? ?

Perfect.
What to add? How to add?
That's it! Full stop.

Question is: must Forex Factory necessarily be a frustraded losers diabolique unreadable place?
Can we do - as we are trying here, dear Piquant - something different?

How can experienced traders seriously confront without killing the newbies?
How could the newbies give up their ignorant arrogance for a while and try to humble unnderstand the true Market voice?

Very likely, my dear friend CindyXXXX could even be right.
Are we making a mistake writing down too much and sharing our experience so in depth?

This one is good indeed: "a properly applied stutter step can have dramatic results. But knowing when to use such a move only comes through experience and practice. Likewise, patterns such as the hikkake must be applied based on a trader’s experience and understanding of the current market context."

Do we or are we actually supposed to know the current market context? E.g., opposite to SNB CHF pegging or unpegging, we could be keeping in mind things like BREXIT, Catalonia announcements, NK - US war threatings, simply FED rates, NFP news.

I'm still a sort of affected and keeping awareness of big news, events around (checking FF calendar). Although, as far as I can assume, Jupiter, you are acting just very agile and feeling PA pulse/ flow implying the current market context is already there (in current PA). Then, focus, MM and literal babysitting is paramount.

E.g., I recall once Cable dropped suddenly 90 pips and got back in a couple of minutes (terrorist attack in the UK). And there are many, many instances like that.

Advanced Dow + Basic Elliott = Mother Market

Livermore + Gann = Wyckoff = Trading the Market

Rules and Discipline

Study and Practice

Why does it have to have an inside bar? How is inside bar connected to this pattern?

The infinite possibility of variation around something that you know very well.

(Sorry for the audio quality but that was simply a "sound check"... could you imagine? Wow.)

Easy? Simple?
That girl knows perfectly what she is doing and when she must do it.
Never, never, never against the horse's mouth. First commandement.
Her hands surrender, the action gives up... immediately forwards, on the neck. And she can remain on saddle.
Try to do the opposite and you are dead. Simply like that.

Perfect action at the perfect time.
It's all about timing. (Music, horses and trading... LOL)

And about perseverance in the right and correct work. Well done, girl. Brava. Complimenti.
In the end she managed to "control" that stubborn pony.

Now this is the DAX Daily.

Please compare this chart with the above example in #371
and conclude by yourself.

I think that my presentation was clear enough and perfectly linear and consequent in the thoughts chain.

- W.D. GANN -
"When you make a trade, it must be ON A GOOD RULE and FOR A GOOD REASON..."
"Remember, NEVER BUCK THE TREND...
After you determine the trend of the market, go with it... and regardless of what you think, hope, or fear, you will make a success.
Follow rules to determine the trend and do not work on hope or guess work."

Question: now, after these pages, have you got "tested" rules to determine the trend?