Plan the Trade

Remind me how this works. If I were to start a thread, and I have someone on ignore, does that mean they cannot post to my thread, or can they still post, but I just won't see the post?

I know you are annoyed DD and I also observe that you have made some good posts. Please can we stop with the threats, its starting to sound a little sanctimonious to me. And this thread doesn't need your approval for posts, or to disclose who you will or will not ignore. Hilmy is a good guy and I happen to agree that keeping an open mind and having a laugh and joke is fine. And he lost it because he got wound up and said it as he saw it.

This other guy got very quickly out of order (and I accept some responsibility for encouraging him), but you and others painted a target on your backs IMHO.

I'll apologise if I read you wrong, but please can we all just draw a line under this.

that is correct op controls who they want on if ignored they cant post

FF does not offer its members to form their own CUG for members. I requested this years ago but it still not available.

this would enable CUG members to focus their posts and discussions within the group members' only.

Here's the thing, if I wouldn't want to share something with my wife, son, daughter, mother, father, grandmother or grandfather, or, if it would be inappropriate or offensive to women in general, then I want no part of it. I'm not trying to make some sort of show of being morally superior. I was offended. Sincerely offended.

Of course no one needs me to approve their posts. But I will say this: I lurked in this thread for much of the three years I was logged out even though I wasn't actively trading. I had grown fond of Divergence, erasmus, and CG from our days together in Harold's Flag Trading the Trend thread. I can't say that I read every post nor even every page in this thread during that time. But I followed along much of the time, and I do not remember this thread ever going off in the direction in did this week. This is a trading forum and Divergence and CG and erasmusl have always been about talking shop. This week some decided to take it instead to the high school locker room. I'm not making any "threats." Just stating my case.

And your definition of "a good guy" could use a little work, imo, given your friend's parting outburst. In over 10 years at FF I never had to put anyone on ignore before this week. Think about that ... not once since February of 2009 had I come across anyone who was so foul and childish that my only recourse was to hit the ignore button. In over 10 years of reading FF, I had not once felt offended or disgusted in anyway until this week.

That's the last I'm going to say about all this. I said my piece, and from here on out I will hold my peace.

The wild west existed because there were no sheriffs. All is needed is a deputy with some control and (I think) we have half of this already. CG created something good here, I can't remember him ever preaching and it would be a shame to give up all of the good stuff he started. He would do something if he knew and was well enough.

I just think all of this talk of jumping ship is premature (not aimed at anyone in particular) when there are other simple solutions available.

Actions speak louder than words.

Statements such as this do not let us move past this week's episodes.

I'm willing to try to move forward, but as this was undoubtedly directed at me (sanctimonious, preaching) I want to let you know that I have received a bunch ... a bunch ... of PM's from folks, both regular posters to this thread as well as lurkers I never knew existed, thanking me for taking a stand against the material posted here the past few days.

Most folks, you see, agree with me. Most people do not find any humor in sexist videos and jokes. Most people also do not want to speak out because they know that doing so will possibly prompt vile, angry responses - just look at the last post by the poster you defended as "a good guy." And he called us, or at least me, "triggered" and "snowflakes" lol! My goodness! Talk about triggered! Little boy mentalities certainly do project their feelings upon other, more secure folks, do they not? lol Seriously, read his post to yourself and tell us who is a "triggered snowflake."

I have responded in a very level headed and even handed manner.

The point is, I am in the majority. Most may remain publicly silent - but most of those reading this journal do not find humor nor amusement in those sort of materials. For you to insist that my voiced disgust is "sanctimonious preaching" shows how little effort you are giving to considering other folk's views on this material and what has occurred here this week. This is a big deal to me. Like I said, if I wouldn't share it with my 16 year old daughter, I want no part of it. And a fair number of regulars and lurkers alike agree.

The fact that CG never "preached," as you call it, simply means that most likely, before this week, in this thread, we never had to deal with such low brow, disgusting, infantile posts.

I'm not looking for an apology from anyone - that is the last thing I want. But dude, if you want to move on, you need to stop insisting that posting sexist offensive material is funny and that those opposed are somehow too stiff.

Think of it this way - I am assuming that since you and others thought that was all in good fun, there must be threads here at FF that thrive on the inclusion of such material. You are therefore free to enjoy it in those threads where it is welcome

Why then, are we not free to enjoy our Plan the Trade thread FREE from the inclusion of material that I would bet most would consider off topic at best, and unintelligent, immature, and offensive at worst.

So again, I am not threatening CG's thread - those who would pollute it are the ones threatening it. If I leave, what harm have I done? It lasted three years and 10,000+ posts without me, and it can do the same should I post elsewhere.

FF does have a sub forum where I assume you guys could start a thread and post your brand of "humor" until your hearts can stand no more titillation: It is called the member's lounge." Keep that garbage there, and let's keep our talk to trading. No one following this thread follows it in the expectation of a peep show.

Good to know its "sexist"to put in a coupple of videos of girls dancing fully closed...Witch man straight ones atleast doesnt think its ok to look at some nice girls dancing.Really??Grow up.your posts are so long and boring that i only bother to read the first line and like...uuughhh.But i am also gone here wont post again.

very needed post DD now back to plan the trade

thanks for leaving good luck

Fy

DD, like I just said actions speak louder than words. Now as Divergence said, back to plan the trade.

It's interesting that douche is the same in french

As a trader, there are only three strategies from which a consistently profitable trading plan may be developed: Breakouts (whether one trades successful breakouts, failed breakouts, or both, they are still breakout strategies), Retracements, and Reversals. Most of us here are retracement traders. Divergence's strategy is interesting and highly effective in that he uses what are typically considered reversal price behaviors (123's, 2B's) and applies a retracement strategy to them. It occurred to me yesterday afternoon as I was trading the NQ that some of the very best moves come about when one is able to combine the three strategies, i.e. when a reversal is also a retracement in a trend and a failed breakout.

These two threads are the best place for those who want to waste their time.... either while waiting for a trade or getting stressed out recovering from a drawdown and talking shit on others.... everyone should go there to get entertained to strike a good balance to manage their life stresses.

https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=884448
https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=8970

Looks like the dude got the permanent revoke which was the primary reason why I was mad at the moderators.

Time to get our focus back to what's important and that is the only thing that matters to me. Ask questions to things we struggle on our own. Seek, gain, share, learn, grow, contribute our experiences.

DD is making a VERY good point here that most immature grownups won't understand unless they have kids of their own. That's the end of it.

Quantification process has lead me to further simplification of market structural analysis. You may not believe or agree so here my point of view. I may sound super advanced or genius but all my efforts results in simplifying the complexities into discrete sub-processes that are recursively repeatable in nature.

There are only two actions necessary and both are interchangeable and universally agnostic across any market structure, pattern, setup or behavior.

 

1. Price is either diverging from the mean (DFM) or reverting to the mean (RTM)

OR (in more simpler terms)

1. Price is either breaking out or bouncing off a mean

It is not important to understand if market is trending or ranging or reversing or continuing or pausing or consolidating or breaking or accumulating or pulingback or whatever. The above two actions will cover every aspect of every market condition or every trading style. With these two actions, you can be a scalper or a swinger or a trend follower or a pullback trader or a grider or long term position trader.

It is the least denomination required for any strategy to work on any market or any market condition where a tradeable quote moves over time. And you only need ONE of the two.

I think one thing we'd all say about you Vee is that when it comes to trading, you seem to be making this anything but simple lol

All kidding aside, during any excursion form the mean, price will offer the day trader numerous opportunities to participate profitably by identifying and trading short term retracements, reversals, and both successful and failed breakouts. I do agree that by tracking price relative to its mean (which, to be honest, will indicate its trend, as mean is not a static value, but an ever changing value based on the movement of price through time). I respectfully submit that most traders will never be able to understand the proper way to track the mean, much less benefit from it to use it to trade. And again, knowing what the mean price is over the last n=X days or hours or weeks or months (each time frame will have its own mean) is not itself a set up. I remember a trader who went by the handle dbphoenix at elitetrader trying to teach people how to use channels to identify the mean, and most failed this simple task miserably. Furthermore, the mean really only tells us how overbought or oversold the current price is relative to the mean. And like any oscillator, it does not tell us precisely when the excursion from the mean will end and the snap back begin, nor even if it will be a snap back or a mere meander.

However, all kidding aside, I can show someone how to trade retracements, reversals, and breakouts. These will all far more readily available to the technical trader's naked eye than whether price is meandering along its mean or attempting to break free and launch itself as far from the mean as possible. If you can't post a chart that is so easy to understand that even a nine year old can see the entries and the reasons for entering and exiting a trade, then it is probably not as simple as you thought lol

Yesterday's ES, 3 minute chart, RTH session only

Green MA = 21 ema
Red MA = 8 ema
Red arrows = retracement short entries
Green arrows = retracement long entries
Aqua arrows = test of support
Pink Arrows = tests of resistance
Green Arcs = Three pushes down with higher low trend reversal
Red circle = Breakout out long and then breakout failure short




What I am trying to do is to keep it simple. Breakouts, Reversals, Retracements. Simple concepts, easy to understand, and all one needs to trade successfully is one set up based on one of those strategies ... and the emotional discipline to trade it, and only it, and only when it is visible in the price action of the chart.

So you would consider an entry on those red and green arrows on the close of the first bar trading in your direction?

One could certainly do that. I typically trail a stop below the lows of the bars, so in some cases I’d enter before the first bear close, for example, in the case of the sell signals.

That is actually a neat little methodology...I’ll go over it a bit more tomorrow. It is in many respects similar to Harold’s flag trading the trend method. That particular. MA method has a little story behind it I’ll share tomorrow as well.

I learned of this little MA pullback method many years ago - 15? 20? It was passed around in the early 2000's per-financial crisis as "the floor trader's method." The myth behind the method was that an old floor trader used this method to great effect, and he taught it to a struggling trader, who then shared it with the world. Of course, this method is as old as the hills. Richard Wyckoff, who died nearly 100 years ago, taught this very method, albeit without the use of the moving averages.

Many variations have been taught, shared, etc. Sometimes it uses no MA's, sometimes, 2, sometimes 3, and if anyone remembers the guppy traders form the hey day of USA spot forex mania, some used 8, 10, 15 or more averages (the more MA's the less viable the strategy - more than two and the trader is trying to develop a holy grail that never loses rather than a consistently profitable method that can realistically be traded by a human being).

It's popularity, or at least its renown as "the floor trader's method" experienced a resurgence when a trader who went by the handle Nqoos (who traded the NQ) shared this method on his now defunct website. Rick Monteith of efuturevision.com (or is it efuturesvision.com) also taught a variation of this method. Both of those, if I am not mistaken, used a 30 period weighted MA for the long MA and the 9 ema for the short. When it came to MA's, I tended toward fib #'s, so I used the 8 ema and 21 ema (and for some markets and longer tern bar intervals I'd use 21 ema and 34 ema). As trends are trends and retracements are retracements, the precise MA types and values you select are unimportant.

In the chart above, I use the 8 ema and 21 ema. The ema's are really only training wheels. Most folks who trade retracements find that after a few weeks or months of diligent daily observation, they see price action better without the MA's. But they are helpful when learning the method and certainly helpful in explaining it.

On a trend day such as we had Friday, the method looks about as easy as it could be. But as with most things, the simplicity of the method hides the difficulty of its execution. The question asked about entry technique indicates this difficulty.

How exactly does one enter? As the method has been taught, I usually see it advised that one enters as I do most of the time, e.g. in the case of a short, place a sell stop one tick below the trailing low. See chart below:



But there are times where I enter by placing a sell limit above the market, at or near the 21 ema, or where I'd imagine it to be, or at an anticipated resistance level, or simply based on price action. I may enter at the close of a bar rather than await the lower low. This is where your own back testing, demo trading, and risk tolerance will come into play. For example, you could simply sell whenever a trend is established and price retraces to the longer ema. You will have a very good risk/reward set up, but you will also have a higher loss to win ratio because the probability of a profitable move is not as high as it is if you wait for signs that the trend is resuming.

I will say that this set up is like most: Most traders will manage to screw it up and thus declare that it "doesn't work," or that it " doesn't work anymore," or that it "doesn't have positive expectancy." Most traders skip the work of back testing, observation, and demo trading without the pressure of potential financial loss before trying to trade this set up. So, like most traders, they fail because they have not really learned the method because they assume they are so smart and the method so "easy" they can skip the work and study.

Then the first day they try it they get a day like this:



That was not the easiest day to be sure. But let me show it to you differently from our Everyman Trader, and see if you think I am being reasonable or if I am merely cherry picking to make our Everyman Trader look bad:

Red Arrow = Short Entry
Green Arrow = Long Entry
Green Line = Entry level (long OR short)
Red Line = Exit Level (stop loss or profit)



Now here is the NQ from Friday from about 2PM EDT until I quit for the day at 3:30 PM EDT ... I do not have the MA's showing but I was essentially trading this methodology (I am showing a one minute chart instead of the 512 tick chart I was watching because on the 512 tick it is too difficult to read many of the fills where the market signaled one direction, and then I was quickly stopped and reversed when a signal the other direction issued quickly. But I know some like to see the fills, so here it goes (all one lot trades as I am still getting back in the swing of things):



I think this week I will run an ES DOM In demo and trade the ES 3 minute with the MA's on the chart to see how that tests out for me for the week. If the market gets quick on the NQ, I may miss an ES trade here and there. But I am curious to see how I would perform using the indicators.