Volman meets Burke or My journey with PA

Minor refinements.

Basically what I have put together is a dynamic grid system, dynamic in that the grid moves with price, and a few moving averages tuned for how I see price moving in order to get the best entry I can.

Not perfect. Close enough for my needs.

When I reinstalled the charting software it defaulted to my time zone, Central same as Chicago, so I said heck with it and left it. Took a few days to adjust. When I first set some time lines on the charts it threw me for a few.

The reinstall allowed me to have a quick fresh look resulting in some refinement.

Thinking I will redo a few posts on how to trade this now that the system is complete as far as I can see.

As I have said many times, this basic system will work on a lot of different instruments. Some require adjustment, some don't. It can even be ported to minute bars again with adjustments.

I will no longer post any parameters. What I have posted are in the ball park. Adjust as you see fit.

All stuff from my kind of large play list.

Just watched "Trading Places".

"Looking good Billy Ray"

"Feeling good Lewis"

Preface:

I have been at this trading game for a while now. Mostly a losing proposition. Somewhere along the line it became an obsession. Not an over extreme need to trade. An absolute need to figure this out. At this point I think I have come full circle, but with a fresh new perspective. Some 13 years ago I was mentored to a certain extent using a moving average system. The knowledge was implanted even though I was not capable of executing it fully at that time. Down the road and various attempts at mastering this I was introduced to Renko bars first then moved to Range bars. This is when everything clicked.

Range bars are about as close you can get to just price and still have something that resembles basic charts. They are still a derivative, albeit much closer to the real thing than anything else I have used. I could use a line chart, but it would seriously get lost in my mess.

This system also incorporates something I think is essential and many dismiss, that is a more precise entry. I completely separate the terms trading and investing. To me investing is buy something and hold it, maybe forever. Entry price is not of importance; the purchase of the asset is. Investing. On the other hand is trading. Another term that could be used is speculation. My trading consists of short-term trades designed to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. Or at least as close as I can.

I came back to FF thinking I would get some input and chit chat. How was I to know that disliking sensible thinking Americans was in vogue here. So, I have kept in my corner and completed what is arguably one of the best systems ever posted on this site. This system is adaptable to many instruments. And I am just going to say it, if traded right it is likely 100%.

Just keep doing your thing.

September is historically one of the most volatile months of the year.

Strong market momentum in August can sometimes neutralize September's weakness, making it less of a concern in bullish years.

Think I may use the above sequence of pics to do a final discussion of how this works.

Then on to the next phase.

This move may have been one of those "pump n dump".

Back to the start of the week.

Bounced off the weekly PP.

The last hour.

Basics:

The main concept is that price moves in irregular cycles. This occurs at all levels and in the various ways to view price. I have chosen to view this on an intraday level and do so with Range bars. This removes the time element which I think distorts true price action. Before continuing, my definition of price action is simply how price moves and the various characteristics that create that movement.

Since I am not that proficient in reading a "naked" chart, I have opted to use a few moving averages to assist me. This is all likely a result of my prior trading education. The main concept when using the MAs is Buy-side/Sell-side. The easiest way to describe this is when a faster MA moves above a slower MA. In this instance you could say the faster moved to the Buy-side of the slower. And the same for the other direction. Replace the faster MA with price and you have the same basic scenario.

I use three charts which increase in bar size. These can be seen as higher "time frames". Instead of viewing the longer term charts as unique in themselves as many do with different time frame charts, I attempt to have the various MAs match from bottom to top as much as possible. When it is not possible to carry an MA to the next higher chart I drop that MA from the higher chart. This all essentially allows me to see the same thing across the different bar sizes. There is no, "the 15-min says this, but the 1-hour says that" waste of time.

From here everything else is to aid in reading price and making entries.

The first of these is the Vegas Tunnel. This came about at the time I was testing different mean values of price. The value I had settled on was very close to the VT. This is the one indicator that originated from a higher bar size then was adjusted to fit the 3-range as close as the original 8-range. Once adjusted, I found the VT could easily replace the mean and it had the added bonus of being able to set ranges above and below the tunnel in the manner of a grid. I used the fibs at first. These have been changed to the first level set to a fib of 13 with all others increasing each level by 25. This sequence makes for a good fit. The area between the first levels above/below the tunnel are the mid-point zone.

The MACD is the histogram of the difference between the two MAs. This is set to the same parameter as the VT. This aids in cycle identification.

The stochastic uses the MACD as its base.

All in all, this is a fairly accurate manual trading system.