Pattern's Chemo-Electric Trading Journal

0837EST072909 Did well yesterday (+705%), until typical fall-apart began last night and is probably about to get rid of this account (-50% of this).
0900 Lost account to margin call.
0910 Lost another account.

In my personal life, the first statement paralleled coming into a little real money, which was speedily spent on bills. The '-50%' and on happened when had some disturbing things happen in my personal life.

Thus, my trading mirrors my personal life. A psych routine is in order, and'll take a while to get it to produce regularly. I guess it was just so subtle, versus saying it's my technicals or my mm ability.



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2040EST Posted a trade here . Next move that happened (.), don't have a clue. Looks familiar, the midlining of the very important horizontal one-pip line there. Only, I checked the heiken-ashi side (it being a toggle indicator for the bars), and the patterns there showed promise. It seems, perhaps, sometimes you gotta do lines more, other times patterns more, and vertical - horizontal line use may also switch.

2108-25EST Found it. It was a higher bar channel in a decent-sized loop above the predominantly sideways market of today, the channel parallelling exactly (yes, in 1*1 scale, that's all I use now) the deviation I'd drawn from some one-pip bars (1,2,3,4.)

0107EST I was able to see plainly the struggle for PA's direction, given the above idea of two disparate lines aligning for a third idea:



The last, tiny trendline being followed upward on the hre leads PA into conflict soon defeated.

0509EST That last picture found a higher-TF turn, which ruined this post's big profit. (Note to chart: Ignore all lines below PA; almost all the lines above PA are labelled for origin, most referring to pictures above.) I guess I must work together a standard version of the last picture's relation for the "bar channels" thread.

The Natural Chart


initial impression of a chart:
Bars move slightly up, retraces, dives, barely steps, and stalls. You rarely see patterns, except for a few zigzag or single-loop ones that are too big or small ; or, they're all over the place, with imaginary lines controlling their fate at mixed-up angles. You alway see price move a lot between certain hours of the day, yet at a higher TF, on average distance, move about the same. Lastly, there is no consistency to price beyond the same type of bar appearing, occasionally and with minute purpose, in the middle or top of each trend, depending on the trend's exhausting a chart area's energy amongst the other trends in the area.

informed intial impression of a chart:
unknown

On impressions:
I think I'm pissing off some people when I lose so many demo accounts. I get it, to some it's irresponsible, lazy and self-serving. In short, it misses the point.
Well, in another sense, one isn't satisfied until one's understanding of the trade leads directly to profit on a majority of the trades and mostly for the reason you give. This, I haven't done. Why? I keep running into an unforeseen catastrophe, the big trend change, which gets me every time. That's the wall in my marathon.

Most people also recommend you get enough pips per trade, whatever percent of trades you get right, to cover for a loss at most brok ers. Then, you have to be able to get enough pips profit per trade. Lastly, if you start from scratch and deconstruct peoples' idea of what a trade is, you get from a good-enough technical understanding of charts etc. a trade to the good with the same high margin that is offered from the brok ers.

I have a large drive to do well technically, and a much smaller drive to perform well psychologically. That is, my method must be much, much better than any mm I try to impose on my trades. Thus, I've taken the path of going thru the experience of trading at the same time I do as much good and least damage as I can.

Most people on ff dilettante their method, finding one and detailing it enough to control their trades alongside their psychological mores. I see methods all over ff that have almost nothing to do with the absolutes on the chart or news: Price and time. How can you say a fibonacci tool has anything to do with a chart? Yes, on average, it works. When? You don't usually know. Why? Because it's not natural. Derive from price directly, and you'll see why.

Draw a spread trendline, and the PA line shows you where it could go. It will not go elsewhere, given a decent set of spread trendlines. It will beg to go to one of those spread trendlines, as fast as it can. It's never, I have to place a line somewhere in space, it's there's a line I haven't drawn yet that's already there, I think this one will be where the price will go. Because of this dependability, I use spread trendlines as the structure of my charts.

The absolutely natural way to trade is to follow the unseen tick's stops and starts and its rise and fall of the price from them. This builds into angles in a trend, steep and short or otherwise. Each trend attaches to another, and a chart is born.

One has to capture this to know anything about a chart. Spread trendlines only hint of it. I've written pattern idea after pattern idea, trying to capture this most-natural sense of the chart, with little success. Yes, most of the approaches worked, for some of the chart; only, they failed in some of the chart or allowed loose interpretation into itself.

Thus, I use spread trendlines, or bar channels if using them in an umbrella sense, regularly, often losing grip of the reality of a chart, because I don't yet have an approach to patterns (or another idea) that helps spread trendlines blend into the natural chart.

length approach, continued development:

I returned to one-pip-spread bars. I know the number differs per broker. I also know I'm seeing repeated patterns with InstaTrader's charts.
A session change produces a significantly different number of 1psb's, on average. No stats on this. Plus, I'm studying a chart area already that already crosses a session's beginning.

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There happened to be very few one-pip bars in the latter half of Friday. Thus, a good, clean pip-line chart shows:



(The white line is from a bar channel (1606/7, 1730/1 +2GMT 07292009 1' gbpusd) that was pivotal to the last large move upward, on Thursday, before Friday's bigger move.)

First lesson, "Cut your losses short."

Been NOT doing this since my first 'make-up' trade with KTEL in early 1997, so it should make a difference.

First, I made a list of different ways I've done "Cut your losses short" and "Let your profits run" in my experience. (handwritten list, will translate.)

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KEY to P/L Methods List
-- each listed item has a complex symbol, with several of the simple symbols below that are organized to the game 'Paper, (Path,) Scissors, Rock'
(waffled-edge circle) (a pathway between different ideas in a space, either with a square-like frame of boundaries ('think') or with a particular, dot-like objective ('know'), that is from temporary effect to habitual signal) cutter, or scissors
(a square) (a frame of boundaries that perpetuates only a certain goal to <> / -+ effect; as in the American '60's slang term) paper -- the idea is, something that can cover a rock and scissors can cut
(a short series of dashes) (the third, optional dimension in a three-axes geometric chart, included to allow for volume, time (in a 2d chart, such as trading) and other) path
(a dot) (a datum, to enter into a model or formula; mayhap, a pivot) rock


P/L Methods List



L ....."Cut your losses short."

(a series of dots, with the wavy-edged circle around them all, this waffled circle exactly covering a (rectangular) frame) Sell a little at a time.
- Disobeys margin-call rule, that is, you can keep going and never really know when to stop.
+ Lose a little, gain a lot.

(a dot, with a waffled-edge circle around it) absolute stops
- Hit too often, too easily bro ker-abused.
+ Encourages active work around this absolute.

(a dot in a (square) frame) Sell when reason ('s area of effect) broke.
- Unclear reason (-ing ability) when wrong, so won't obey it.
+ Similar to "Sell early", only stated so more obviously adjustable.

(two dots, one in a frame and one not (thus, in effect, 'think' vs. 'know'); also, a line with an arrow on either side pointing to both dots, connoting an interchange between the two) Cut losses partially and let (the rest) return to BE, then exit.
- Selling at small P/L offends ego after ego gets a taste of a reason that takes care of a much larger area, which conjoins and gets confused with the bigger in-trade drawdown that goes with such an area.
+ Creates sustain-type emotions that go with a dissociation from immediate reality.

(one dot and a short series of dashes, both within a waffled-edge circle) Stop early. (That is, "Nip it in the bud.")
- Distracting interruption from the swiftness of the action, may throw off entire session as much as a late exit would.
+ Invokes intuition, thus ego halted, although it's given potential energy to create an excuse with later.

overview of L breakdown



P ......"Let your profits run."

(a dot in a (square) frame, to left of a short series of dashes, all enclosed in a waffled-edge circle) Limit at first reason .
- Small: "checked" ego or big: 'hesitant' ego
+ Big-reason error avoided.

(a dot in a frame, then a fading-into-unknown number in a series of overlapping frames-with-a-dot-inside) Trail-limit to each partial reason at a time, staying in, what I call soft exuberance level.
- > No-reason, thus blind of a reason
+ Saves spread over a lot of reentries

(a dot) Limit preset , no-reason .
- Ignores self, circumstances
+ Easier to surround with reason.

(a (rectangular) frame with a few dots inside and several dots outside, all dots somewhat randomly strewn) Label any reason and treat same-side combos.
- "bottomless", too-trivial feeling that's difficult to target. Reasons mismatched, regardless of pattern that fits partial reasons together being wrong.
+ errors speedily adapted-to.

(a strong, sketchy (square) frame surrounding the wavy, solid-line path that may connect dots or other items) Intuitively match reason measure in-trade old, slow and regular, to building one profit-pattern. Works pattern-recognition-wise, same with small variation every time.
- Shady controls.
+ Fast.

overview of P build



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(removed from post#1) , and get high, consistent returns from my 1'TF-specific bar spread trendlines and the current approach (which in the past has been contiguous typical patterns, an interpattern interpretation grid for generalized patterns, a study of the price line's 'weighting' with geometric shapes, and probably others in the future) I'm using to read the direction amongst these trendlines.
In my own way, I follow the model of Livermore and other floor traders, who depend on price action, which to Livermore's RSO is patterns and support/resistance. Of course, floor traders follow news the heaviest; I also did this for ten years daytrading in stocks, and now only include news interpretation in lines when I get the chance.

(using new post #1)

money management game

First lesson, "Cut your losses short."

Been NOT doing this since my first 'make-up' trade with KTEL in early 1997, so it should make a difference.

First, I made a list of different ways I've done "Cut your losses short" and "Let your profits run" in my experience. (handwritten list, will translate.)

-----

KEY to P/L Methods List
-- each listed item has a complex symbol, with several of the simple symbols below that are organized to the game 'Paper, (Path,) Scissors, Rock'
(waffled-edge circle) (a pathway between different ideas in a space, either with a square-like frame of boundaries ('think') or with a particular, dot-like objective ('know'), that is from fleeting effect to habitual signal) cutter, or scissors
(a square) (a frame of boundaries that perpetuates only a certain goal to <> / -+ effect, as in a building or the American '60's slang term; ) paper -- the idea is, something that can cover a rock and scissors can cut
(a short series of dashes) (the third, optional dimension in a three-axes geometric chart, included to allow for volume, time (in a 2d chart, such as trading) and other) path
(a dot) (a datum, to enter into a model or formula; mayhap, a pivot) rock


P/L METHODS LIST



L ....."Cut your losses short."

(a series of dots, with the wavy-edged circle around them all, this waffled circle exactly covering a (rectangular) frame) Sell a little at a time.
- Disobeys margin-call rule, that is, you can keep going and never really know when to stop.
+ Lose a little, gain a lot.

(a dot, with a waffled-edge circle around it) absolute stops
- Hit too often, too easily bro ker-abused.
+ Encourages active work around this absolute.

(a dot in a (square) frame) Sell when reason ('s area of effect) broke.
- Unclear reason (-ing ability) when wrong, so won't obey it.
+ Similar to "Sell early", only stated so more obviously adjustable.

(two dots, one in a frame and one not (thus, in effect, 'think' vs. 'know'); also, a line with an arrow on either side pointing to both dots, connoting an interchange between the two) Cut losses partially to drop chance of their getting away from you and let (the rest) return for an overall BE exit.
- Selling at small P/L offends ego after ego gets a taste of a reason that takes care of a much larger area, which conjoins and gets confused with the bigger in-trade drawdown that goes with such an area.
+ Creates sustain-type emotions that go with a dissociation from immediate reality.

(one dot and a short series of dashes, both within a waffled-edge circle) Stop early. (That is, "Nip it in the bud.")
- Distracting interruption from the swiftness of the action, may throw off entire session as much as a late exit would.
+ Invokes intuition, thus ego halted, although it's given potential energy to create an excuse with later.

overview of L: breakdown



P ......"Let your profits run."

(a dot in a (square) frame, to left of a short series of dashes, all enclosed in a waffled-edge circle) Limit at first reason.
- Small: "checked" ego or big: 'hesitant' ego
+ Big-reason error avoided.

(a dot in a frame, then a fading-into-unknown number in a series of overlapping frames-with-a-dot-inside) Trail-limit to each small reason at a time as a temporary hold, staying in.
- > No-reason, thus blind of an overall reason
+ Saves spread over a lot of reentries

(a dot) Limit preset , no-reason.
- Ignores self, circumstances
+ Easier to surround with reason.

(a (rectangular) frame with a few dots inside and several dots outside, all dots somewhat randomly strewn) Label any wholly-tradeable reason and treat same-side combos.
- "bottomless", too-trivial feeling that's difficult to target. Reasons mismatched, regardless of pattern that fits partial reasons together being wrong.
+ errors speedily adapted-to.

(a strong, sketchy (square) frame surrounding the wavy, solid-line path that may connect dots or other items) Intuitively match partial reasons, from views of indicators or other, that are to one's practiced mind old, slow and regular enough to fit into one profit-pattern that's the same with small variation every time.
- Shady controls.
+ Fast.

overview of P: build


a brief example
Say you're nervous from encounters with others during the day, and you have the rest of the day off from a job or chores. You have a boss, and felt a little pushed at work today; plus, other things not in your control are weighing on you at the moment.
This stuff will translate into how you approach using your well-practiced chart study to find a new trade.

Having misplaced the simulator (computer problems), I started a random EA to get the history and drew arrows and short lines for trade entries and exits.

The last post's 'brief example' was me. Again, it said

Say you're nervous from encounters with others during the day, and you have the rest of the day off from a job or chores. You have a boss, and felt a little pushed at work today; plus, other things not in your control are weighing on you at the moment.

To continue from this:
My first trade, I got in after drawing a one-pip-spread-bar - to - big-spread-bar bar channel, and went strictly with the results. Considering these numbers as wildly approximate, I recall that I did 250:1 margin, margin call at 15 or so pips, at 1.6420 and got an mc at 1.6407 .
In other words, I did a cursory thought (waffled-edge circle) and leaned heavily on it, with dot projected; in other words, a bad form of an absolute stop. Only, the dot seemed more outside than inside the w-e circle, so " a line with an arrow on either side pointing to both dots, connoting an interchange between the two" applies more. I did feel " dissociation from immediate reality ", only from the reality of my thought's effectiveness, rather than a box one can depend on to bounce off. This latter is a 'cut losses' type. So, I overdepended on something, making a thought a box, if you would have left the exchanging dots in place; or, I kept my dot strictly within my thought, ignoring alternative possibilities through suggesting other conditions to reevaluate my opinion on the price-time line's next move. Trying to overcome fear and hesitation with self-confidence, only transfers overdependence from fear in dealing with and hesitation of separating from a bad day before trading to one's own needful control of the trading situation one began when entering a trade.

To correct my attitude, I need to embrace the box I control here, trying various thoughts until one's product matches the box's usual guidelines and loosen the grip on one or a reflexively-considered second pivot to approximate a reasonable answer. The plan of action, then, could be to anchor confidence in solid material, or " a strong, sketchy (square) frame surrounding the wavy, solid-line path that may connect dots or other items ", which means experience to me.
Okay, here goes...

I think there's a 5-10 - pip push upward to copy a near-perfect pattern on the horizontal. (I did a geometric-shapes study, as seen in this picture.) I realize I may be stuck on an up move happening, deriving from the stuckness of a precision-up move my first trade went for.
Okay, it worked; I have the plan of action to thank.

second of lots of mm practices:

(same setup as last one's)

Okay, now that I anchored, I want to explore a larger reason to perhaps hesitate toward or .. I don't want to go with a trail-limit yet, because I'm still building into any reason and risking a no-reason negative is too much for me to handle. {TBC..}

1848EST Took a break of several hours. Probably acting differently now, so better refigure where my attitude is. Chart redrawn, since closed platform while gone.
I'm going to try a trail limit to open up desire for smaller reasons, and finish with 'Label any wholly-tradeable reason' to encounter early these smaller reasons.
Price isn't breaking free, so I'm considering cutting losses partially for BE.
Dance of the Triangles. Okay, it's going my way.
Did it. 1.6400 . Fortunately, reason was strong in my camp, and the 23-pip drop was based on skill, not value. Plus, only 14-pip (including spread) in-trade dd.

It gets easier, apparently. Chart for this second trade.

Glanced at my last trade. No, it doesn't get easier; in the first trade, I had a lot of trouble understanding I had chosen to trade at a major turn in this trend, the first real one since its fairly new controller, the one-high channel, played through only one very small bounce. The second trade had everything laid forth to react to.

_________________________________________________________________

Almost did another post, ha-ha. No, I wouldn't do that to anyone.

Okay, next practice trade.

Price approaches a significant line of the one-high channel's deviations. I took a 10' break. Attitude check.
I'm getting a 'bottomless' feel to it; there's a real big dot, and the frame seems distant. That's "Sell when reason ('s area of effect) broke", a loss-side item on the list. This means I'm attempting to trade before I get a decent reason to trade with. I need an attitude adjustment.
Okay, what....
I did sense a slight turning after a decent drop happened around my last trade. So, 'No-reason' 'd be unwise. An exaggerated dot may be effective if I preset my limit and drop the pretenses of knowing the next direction; only, momo's gone, so no to this. All I need is a laid-forth direction.... I got it. "Limit at first reason." At least, first reason past the current static one.
It's broaching a quarter-deviation bounce, so I'll measure the weight into it and hope I don't arrive at a near-sideways market.
....
Here it is. The triangles have disappeared; the last shape was almost a curve. I'll test for a circle. (Method: Find two one-pip-bar spreads, or a trend if none are available, and draw a line segment and an ellipse between them (in 1*1 scale, of course, so a circle.) Price is going to try and finish the last circle, only I don't think it'll make it. Some trouble returning to the major deviation line will happen.
Entered, got in trouble immediately. Missed the compromise of the space between two triangles horizontal to this area. So, I'm fighting this compromise and the making of another circle.
Okay, circle completed, in another direction. I'm in trouble.
Margin call.

________________

Lost another account. Dance of the Triangles never ended, it just morphed into parallelograms.

You know, I walked into a base, pretty much knowing a base but sensing a 'bottomless', which I got caught in. That is, the reason for the loss this third trade produced was " Label any wholly-tradeable reason and treat same-side combos. " 's negative side, " - "bottomless", too-trivial feeling that's difficult to target. Reasons mismatched, regardless of pattern that fits partial reasons together being wrong. "

Well, at least I can speedily and accurately describe my stupidity. Hey.


10' break.
Okay, gotta fess up. I ignored critical data inputted during one of my breaks. I recognized I was tired, and that this would affect my trades. It did: It created a cloud over all of my trades. One could see it in my fatal mistake, too much detail, that is, a lack or overabundance of focus. If I were to trade, an absolute stop would've avoided the disaster. I can only trade a la carte for so long. And, 'bottomless' suggests endless loss, a major risk unprepared.
At the same time, and this happens to me a lot or I wouldn't say it, I unconsciously recognized the market was speeding up, and assumed it would slow down instead of testing for it. I took it personally, because I was tired and took it inward.
A big dot that " + Encourages active work around this absolute " is on the loss side, which I decided on and did. What a mess: I didn't even realize I was on the loss side, and I went ahead with the trade. The dot was in a thought process, or scissors, and rock breaks scissors, that is, a pivot that is a major turning point beats a thought, which can have other interpretations, about that point.
Using the profit-side choice that may turn 'bottomless' has several dots in it, both inside and outside the enclosing shape; this increases possible spuriousness of the thought in an absolute stop, which even if I had put in would have been likely to have hit almost immediately.

You know what the real problem was? I was too tired to read with my nerves the rush and departure patterns of the chart; instead, I took the nervousness inward, which happens when you adapt another's idea of a frame or when you fail at your own and must learn more. (I hope I don't have to start including my other, main theory, which is complete and understandable but related to a lot of ideas unrelated to trading. Anyhow...)

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Besides the mm practice, the technical method balances direction-finding and trendline use. The trendlines were based on deviations, which are tough to draw without a program. More attention, then, goes to direction-finding, especially because of the Dance of the Triangles. I was too slow on this.
If I'm that slow on a regular basis, then it'd be better to trade for more pips with a slightly lower margin. Another 1'TF'er said fifty pips a day is ordinary, so entire-trend trades for me, which'd hit 35-100 pips in the busiest of the day, will be typical of me from now on. I'll model my efforts off a real-time (demo) trade I posted at that thread yesterday.

Just read an excellent message from the 1' thread. It talks of flexibility being a good thing. Yet, it's the very thing that messed me up in my last trade. I think, it's more sharpness in using flexibility as well as great flexibility that counts; the poster noted talked of a contest, to me implying that one must be sharp first to even make it. Perhaps this is what messed me up; I just pooled more flexibility than I could handle, not taking the result simply.

My " waffled-edge circle) (a pathway between different ideas in a space, either with a square-like frame of boundaries ('think') or with a particular, dot-like objective ('know'), that is from fleeting effect to habitual signal) cutter, or scissors ", while exact enough, has the most flexibility.
" (a square) (a frame of boundaries that perpetuates only a certain goal to <> / -+ effect; as in the American '60's slang term) paper -- the idea is, something that can cover a rock and scissors can cut " contains that flexibility.
The dot centers the flexibility, and one can create a lot of unnecessary fear and other emotions around it. One merely has to avoid it.
Finally, the path is the unknown, which creates its own scenarios of the future, because its fears are justified. Regardless, fear can render planning more effective, and thus be replaced with confidence and a sense of 'rightness' and order about what will be next.

Okay, so I learned something from the excellent post. Onward, to apply what I learned to the next practice trade.

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1700EST

Maybe I made too many promises. I still have a long way to go.
Below are some fresh ideas that may not stick to the wall.


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I did review the above idea, and figured that the way I described 'thought', or scissors, in the symbols beside each choice of trade type, can have one view the other symbols with respect to scissors. I also figured, preliminarily, that the anomalies I use to make bar channels, that is, four shapes -- a decaying drop from a high jump (speed, or at least a certain, obvious version (more a slowing velocity, I suppose)), a pivot (pitch, considering the spread of an entire bar; or, a collection of very small and unusual bars), a pattern (force, considering the effect on the next region it sometimes has), and a circle within which a length exists and possibly a trendline extends from (area) -- and a fifth shape, leverage, which is in each one of these shapes.
I'm doing this aligning to logicize trading types and lock into my pattern recognition table. I need on paper how I think, literally, to guide it into trades.
The prt's idea of physical properties (force, etc.) that are the noted four shapes and with one other such shape contributing to them all, allows spread bar trendlines to join prt cleanly. General-area, action-, and reaction - type balance patterns in prt already take a place with its calculable inter-row tensions. They are more parabolic, that is, apply only to the built-in chart scale; and, I figured a range of area patterns that could be applied (based on horizontal evenness of the bars in an area, from uniformly horizontally aligned to head and shoulders aligned to fighter jet (see 'EURUSD Patterns' thread) to Dance of the Triangles (see a few posts ago and, I believe I recall, also in the noted thread) to a large jump with optional stops along the way. Maybe this list is superfluous; I was looking for a filler to explain a 1*1-scale chart's area. I don't even think it'll align.... It does explain the physical-property chart anomalies alright. The anomalies order dimensionally, that is, 1 pivot 2 line 3 triangle 4 square and 5'd return to 1 as circle. (Yes, I tend to make lists often.) This is dumb. Hmmmm...

I'll just keep it loose.. Well, just drop it. I'm not figuring it. All I wanted to note, really, was that I believe I can use the rl build portion of prt to describe at least the somatic side of the range of thought.
The parabolic side, with full-scale balance patterns and only several columns whose rows have a mathematical tension between them to jump to and from, and the 1*1 side, with the above-noted anomalies and one of them being the 'lead' anomaly, have the rl build 'grid' handle thought and especially in-brain-physical-rendered (similar to Damasio's 'somatic marker' idea, only solely in the brain..) thought.
Then, the physical-property anomalies side can cross over, with its own loose organization, to use the above-noted head-and-shoulders etc. list of areas.

Just tossing around ideas...

Okay, so prt takes in my current trading method. The Rock Scissors (Path) Paper symbology aligns easily with the physical-properties anomalies side; this allows a more solid description of each P/L list item. This arrangement, I hope, allows for a tensegral technical approach. Most of my work'd be representing thought with the rl build of prt, while leading it over the other symbols describing the P/L List's items with physical properties description. Then, I could branch into drawing s/r and pattern onto the chart, from a 1*1 and/or parabolic view.
One can match one's own actions with the chart's actions, if need be, when using the same thinking model for both.

Okay, it's trading again.

Closed that account with the trade posted in another thread, since that trade was illegal.

First Sunday trade went fine.

Hmmm....

The latest sojourn into psychological description ended in someone else inspiring my next direction.


_____



I'll give the physical-properties version of a psychological description a try.

gist, gut instinct trader? anyhow, gonna review each only this way. Still set up each technically.

2009.08.13 00:27buy250:1 gbpusd1.64890.00000.00002009.08.13 00:371.6497

a fairly obvious breakout, technically
gist-wise, took first jump and then left. Waited around and took immediate fall thereafter as confirmation was 'right'. While gone, price rose twice as high to technically projectable exit.
So, what could I have done, gist-wise, to improve this trade --
also, how could I have avoided the trade after this that could be termed a regret trade --

on one level, was it a trite rendition the first time, a poor reaction to a trade that was completed, a compulsion to overtrade because I had to leave after the first trade

did I continue the triteness the second time, taking it lightly, even when I'd lost 45% of my demo account

did I allow the same situation as the first trade overtake the second trade, which sometimes increases profits because I can reuse some or a lot of the same technicals,
or did I just hang around because the price seemed to do the same for two hours, and I just got used to staring at the screen without reacting to it, the end result being I was tapped into the speed of the chart's motion rather than the trade potential of it

There it is.

Perhaps in trading, I get too in the moment sometimes, and the situation of being there becomes more important than the trade itself.
This happens a lot more times than I can imagine; it's easy to see this when the trade is big and I'm thinking of something completely different while I sense I knew exactly how the move was going to happen almost exactly when I saw the move setup and yet lost big time.
It's more difficult to understand that what just happened is, in a way, the exact same problem.

On an even deeper level, the gut instinct I displayed within me was.... hmmmm... this is a first time for me. I scratched my head, moved my belly.. haha... What did I do?

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1442EST Situation reaction, action situates, situation traps one and elevates others

Situation.....pressure..... near a line, gotta move with it. Name pivots into new view....


Just practicing my trading language:

pull it over the edge... nyahh, I think it'll do fine.... hold. get out! NOW!....leave, and forget you ever saw this [that is, without entering]....try it, and you'll regret it..AGAIN. .....it'll hit, and it'll do more....IT'S TOO FASTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! ....

Oh wait, that's....

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Alright, serious time.
So if you're reacting to the speed of a move you've projected, and you can't move that fast, or you think of another situation that'll "explain" that move only it makes no sense for this move only, or you get one reason for the move only that reason only applies AFTER the big move that gets you a margin call hits first
...
ah, f__, it's just that if you get too INTO a move, or too AWAY from a move, if you're not living only in the present and stating a trade you have protected statistically speaking, then you'll lose for a reason other than your trading skill.
Relaxation response is supposed to disengage you from the fight-or-flight response. INTO could be fight, AWAY could be flight. Recenter with relaxation rESPONSE, rather than just relax. Center, rather than relax. Deep breathing works fastest (http://www.agohh.com/deepbreathing) to get to the relaxation response, and, I guess, shallow breathing works fastest to get to the fight-or-flight response. So, recenter into the trade, whether studying, trading or recording the process, as a situation or the center of your attention, and either breath more shallowly or more deeply, depending on whether you're about to do something stupid or smart, in that order.




Focus. Put event-based spread trendline at discretionary stop and physical limit; breathe deeply when fight-or-flight and shallowly when relaxed. Trade.

Took a break looking at my psych. Got a slogan from it.

method: News or other valid event lines seem to do fine for a general trend, and 1-1 lines off sides and such for the latest direction around the general trend. Sometimes the event lines are good enough for direction, it just depends on the severity of the bar the event was on.

The example below is very similar in structure to my example on the Interactive Trading thread, in that it's also an event spread trendline with regular spread tendlines, old and new, adjusting price-time line along the way. In this area, too, I had to get creative; here, it was to make deviations based on the given parallelism of the price-time line once enough area had been done after the 1330 GMT news (represented with that and the next candle, and stretched into the next one-pip-spread bar), was done and a centerline was carefully lain with midlines between its two bar-channel lines. (always: Event lines are in yellow, one-pip-spread trendlines in green, and other lines in yellow; importance varied through width, though it's often a tough call; also, spread trendlines often have patterns, highlighted in rectangles, copy near them in some form such as flip- and invert-copy, a developing copy, different-size copy, and others.)

Greetings!
just saw this journal via the Trading Journals section...
I "know" u from your posts in other threads so i peeked in here..

why is it called "Chemo-electric"?
regarding the bar spread TL construction, where did u learn it from?

Thanks for sharing your journal!

Thanks for visiting my journal.

It's called "Chemo-Electric" because I'm a fan of social psychology stuff, especially on the physiology side. This phrase just stuck in my brain as something catchy.

I invented the bar spread trendline idea. I don't know of anyone else who uses it. I've been working with it since April. The promise is undeniably great, and I've found a lot of interesting predictions from them, whether or not they're coincidence.

If I had the cash or the ability to do them more justice, I would; my application has been spotty. Anyone who wants a go at studying them too, that'd be great.

----


longer version of how I figured bar spread trendlines, and where I am now with them:


As I recall, I started in April on bar spread trendlines after reading the Trading Discussion thread on volume spread analysis. They were trying to block extra indicators from being posted on the VSA thread both there and on the Rookie Discussion version. People kept posting them, however, so the Trading Discussion thread, where the posting activity stayed after a while, and its leaders began taking on some of these indicators.
I was dismayed at the indicators that were being accepted into the fold. (This is a fairly hoity-toity thread; you stuck with the topic exactly or you were booed; besides, I didn't really get it or at the time want to get it, was more an interested floater.) Lagging indicators, chart drawing tools that were indicators, and the like had almost nothing to do with VSA. They just complemented the idea.
I was not ready to accept VSA until I had more to work with. Price, I thought or at least read at the time, was absolute. So why is no one doing price spread analysis?
One of the earlier programming gurus who visited the two VSA threads put forth a simple oscillating indicator that measured price bar spread. No averages or lagging. This caught my eye as soon as it was posted, and I hung onto it. After I realized the threads were moving away from the general concept VSA offered, I started in on my own to apply it to price, which was supposedly more stable.
I don't recall how I actually came up with the bar spread trendlines idea. VSA is full of repetitive verbal description, which I found to include imprecision. It was just another proto-language, like rainbow or Woodie's CCI or candlesticks, as I now recall. VSA does tap into what is actually on the chart and reads from there, only it does so on a very small scale; either you take a larger TF, which is impure to me, or you scalp. Where I'd start with VSA: Somewhere on the TF VSA thread was this picture, which included little trendlines and had logic that flowed nicely.

Anyhow, I wanted a larger picture to be available to me, on a very small TF. You can call certain things on the chart as facts: The week begins and ends and certain news items always appear at certain times; big spikes or rare silent periods have a definitive effect on the market when they happen. On the whole, price is reliable; volume's relation to price is also reliable, but I have a difficult enough time keeping up with price. (humor, there.)
So why do most people generalize their indicators around such reliable information, instead of having their indicators directly stem from them? I don't know, makes no sense to me. Then again, the idea of extending a ray from a few close-set points and then making a prediction from it is a bit off the wall. But if it works, that's enough sense for me.
My initial idea-making period before first posting it on the VSA thread ended with a bold chart recollection here . The idea was laughed at since it was not VSA, but then the responder stated how VSA would catch only half of the move my chart suggested bar-spread trendlines would catch the entirety of. I was silent on the matter, since the respondent was a thread leader and my idea was complimentary to VSA, not strictly VSA only it was price spread analysis. I was also ecstatic, knowing I was onto something.

Since then, I've played with bar spread trendlines. I made a few strides, such as figuring you have to use regular candles, gaps and all, and a 1*1 fixed chart scale, to reduce the chance a trendline will jump between prices, as well as to follow where it goes more easily. Before bar spread trendlines, I used MT4's compound drawing tools regularly, and got trendline deviations from my own application of MT4 drawing tools such as horizontal lines around whole numbers, fans, and time series, using Fibonacci/Lucas percentiles in a way that produced regularly-spaced lines ( weeks before ICCE). I also found that ordinary chart anomolies, such as very low price spreads in an otherwise high price spread area, or visa-versa, work better than most bar spreads; using higher TF's to locate such areas, and then diving into the 1' TF within one of those higher-TF areas, works especially well. Regularly-occurring anomolies such as one-pip-spread bars also make good bar spread trendlines. Then, of course, there's news as anomolies, using the area around the minute a news item first appears as an anomoly; I recently found that price tends to calm down into a one-pip-spread trendline, and then may offer a regular line right after it that represents a balance line from that news.

Right now, I'm especially interested in regularizing my method around predictably-occurring bar spread trendlines (example), and also in seeing how patterns in the chart form around these lines. I've often seen patterns work exactly or use a midline (highlighted trendline, with a dot 50% of the way into the trendline) around one or more of bar spread trendlines I put on the chart. Maybe I should return the approach to using bar spread trendlines on that VSA thread post.

Alright, that was nice. A visitor.


-----


I've been losing accounts regularly for a while, basically ignoring this thread's first post's money management stuff. I'm kind of all over the place with the different styles of use for bar spread trendlines (now their official name.) The method organization in the first post is okay, except it's geared only toward regularity and not toward maximum profit. Plus, it's awfully sketchy on line-made patterns, which goes to show how far I've gotten picking the right type of lines for them and then consciously placing such lines before patterns trace between them. It'd remove doubt on direction, at least within the pattern, to understand and use midlines-and-touch knowledge applied to ranking different lines, complete direction. Ranking different lines is tough; I'm at a loss to do it regularly.

1957EST Doing alright at the time. Nope. Lost again.

Okay, I'm figuring that if I can get the above, that is, directional pressure, from patterns found along specific lines, noting morph/copy vs. touch/midline, then bar spread trendlines will make it as a method.
So that study is next.

After the last 'balance lines' post, where I made a loose formula for any variety of bar spread trendline, I decided to devote most of my on-screen time to choosing and per-area ranking the correct bar spread trendlines, so that I have lots of examples to pool from to discover how I can get direction every time from bar spread trendlines along.

Here's a lowly first example, taken from the past day:

I only used two bar spread trendlines in this one, a little pattern-based one at 0235GMT and a combo of two news events at 0930 and 1000GMT. The former was a pip line with a natural parallel that showed at 0546GMT, and the latter was a bar channel of the 0930's low and 1000's high that led into the first 1psb after them.
The gist of it was that the news bar channel worked oddly until the price-time line's peak, and visa-versa for the pattern's pip line and its parallel. After the ptl's high, both worked.






-----

Alright, moving on.

I gotta look for any new lines that showed overnight.

After 15', didn't find enough yet. Well, first time...

Right now, I seem to be totally clueless about what to do in my demo trades. So, I'm pushing on to create more awareness of the current chart. I especially want to frame each area, in a sense of what another poster in a thread a days or two ago presented (keyword 'honors').


method:

I'm trying to shorten the effect of a spread trendline, so it'll denote when to enter/exit a trade better. Temporary, unusual patterns that are likely to start a trend and have a responding pattern and more may go with shorter-effect bar spread trendlines. Line segments, rather than rays, are the rule here.
Then, maybe I can get this together with spread trendlines found on 1' TF from the 15' TF's unusual bar spread areas.
On the regular 1' TF between these two extremes, lines get overwhelming, so I was thinking of strictly separating spread trendlines fitting the trend, being horizontal, overlapping a loop, and the like, to increase coherence. I'd start with an anchor chart, and then copy different types of lines on different charts. More of the same type of line per chart may increase understanding of the current chart.

Also, pattern-level trendlines often have a much different effect on the price-time line than regular- or longterm-level trendlines, much like the difference between trending and ranging, so dividing along the line of term (immediate, intraday/shortterm, shortterm/longterm) may also help.

This is just storage for the older post #1 version of my chart study:

" method --

overview cycle:

(unseen; inherently line (-like)) far-significant -- parallel lines, substitutes, each more or less
too far / a bit; line-only

close-event
too far / regular-area ; line-only

(is one of others in cycle, and the top in current trend) parabolic-close one-trendline -- helpers: micro's, large patterns

current trend:

(other side: is one of others in current trend, and the top in cycle) all, for pivot lines
separate / mix ; line, pattern

lined pattern -- morph/copy vs. touch/midline
not-close / regular-area ; pattern-only

(unseen) tick
not-close / bit ; pattern-only

"



-----


Apparently, since I'm still working up a method, I'm still trading badly. At least, that's how it works for me. I guess I'll never get that all-deductive-logic approach, or maybe....

Added warmup to first post.

method:

Just arrived at a coherent way to work through chart at the two-widths-apart 1' TF level, here . Make sure to identify relevant areas from the 15' or other higher TF to rank bar spread trendlines better. Also, 1'-only newsbars produce special lines that carry areas fairly well, above and beyond the typical line&pattern stream.

Losing; did a doubler, tho.

STORAGE for old technical method description:

"bigger trend, multi-area:
15'(or possibly other, using 15' for now)TF-found 1'TF 1-3psb groups make spread trendlines that intersect bigger patterns that pivot bigger trends

area:
1psb's sometimes bunch together, making a highly effective run after the area is left, 2-3psb's taking over locally while trading according to pip lines' overall plan of locally-made pivots in an area;
and, that heiken ashi is valid for at least one use -- You draw a midline thru a decently-straight, usually medium trend, and the other side of the midline produces a temporary horizontal s/r line or something similar; drawing to the settle point after the trend ends, rather than including exuberance 'fluff' above the next trend's beginning, is more accurate

news area:
news spread trendlines define areas that other areas deviate from in varying degree to the news' importance, and that only a clever use of spread trendlines around news will capture the area well enough

intra-area/trend:
patterns (small areas of an xy symmetry) relevant to defining where the energy of a trend within that trend changes direction is continuation or turning candlestick patterns (which I'd rather consider with proportion than formal names, 1psb's ("dots"), or horizontal line segments between patterns that show their compromises and derivative patterns, which may define an area as well; the patterns in this method are usually, unless very small and thus needful of clean definition, temporary and often morphed, copied or derived from

trend:
spread trendlines that match a trend's center closely; have done pip lines recently, and as I recall, I also used medium, or rather locally, high spread bars, and sometimes volume, to define a turning point; and, they go right through the middle of a trend, and one can draw deviation lines off them

trend, deviations to:
deviation lines to trends, such as some pip lines, instead of trend-defining lines"

More storage, this one on trading cliches (an ff article comment):

Your writing began interesting enough, in that it describes in general terms what it's like to write a strategy; it's always good to review.
However, I read more into the article and found a lot of trading strategy rule cliches with a 'what's next' spin.

Nothing's written in stone. I've read it's positive expectancy ( http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=194051 ) not r:r, temporary methods ( http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=192464 and http://www.forexfactory.com/member.php?u=43541 ) not "a system to be profitable in the long term", 13 ( http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost.php?p=2974875&postcount=2 ) not 11 losses in a row, and forward testing ( http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=2818309 ) not backtesting, that are important.
" It should be possible to find similar setups for the other sessions for those keen to do some research. " -- This really worries me. If your strategy is time-based, it'd be specific; there's the Big Dog trading system (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=103682 ), for example, that only trades the New York open; one'd have a difficult time replicating the same impact news from there has on price.

Finally, when I read "In the next article I will describe the entry signal and the stop loss level," I had to laugh self-effacingly. I've found or made lots of strategies that flopped, and have yet, after years, to make one that doesn't. Strategies are a dime-a-dozen; it's the expectations that you noted earlier in your article about trading strategies that make them so. So, the large room for error in "consistencies and patterns" worries me about what you have next. Nevertheless, I'm sure a trader with good mm and a steady hand will do fine with it.

I look forward to reading more on your time-based stategy, of which there are relatively few so that most have something to offer; each either measures or takes for granted a particular volatility, I'd guess, since sessions generally divide along these lines.

Still no approach, taking the usual lame potshots at the market with random effect.
Arrived at a good start of one over at e/u patterns thread, and plan to work it up over the weekend.


-----

The noted plan focussed on major news, so I'm going to use here to go over the time MT4 allows to chart the 1'. It is two months, I saw, and I don't know how to get more data on there, so I'll go with it.
My first step is to put a vertical line (color-coded yellow, for news, and in small dashes) at every red-flag news item. With this, I'll clip and paste below the name of the news items lasted over two months. It seems news items connect, also.

Well, first exceptions.
There's unusual activity in the last half hour between Tokyo and Hong Kong on several occasions and at seemingly random, if occasionally on the hour or half hour, times.
CAD did a wild pattern, incredibly repetitious, between two of its red-flag minutes on 07072009, 1530 and 1700 gmt+2 (my platform's time). Also on 0710 at 1400 and 1530 (also usd).
All CAD red-flags seem to act as, for the GBP/USD, temporary balance bar from which pivots happen. Nothing to trade on, if smalltime; just a guide.
So, you put these two ideas together, and when there's two CAD red-flag news items in a row, you get repetitious patterning, and one along, a temporary balance bar from which pivots happen. Like the single CAD reds, the two CAD reds work with each other to make a compound turn twice as far along the chart. Again, nothing to trade on, if smalltime; just a guide.
Two CAD reds paired on 0807 1400 and 1700 gmt+2, producing a news-laden middle with an incredibly repetitious pattern between the two CAD reds; in this instance, the entirety was a longterm pivot, so there was no division of a run or an eventual pivot from the both of them. 1,2,3,4,5.
Thus, it seems that each CAD red is reliable as a temporary balance-bar-type pivot, and when it hooks up with another CAD red, unusual, reasonably logical things happen to change the timing of this formula.
(The reasoning is that Canada is mostly a former Great Britain colony, and a fairly sedate pair with occasional jumps. I demo-traded the u/c half a year ago, while scouting around different pairs. What struck me immediately were the long level holds with significant jumps between them. And, look at this. I mean, I know it's the Asian and all, but they don't make runways so horizontal. So that sendentariness's gotta rub off on its mother country at the news intersection from, with g/u, CAD. And, for now, it seems it does.)

Continued news study:


to-do list:
when volume dries up, ny stocks open, ...