"Time After Time"

A collaboration between Bemac & JR97.

2004 I think it was when I first met JR. He was already into the Time Factor & I had been working on a concept of 3 Dimensional Charts. Seemed like we were both coming at the same issue from different vectors.
Since then we have, occasionally, exchanged concepts & discoveries. This venture is an attempt to clarify & consolidate what we have discovered, so far.

So...
This Thread will be 'Closed' to all but JR & Myself for the Time being.{actually that includes Everyone on My Buddy List which, sadly Only, adds one more. But when you realize who you are, you are more than welcome}

The Other Thread { http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=158003 } will be an Open Version for all above {probably 2 or 3} to contribute & question.

Needless to say, we would like to expand the number of posters to This Thread but that will (probably) be by invitation only.

Blah blah blah... What can you do for me?

Hopefully; assist you in Forcasting Timing for Entries & Exits.
You should also be aware that This Thread may also include references to the {explative} Indicators already mathematically devised by others.

2 Dimensional Charting:
Up or Down?

3 Dimensional Charting:
Up or Down or Up and Away or Up & Toward or Down & Away or Down & Toward?
{think of the Price Not being Stagnent just because it isn't Moving Up or Down, Maybe it is Coming Straight at you or Moving Away.}


There is, as far as I know, no commercial software to chart this. Therefore, we both came at it using available language supplied by different providers to grapically visualise our concepts.


There IS a 3rd Dimension. Our quest is to define it.

Please afford us some time to get it going.

Just trying to assist; that's all.

JR,
Suggest to me That This setup has some Relevence. Please.
I'm all on tenterhooks. Where did you Start?

A little history about my journal with "time".

Back in my squiggly line days I had developed a multi-frame system in Excel that was very good at market timing by drilling down from the monthly charts all the way down to 1 min. charts. When price was at certain statistical measures, direction and magnitude of moves was very obvious.

One of the things I was noticing was that I could almost predict how many bars out a move would occur based on the output of the system. But I wanted to get it exact and not just by eye ball. So I started researching "timing" methods which led to Gann, Fib time, geometric patterns, and even astro.

After a few years of diligent study and easily over $1k spent on books I finally came to the realization that if one were to know "when" price was going to turn, price almost doesn't matter. Just wait for "time" and then enter and wait for "time" again to exit.

The other realization I've come to is that trading time can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. I've developed some techniques I could show in about 5 sec. and someone could simply do some counts and wait and see how price reacted when the time marker came up. Just set your watch to the market or session open and wait for "time". I've also got others that require squaring ranges and establishing price-time equivalence that will transcend time frames that are easy to calculate but complicated to draw.

Before this thread gets going, there is one thing that needs to be understood or else the cart can get way ahead of the horse. And that is the final "aha" moment when trading time occurs is when the person opens up both sides of their brain and start trying to see the market in ways that are contrary to 99% of the rest of the trading world. I mean, if 90% of all traders fail, then it's probably best to approach things in a different direction, is it not? The creative side of the brain is also the side for seeing spatial relationships and recognizing patterns. Sure, there are plenty of easily discernible patterns prevalent in trading. Chart patterns, indicator patterns, candles, etc. But there are also other patterns that extend to the right side of the chart where it really matters enabling one to forecast areas of probable market reaction in both price and time. There is no voodoo about this. It's all still based in reality and backed up mathematically. It just isn't the kind of stuff you'll ever hear talked about on CNBC. Which is perfectly fine be me.

Addressing some of the concepts brought up by Bemac:

2D: There are 2 axis on a price chart. Price and time. Since the majority of traders lose and the majority of the trading world only focuses on price, why not get the edge by also focusing on the other axis which is time? Gann says price and time are equivalent. If that's the case, then all of the price forecast methods that are effective for price should be effective for time as well. Including but not limited to Fibs, pivots, "pych" levels, etc.

3D: The fractal nature of the market reveals 3 Dimensional behavior. Essentially adding a 3rd axis. In keeping with the price-time equivalence model, the z-axis is adding another spatial dimension. The same way an artist can create 3D space on a canvas using 2 point perspective. Moreover, there are 2D geometric structures that represent 3D space. And of course there are 3D structures to represent 3D space.

4D: If price-time are 2 dimensions, the to-and-fro z-axis is the 3rd spatial, then the 4th dimension is motion. This dimension is more conceptual and is difficult to show on the chart. But is very evident mathematically. I won't go into this stuff very much because it's just waaaaay beyond the scope of a forum thread. It also gets into the territory of "that's all find and dandy, but where's the trade in there?" And trading is what this is all about so I'll try and stick to things that can be applied practically on a day to day basis.

Indicators: My approach to trading is that if I had to trade with nothing but a paper chart, a pencil, and calculator, could I still do what I do? With my primary methods of trading time, yes I can. Granted, tools like MT4 are manna from heaven compared to what I started on back in the late 80's early 90's stealing the Investor's Business Daily and WSJ from the school library every day so I could draw in one more bar on my free sample charts I had to keep begging for from the chart vendors. But most everything I anticipate coming out of this thread will probably be able to be replicated without any custom indicators. The indicator just make it easier and faster which can also lead to more research and exprimentation which leads to knew concepts and methods in a shorter amount of time.

I feel bad that this project stalled. At the time I was up to my eye balls in overtime at the office, homework, kids, hockey, etc. and I ended up ditching trading all together to take care of business. After all, the markets would still be here but my job and grades might not. Well, I'm finally done with school (unless I decide to do the law school thing) and the job has settled down nicely.

So I'd like to resurrect the project. Attached are three pdf's of an article series I did for Akuma's beginnertrader.com blog about some simple time trading techniques that can be applied to any trading system or method. (His blog and website is no longer there and I haven't been able to get a hold of him.. anybody know his email or condition? I'm worried.)

I can't begin to describe how much I owe to him and a few others like soso benton, bear, xtnami, and stoxx. In their spirit of giving, I'm going to post a few things here that have made me a lot of pips and hopefully start others on the path of using time as an indicator.

I've also got a lot on my old blog at http://4xcycletrader.blogspot.com and some in my journal I sporadically update here at: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=42407

I will not know until I try to submit, time playing its entrapment again.
I am trepidaceous....(sp?) but if it is me i will have the strength to share my ridiculed time theories, oh let it be so.

slangivar even though I am 1 day at a time.
Happy new moon after the equinox btw. Growth maximus but what is growing I ask myself...hehe this is too good to be , I am ready now the time has come for the rekoning of submittance..

Herewith a little moon study, not the whole picture but if it moves oceans thats good enough for me not to ignore.

Thanks for sharing that. Lunar cycles is something I've studied for years. In fact, some of my earliest work was working with Lunar Quarters. One of the techniques I used to do was to plot out Lunar Qrts like you did and then apply Square of Nine horizontal levels and draw in connecting diagonals creating a grid. Worked great, but it was a pain having to keep drawing the diags.

Gave me a headache, blast from the past,walk down memory lane.

Square root movements and angles taken from the deviation in the moon's latitude readings from week open to week close w/ sun lines. Them were the days........

One of the concepts I've dwelt on a lot is the concept that time cycles can be very rhythmic. Take your heart beat. thump thump.... thump thump.... etc.

I wrote an article on my defunct website about finding the heartbeat of a chart. I'm summarizing here, but basically rhythmic cycles can be found easily and like a heartbeat, they'll skip a beat or even have a murmur here and there before getting back in sync.

Unlike a pulse, you can't just feel an artery in the neck or wrist to figure it out. But fortunately you don't need anything fancy like an akg or complicated formula either. Just use the power of observation.

The attached charts shows a rhythmic chart of the gbp/jpy 4h where the pulse is taken from a range of price. The blue and red cycles are the same length, but have different starts resulting in rhythmic time pattern. The first chart shows the range, the second chart shows some time forward. The last chart shows recent action.

How many of those were dead on hits? Add your favorite price measurement method be it fibs, pivots, Sq9 levels, trend lines, and you've got a handy price-time squaring method.

i got a headache & very confused.
u got an interesting chart there, Sir.


Swami S,
nice to see u post live, Sir.

another interesting thread.

I feel my hair starting to grow, must be a full moon.

Hi Chad - great to find you back and sharing your knowledge I've bookmarked this thread and will be following it with great interest.
BTW - how did you find Earik's tome? - I'm certain that you made better use of it than I was able to!
Cheers
J / Islander

Earik is da man. Most of the non-astro stuff I was already doing, but his take on those things was a nice supplement. I won't get into the astro stuff here, but let's just say it rawks. I can't thank you enough for cutting me a great deal on the book.

Gann talks a lot about price-time squaring. The concept is basically treat price and time as equal measurements much like the way Einstein talked about space-time. Anywho, the chart below takes price from a high, establishes cycles based on price and the results speak for themselves.

I'm too lazy to spell it all out here, but there's enough on the chart to figure it out. If all else fails, I wrote about it on my blog. (link in my sig.)

http://img20.imageshack.us/i/tp04may09.gif/

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8804/tp04may09.th.gif

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