Pattern's Chemo-Electric Trading Journal

Welcome to the thread. To whom 'you guys' refers, I'm not sure; I can only speak for my own trading method, as most every trader has their own individual approach. The individual in the last post made a post in another thread that I got to thinking about, which later helped me to redo a troubling part of my overall chart study approach.

You, also, brought something to think about, and I appreciate it, especially from a trader who makes money. Any charting method can stand a good test.

The randomness issue has been broached in several ff threads (1, 2 and others) , so I'll skip that one.
Visual logic is what I go for in drawing my TL sets. I'll play along, though, with your math approach.

Okay, how about this. You're using algebra, right? Let's pretend that each shape on a 1' candle chart (which is my main chart TF) can be explained with a function (log x, cos y, etc.) or simple formula (your polynomials with 1-2 variables and/or constants.)
Given this, the following charts have one TL that connects the stability
within two consecutive logarithmic curves (or log x) on the 5' overlay chart in the two yellow boxes:






----



The check in the fourth picture shows a side shape where the TL's effective, and the 'x' where the price-time line verticalizes thru the TL and begins to leave the area in the fifth picture.






The TL in the pictures above has one main variable, the logarithm, which is conditioned with various candles to make the stability of each logarithm, and that one logarithm is mostly below the TL and the other is mostly above the TL could be a third variable. The TL's progression after then has two main constants, the flat and the spike.

Of course, I'm only considering what I see, not that I pretend to have the sophistication it'd take to say that the flat (checked) and the spike ('x'ed) would necessarily be there because of the TL I drew.
Usually, I try and gather an entire area into one understanding of how to draw TL's for that type of area. I've made great strides over the past fourteen months in this rather difficult approach to chart study.

----

So, to answer your question, a TL is basically A (initial point) + B (second point) = C (progression of the ray from the TL). Use a chart pattern within which is a simple shape found in lots of patterns -- say, a right angle, logarithm or rectangle -- and such a three-part polynomial as you suggested makes sense for each TL of a set that repeats along the core to explain the entire chart pattern and/or repetitions of that pattern. Algebraically, I suppose you would be concatenating a bunch of polynomials that are related in the area the TL set deals with.

I hope that answers your question. Good trading to you.

What I'm trying to say is that mathematical models will never help you crack this market.

Actually i believe that the biggest BS out there is that for you to become a trader you have to be good in math. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not bashing mathematics which is something that I love and very useful in other areas but for trading it is pretty much useless.

When you look at a chart you see human behavior (even if expressed in the for of price oscillation) and algorithms fail miserably in dealing with this kind of things.

Try to develop an algorithm to make a girl fall in love with you, or a formula to make you write music like Bach, or paint like Leonardo Da Vinci.

We are dealing with people not machines, and even if black boxes and their algorithms are all over, even then, we are fighting against their programmers because black boxes in itself are nothing.

Forex is more close to Bach, Da Vinci and the beautiful girl next door than E=MC2 .

Congratulations on the girl next door.

Yes, from what I've read of them, algorithms choose some little flaw in the market and exploit it infinitely.

That ignores the basic truth of trading charts: There are shapes and patterns (and the TL's drawn from them) in the chart that only a human being can recognize, because
a) they make them
b) there is too much visual information in each area to process in order to discern a simple visual logic
and c) the shapes and patterns and their 'definitions' referred to are never the same twice in ways the computer as yet cannot repeat.

Because only human beings can realistically understand however the market goes into the future, discretionary trading will always have a place in being at the forefront of this craft that has applications across several disciplines.

And again my point is that every pattern, every MA, every line, etc is just another variable added to the equation.

Price can only goes up or down ( sideways is up and down in a smaller scale) thats THE ULTIMATE variable one have to deal with to be successful in this business.

Lets say you add a pattern.

Unless your pattern is accurate 100% of the time ( which would be the holy grail in itself) it will either be confirmed or fail right? So it is a variable.

To deal with a pattern that could fail or not goes by the same binomial rules as price itself (up or down), so I believe that since you dealing with variables anyways it is smarter not to add them but to reduce it.

Oh....and by the way there is no girl next door......that's was just an example !!

My patterns include this notion, because they are simple enough that only the price-time line's reactions to the patterns defines direction. They are more properly called shapes, since each one has only a function, say a right angle, polygonal definition, or combinatorial significance.

I also get the distinct impression you're not grounded in 10,000 hours of 1'-chart candlework. If not, then you couldn't realize how fluid the market, especially forex, really is. Not only does price go in all directions except backwards, its patterns are ever-changing. The crystallized patterns you refer to, with their exact fib measures and complex shape, fail to address this or why each symbol exists. I'd much rather adapt to the chart and be precise in the chart's next move, than average through some one-fits-all solution and trip befuddled through the unsettled emotions I'd then have to go through.

A pairs chart always goes on, allowing news to be read into chart study; balance is more important. With stocks, news can kill a chart, so incorporating it into the chart is essential. I use different patterns for each, and areas are based on a range of typical areas based on one balance pattern (with others having a minor role), and on an r.l. single, pair or set that typifies the stock's chart area (with roller language filling the gaps).

After 5y testing with real $ traditional indicators, patterns and drawing devices (and then a 2y break), I spent six months creating roller language at Tradestation. Once I busted my account for good in stocks, I became a glutton for punishment and went to forex. The rest of the real $ went gone, and through demo over the course of 14 months, I came up with balance patterns.



I'm not sure this answers your post. Anyhow, that's what I have.

Well....the bottom line is ....it works?

In my 20 plus years as a trader for a institution, and after overlooking for a team of traders for years, I think I saw every gimmick people can come up with.

My question is always....why deal with price through a "proxy" instead of price itself ? Is it for psychological reasons?

Why add another variable?

I deal with price. That's the only variable I have to crack in order to do my job.

Anyways if your system works for you, who am I to tell you something else but .....keep on the good work .

Price is the type of bar and TF you use. Unless you trade with ticks. Some broke rs, even ticks have a range.
Bars lead to variable interpretation, which discounts your Price.

I admit I've posted no clear explanation of my TL sets method. At least each TL works, which you blithely ignored. I use TL's to remove the effect of bars as a proxy to how price moves from now into the hre. (And that's how I'll describe it, thanks on that.)

And dude, I've seen your charts. I'll be nice about it.
You go on about 'Price is King'. Which inspired me to write this:


Some people fool others, other people fool themselves.

Before ff's commercial forum arrived, a string of high-powered charlatans set up their tents and hawked the latest wonder.

'Get your all-in-one chart system -- Surrounds the chart area like a puppy, adapts speedily to run through every trend.'
Another: 'Never use an indicator again! Just look at the chart. One line, the closing price. See it?'
A third: "Here's my broke r statement. Look how brightly colored my indicators are. I'm yelling at you. The market is random, and the 1-2 logic of that chart makes sense. So DO it."
A fourth: "Hey buddy, I got a signal to sell ya. Only $99.95. Going once... Twice.."

It's your turn. Show through your charts what price really is.

(Please, not this.)



I don't mean to be harsh, and I appreciate your challenging me, but please understand, Everybody does more than price,
from the DOM futures trader-athlete
to the expert flip-a-coin EA programmer
to your average s/r and news longterm trader.
These people have an honest edge, and I'm sure you do too and I will also one day.

So good luck in your and your students' trading.

And yes, of course psychology is involved. That's another story....

Students?? What students ......LOL I'm a trader not a teacher....

My charts are based in price not gimmicks, they are pretty much naked, you posted some of them out of context where I did put some indicators I barely use to show a point in a thread.

I posted a strategy on the sexy lady thread trying to help the guy, but it does not mean that I trade it. It was something I used on the beginning it is still valid and profitable but I trade something a lot more simplistic now.

I'm a technical trader myself but I keep the variables to a minimum, thats the whole point of my posts here.

Anyways....if your stuff works for you...well...go for it .

" after overlooking for a team of traders for years "
I've had bosses for years, and they do act like a teacher at times. Another slight error exaggerated. Okay, meant no offense.

You failed to address the explanation of the TL in my charts post, yet again, and instead chose to use the sweeping, implied invectives of 'my charts are...not gimmicks (either implying mine are or answering my last post, not sure)'
and of 'if your stuff works for you...'.
On the latter: You came to my thread and, to me, challenged my claim that I'm in the process of creating a new type of TL. That's great, I appreciate and need it.

Only, you don't go for the usual "Well, your charts are messy and you haven't fully explained them," which is what I've been getting consistently over the past year of working on them. Instead, you simply gloss over my explanation. Ignore it.

This tells me one of two things:
My TL failed to get to the core of the part of the chart it covers. The price-time line did not obey the balance the TL revealed.
or
You have your own method, are defending it, and at the same time are always testing other methods for improving it. You did not see how what I offer can help you, so you are moving on.
: I am sure it is the latter.

It's not just my method, it's offered to everybody. I'd rather people start using what I've made and post it in a way that I can learn from them, and so improve how I use my new approach to drawing TL's.
Not simply gloss over it and say, "That's nice, good luck on that."
Trading itself, of course, allows such a statement to make sense. Trading is heavily psychological; the people who say it isn't, have a natural disposition that effectively takes care of this issue. Why else would 95% of traders fail? It's not the chart study.
And yet I say I've improved how to draw TL's, in a way that rewrites the definition. Any edge decreases the need for a naturally effective psychology to take up the slack. Obviously, some people can deal with less-precise, separate-variable price-time studies to arrive at a trading plan. Others, like me, feel they must strive for more, to make up for a poor psychological approach. It depends on the individual.

Well, I keep going on. If you don't see in my posts the above, then that's cool. I hope, one day, a trader can use, even surreptitiously, my chart approach.

Forgot one -- You say the point of your posts is to say to keep variables to a minimum. I am. In fact, as I noted earlier and didn't connect also with you, I've cleaned up my charts considerably over the 14 months of developing my TL sets. I have further to go. The thing is, though, that each pattern (mine, which are temporary once you surround it with the price-time line) generates several TL's, all of which describe some area of the chart.
One, count it, one trendline, is about as simple as it gets. That chart actually needs two more TL's, and that's it, to explain the chart's movement. Three TL's not minimum? Something has to give, either the amount or the accuracy of one's explanation of the chart area.

Okay, that's it. Good luck on your trading, and thanks for the advice.

LOL.....!! Ok you like patterns ha? So let me show you a pattern that happens a lot here on FF.

1- Retail trader opens a public thread
2- retail trader thanks you for posting in his thread
3- retail trader gets mad with your posts in his thread
4- retail trader blame you for coming to his thread.

There ya go....a pattern that repeats 100% of the time.

Anyways...for the last time....my point is that you are chasing a mirage, wasting time after something that does not exist. Whatever new TA you find it will be a variable at best.

X+T=P where X is the oscillating price (negative or positive) and T stand for trades (also positive or negative) simple algebra and sign rules will tell if my P will be negative or positive.

And thats enough variables for the platypus !!

No, dude, I still thank you for coming to my thread.
You inspired me yet again -- Look here.

I'm about to give up the discussion, though, because I now recall one of the things that inspired me on this journey. I had posted in late March of a year ago that I had discovered a way to draw a TL that told how to trade both sides of a 125-pip move that lasted under half an hour. I didn't give a detailed chart on how I drew the TL, because at the time, I was trying to fit in to a thread in which one had both to follow a rather exacting candle approach and to do some social interaction -- Hopeless, for me. Still tried, to understand why they do their approach.
The leading trader rebuffed my chart with his own version, at which he had made $ on only some of one side of the move. What could I say? "Sure, sounds good." I wasn't about to show the details of my chart (now lost), because there was no point for him and thus for the thread as a whole.
Besides, to really explain something, you have to provide an explanation of why that something does what it is effective at and also why only it is the most effective to use in the given area. I couldn't do that, and even today I struggle with it. Yet, the TL sets work, and I think I will do a reasonable job at descriptions.

You remind me of this trader. The greatest of respect to you, but 10k+ hours of 1' candles watching, drawing and risking has taught me that what I do is no "mirage."
Using social interaction and monetary class as excuses to ignore this avoids the issue, that of more accurate charting. I'm sure we both want this, because, ultimately, it leads to more $ if traded.

The 'ha' in 'ha-pattern' refers to a couple of things -- The fact that I began making roller language from heiken ashi candles, and the opinion that patterns are really a joke because they change so often from the price-time line that makes them.

Reading over what you said, you say that " Whatever new TA you find it will be a variable at best. "
This neglects that humans make charts, and thus human nature is baked into charts. Even randomized charts have trading patterns in them, and if you add that humans and their various reactions, you get a nonrandom chart is more than price. You get patterns, of some kind, that act in consistent ways.
It's up to us, the traders, to find them.

Your formula is for entering and exiting a trade from the chart, not for making a chart study of the area within which one chooses to trade. Makes sense.

I hope what I am chasing is variable, because I want my method to be tough enough to deal with any chart situation. Life has few joys, and I am grateful for this one.

(revised)

Mirage or hardcore, my evolving chart study needs a review.

05312010
base lines:

This attempts to read the 'energy' of the 1' chart in order to project its effect onto the future with TL's.
The examples are so numerous, that I have only listed a group of variables to help steer one when making them.

line patterns
purpose, logic, group, number, type

1. purpose deviation turn, cycle span, other
2. logic The subtlest, smoothest intercandle balance around one line or most-discrete-area, obvious multiple-example balance for one shape, or both,
3. group of (a) TL (set) before, during (and/)or after, or series of particular shapes,
4. number 0 (buildup/breakdown w/o plain-sight existing), 1 (size), 2 (opposing), several (mix) or infinity-1 (repeating)
5. type on- or off-price-time line dot, level at different angles each or between, or filled shape such as a triangle, frame or circle

05282010
temporary grid:

indicators

toggleregandhacandleshiftv3, one degree thicker on all settings -- put to normal when make TL sets
-- To read candles, duty switched with the overlay TF candles at low-s/r-number times

a 1 exponential/weighted MA, a darker color and dotted, unconsciously read for its hitting the middle of 1' candles -- removed when make TL sets

customcandle6 indicator, with its overlay candles preset at 5' -- set at 1' when make TL sets

TL drawing device
-- Has four purposes:

Read for a row of highly regular, box-like 5' overlay candles at a vertical or 45-degree level of each other
Draw a light-colored, dotted, highlighted TL segment until the midpoint to the endpoint covers the length of this trend. Then, draw a similar TL horizontally to the pivot or stopping point immediately past or future that it aligns with; the better the box shape and regularity, the further into time the hz goes.)
A second type of vertical level is for a logarithmic curve that the 5' overlay candles make, that is, an exponentially increasing size on the candles. The ends of this are used to increase the effectiveness of hz s/r's and set the middle of the other type of vertical s/r's.
-- This makes a vertical s/r level, or trend centerline.

Read for a group of narrow candles at a horizontal level of each other. Draw one of two types of s/r levels (horizontal):
support/resistance levels, solid and truncated at the first trade ("established") -- color set at "none" when make TL sets
support/resistance levels, dotted and a ray ("projective")-- color set at "none" when make TL sets
-- This makes an s/r level.

interpretative range:
Got into the chart's reactions, that is, candle-read with established s/r levels (/ TL's, to add later I suppose). -- safe yet fast
to
Went ahead with the chart's actions, that is, TBA s/r / TL hi/lo projecting candles. -- risky yet slow

extra description:
The s/r's are made with groups of 5' candles that were very short and numerous, initiating each s/r level.
I truncated the s/r level at the trade I made it, when I made the s/r level with the first method and its established s/r levels;
and, I dashed and left a ray any s/r levels (one shown) made with the second method and its TBA ('to be announced', that is, prospective) s/r levels.
With close-up, one may have to change the TF of what candles one interprets for direction around the given s/r levels. If price is heavy around one s/r for a while, a higher TF on the overlay is better for this than the built-in 1' toggleregandhacandleshiftv3 candles.
A higher TF on the overlay may also check how accurate the s/r levels being used are, if considered with keeping a low count of s/r levels that are reasonably separated.

A table that goes with the last post's directions,
(which probably needs some examples to explain the descriptions,
and) that creates an overall understanding of TL's through its combining 'basing lines' with 'temporary grid' lines, which were separated in the last post to focus on trading:

line patterns


perspective
To begin the chart study, make a simple description of terms about the L:M ratio on the chart shown.
example from 1, #1-4 -- vert. logarithm aftermath,
45-degree midline,
opposing 45-degree midline and logarithm,
vert. logarithm aftermath opposed and mirrored by a second vert. logarithm aftermath
(that starts a full logarithm).

division
balance-one, straight-motion – rep, mutate – level, manip – diff, act - blur
Modifier and name, a line pattern division grounds the entire approach; a name's original definition is from the local version '= and average/large'. To practice and warm up, take a much larger swath than the chart shown, and find an example of several of the original definitions of the divisions, to prepare oneself for the next two steps, in which one crafts from the chart shown effective, current line patterns.

general type
logr : midline detailed proportion of the two micropatterns, line pattern description, (its vertical trend pivot number, between two of which the angle of the trends of each pivot changes, a symmetric vertical from each making the ideal pivot; and, the one central pivot's position relative to the line pattern's shapes) --

1. L, balance-one, (few, and inside of)
2. >L, straight-motion - rep, (few, and inside of)
3. =, mutate - level, (varies, and varies)
4. >M, manip - diff, (lots, and separate from)
5. M, act - blur, (lots, and separate from)

local version
TL : area(regular,complex patterns) composition and size of the TL set's anchor --

1. <- and small
2. -> and small
3. <- and average/large
4. = and average/large
5. -> and average/large

summary
The ratio of the two micropatterns of logarithm and midline within,
and number of minor pivots (if any) and location of central pivot of,
a line pattern is different for each described,
with TL's or patterns' area of the anchoring space large/medium or small.
Through repeated use of the last two steps, a typical chart area has a selection of line patterns, each with a different TL:area ratio.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
--------------------------------------------------
.
.
.
.
**** OLD POST #1 ****
.
.
.
.
line patterns

(technical method scratchpad)
*
*
*
*
*
*06082010 corrected version, to make more sense: This is what I stare at, now.
*

line patterns

*name, position amongst the others, and first three dim's: energy definition, ]] direction inter/definition, ]] and energy inter-
*4DIFFenergy definition (angle splits,)
c~l ]] > midline ]] manipulation
3LEVELpivot interrelation with same
angle splits ]] logr and mid ]] mutation(this one only),evolution(toward all)
2REPdirection inter/definition (> logr,)
pattern clusters ]] > logr ]] locomotion/parambulation
1ONEpivot def'n
balance ]] multi-logr ]] coordination
5BLURenergy inter- (coordination,)
trend centerline, tc - midlines,onebet. opp, blur frame shapes ]] multi-midline ]] active/activation
*fourth dim: pivot def'npivot is... the pattern how vert pivot trend changes direction
1,2 (pivot is) too into (the pattern); logrs' closure -> midline 4,5 too separate from; midlines' closure -> logr 3 into or separate
*fifth dim: pivot interrelation with same vert pivot trend in changes direction
1,2 only once 4,5 too often 3 varies
* chart study: "Stop, look and listen." trade watch: "Cut your losers short, and let your winners run."
*
*06062010
*(multi-midline)blur, (midline emph.)cl-lc, (midline or logr)level, (logr emph.)repeated pattern(s), (multi-logr)balance-pivot pattern
*-- This may bring close-up and longterm together better.
*
*
*06072010 I stare at this while I trade, if I get distracted. That way, I ponder the depth of that which I trade.
line patterns
*name, position amongst the others, and first three dim's: energy definition, ]] direction inter/definition, ]] and energy inter-
*4DIFFenergy definition (angle splits,)c~l ]] > midline ]] manipulation
3LEVELpivot interrelation with sameangle splits ]] logr and mid ]] mutation(this one only),evolution(toward all)
2REPdirection inter/definition (> logr,)pattern clusters ]] > logr ]] locomotion/parambulation
1ONEpivot def'nbalance ]] multi-logr ]] coordination
5BLURenergy inter- (coordination,)trend centerline, tc - midlines,onebet. opp, blur frame shapes ]] multi-midline ]] active/activation
*fourth dim: pivot def'npivot is... the pattern how vert pivot trend changes direction
1,2 (pivot is) too into (the pattern); logrs' closure -> midline 4,5 too separate from; midlines' closure -> logr 3 into or separate
*fifth dim: pivot interrelation with samevert pivot trend in changes direction
1,2 only once 4,5 too often 3 varies
* chart study: "Stop, look and listen." trade watch: "Cut your losers short, and let your winners run."
*
*
*
*05312010 line patterns


purpose, logic, group, number, type

1. purpose deviation turn, cycle span, other
2. logic The subtlest, smoothest intercandle balance around one line or most-discrete-area, obvious multiple-example balance for one shape, or both,
3. group of (a) TL (set) before, during (and/)or after, or series of particular shapes,
4. number 0 (buildup/breakdown w/o plain-sight existing), 1 (size), 2 (opposing), several (mix) or infinity-1 (repeating)
5. type on- or off-price-time line dot, level at different angles each or between, or filled shape such as a triangle, frame or circle

*
*
*05242010 "TL Logic" -- Approximate or exact, next or five months from now, a simple TL logic series is the only thing to go with. Organizing patterns using 0 to (infinity-1) scale and TL's using th 1 to 5 scale, where 1, 2 and several (3-5) match on either side, helps find them.
*
*05232010 Am composing a catalogue of line patterns, will most likely post it in 'e/u patterns', using this space temporarily
*catalogue of line patterns (sorted thru variants 1-5)

NOTE: TL's are segmented only to the point of their last utility. Thus, one can simplify looking at any one template's many TL's thru going to a higher TF to see which TL's are kept for longer, and then only reason thru why that one or ones exist.



2 dot and line


esp. corner -- heavy use of TL's det. with angle by trendline 0 11.25 22.5 45 @+-90*(1 to 4)

1. 05242010 2-1 favorite line -- 2008.03.20 09:58 1.980757 2008.08.07 10:00 1.985314

3 line


esp. a multiple of these, to sketch an overall area: the center line of one small pattern or piece of a pattern that connects with the center line of another pattern or piece of a pattern, the second line ninety degrees from the first and only the connecting line used

1. 05232010 3-1 with midline from 2 and logarithmic curve from 5.tpl
2. 05232010 3-2 a simple one, using an anything line and thus a little like a 4

*
*
*
*05192010
*dot: the zone, objective ; (sets of) single-pip-candle TL's
*dot and line: midline-only stuff, corner
*line: impulsive / passive-aggressive performance/development; ninety-degree TL's, one side balanced on one axis and other on other, with multiple such lines
*line and shape: repeated patterns with a range of instances such as backward-to-earlier pattern, using proxy line in present, or projecting lines through a vertical screen
*shape: i despair/anxiety-euphoria/belief (that a shape will be as one says, I guess); cl/lc
*
*
*05152010

*chart*

Any midline-TL set can be drawn and adjusted with later level-anchor ratios each found at any one price
and/or time :

hz/vert/angled level(s), a pressured one making midlines (TL's highlighted to use the midpoint);
curve-turned left/right * high/low anchor(s), a pressured one making TL rays;
and, short lines of each type to adjust use of the midline-TL set chosen.

One also uses the short lines to gauge when a new midline-TL set may be needed.

*trade*

My new mm is what the 1998 book Trading to Win has on its inside flap: "

Let go of false beliefs about yourself and the markets
Trade in terms of the amount of money you have and the kinds of profit percentages you want to produce
Play through feelings of anxiety
Avoid the dangers of both despair and euphoria
Abandon energy-draining behaviors, like impulsiveness, chest-beating, and whining
Achieve total commitment and experience the exhilaration of 'the zone,' where everything flows effortlessly

"
*I have to write on these every time I want to trade, to channel my psychology onto a workable path.

*
*05152010
*level and turn -- new name . I've the belief that every small 1' area contains one or more levels it's obedient to and a summary group of directions from which TL's are drawn to decide one or more turns. At one's constant disposal is a bunch of creative ways to group the price-time line in ways that make these nontraditional TL's decide the one or more turns.
My new mm is what the 1998 book Trading to Win has on its inside flap: " Let go of false beliefs about yourself and the markets
Trade in terms of the amount of money you have and the kinds of profit percentages you want to produce
Play through feelings of anxiety
Avoid the dangers of both despair and euphoria
Abandon energy-draining behaviors, like impulsiveness, chest-beating, and whining
Achieve total commitment and experience the exhilaration of 'the zone,' where everything flows effortlessly "
*I have to write on these every time I want to trade, to channel my psychology onto a workable path.
*
*
*05122010 yet another version of the line patterns sketchpad, this one includes dealing with multiple lines and how to trade with them.
*05112010
*
*The line patterns sketchpad (was 'template') emphasizes grid-curve, curve-anchor, and anchor-grid divisions when beginning to break down a random chart area for its potential to make a good line pattern.
One way, also, to divide types of TL sets is to make grid lines or anchor lines. Curves tend to compromise grid lines and anchor lines in various ways -- Logr cycles have trends rhythmically flatten, where a local anchor line is, into one horizontal grid line; condensed-logr's symbolicize the grid:anchor difference and vary from curve to grid to anchor on their product; and, logarithmic curves look more like right angles and, if hold at a higher TF, do well as grids.
Grids may be from severe spikes at two places of the same large chart pattern, and trend centerlines through the each of them allow for a degrees-measured line that can be paralleled on a much higher TF to trace a much larger trend.
*
*replacement for the line patterns template, which includes discussion of their TLs' use
*
*05082010
A template for TL sketches and a use or two of it
A number of TL series:
*
*05082010
*Systematic breakdown of areawide TL(-set)s
.....expansion to same-size to contraction of TL-aligned space after the TL's originate; range of answer YES, Somewhat or NO if only 'expansion' asked, else which
.....opposition of origination versus conclusion of TL's making and then utility; range of answer grid directions with an adjective on each of making and utility sides, the adjectives describing an opposition
.....grid lines underlying the making and the utility sides; range of answer vertical one and horizontal the other, or another mixture that balances these two overall
.....level lines through trends that help balance the TL's(') affected area, especially their origin and finish; range of answer, actual price-time line that's approximately a line segment, to a connection through a TL that connects pt line anchors that works okay with consideration of history and nearby actual pt-line line segments
.....dot is one to an ordered bunch of dots on or sometimes off the price-time line that originate one or several TL's; range of answer, how the dots are ordered, especially in relation to what levels them -- a dot, a line segment, a shape -- into one path
*
*
*05072010a Tried to make the following work to make cycles, gave up:

vague use.......1) Highlight (with a box) curved, balanced patterns; find a bunch of the more important ones.
somewhat
definite use,
several times...2) Check an area of these patterns for (0 - (infinity-1))-sort of interpattern comparisons between whatever (spikes and sides, logarithms, waves, etc.) separate them. Once one or a few of the patterns appear to center the rest of them in the chosen area, change the highlight.
definite use,
one...............3) Find anchor respectively on and for that one curved, balanced pattern. When draw line between the on and for, look on the ray from them so that the price-time line forms various shapes that are intersected and that logically progress and show 'age' for use of the line. Lots of lines get erased at this stage.
definite,
several...........4) The line(s) finally chosen need(s) to be reasoned from: Find other lines, if necessary at this point, that surround an area's various significant pivots enough to allow comparison of one pattern to another for direction from one line to another in the next step. Extra, minor lines may be drawn that depend on the last step's line(s) or a smaller area along the last step's line(s) to exist.
detail and
make a
definition
that'd increase
knowledge
of prt.............5) Read any of the noted several patterns that contrast to show price-time line direction. If possible, also find an extra line and/or pattern to put one's SL near.

an extra note on using the cycle prt:
a)number of line patterns
The inner methods have one pattern each, the outer ones have a variable number of patterns more than one.
with a variable number of patterns more than one, goes consideration of the utility of each line pattern
A line on the outer edge of the short/midterm price range has along it patterns that progress in a simple way to show the line's age,
and the line lasts longer although is less likely to be enough to make a tradeable reason;
a line or lines in the middle of said price range has a shorter worth in terms of making as much logical sense in the progression of the patterns it intersects and strongly interacts with,
and at the same time a mid-range line or lines, though of shorter time effectiveness, are more likely to be enough to make a tradeable reason because of their greater ease in surrounding an area sensibly.








*05072010 line patterns' dots'orders - level(s), TLs' reason to exist being angle of two trends making a pivot, progressive change or sudden altering of patterns along TL, and anchor-adjusted derivations and viral grids
*
*05052010 1, 2 are my next project -- NOT fibs, of course, rather the property of what they say a winning trader's method needs to exist.
First idea, project where price may go without feeling need to enter and use entry as a motivation to figure exit: My inside lines are good though need to be more adaptable, I just fail to use it early enough. Gathered from different older templates and charts, the really-good balance lines template needs more simple logical sense for the progression of patterns along each line. (Will post, once do this at least
*
*
*05042010
*The inner methods have one pattern each, the outer ones have a variable number of patterns more than one. A line on the outer edge of the short/midterm price range has along it patterns that progress in a simple way to show the line's age, and the line lasts longer although is less likely to be enough to make a tradeable reason; a line or lines in the middle of said price range has a shorter worth in terms of making as much logical sense in the progression of the patterns it intersects and strongly interacts with, and at the same time a mid-range line or lines are more likely to be enough to make a tradeable reason.
*
*05032010 I guess what drove me to make this system is craftsmanship.
*
*05032010important shapes' cycles, not just any cycles. The difficulty is I have to prove it's the most important line producer in its area, no small feat.
First I put a colored frame around all the unusual shapes I saw over the past couple of weeks. Then I drew anchor lines within the first shape; next, a balance line with a similar shape way in its future. Now, I'll test how an entire area aligns with the 'important' shape that happened just before the entire area that's minor to it; I highlighted typical line and whatchamacallit balance patterns and logarithmic curves' start/end anchors.
*
*05032010
*Since my type of lines are reasonably 'natural', I'm going to introduce an artificial construct to help me match where my simulator (LFH) always begins and thus where I have the most practice in drawing the lines from. The LFH simulator always starts from (about) 7:15 am EST and the hre is at 00:00 am EST after the end of the same day selected before starting the simulator.
This construct could work just as well as the one-15'-line one I tried last week. One day, I may be able to use the pattern recognition table that's the picture above the " technical method scratchpad " title, in a way that finds natural cycles of the market.

The table has a range of curve-based cycles in the middle from level-dot type to condensed-logr type, and also a range of anchor:balance ratio cycles on the edges of the table. The former is included at least a little to affect how the entire ratio cycle turns in the latter if the latter is predominant, and the latter is not included in a cycles-changing way in the former if the former is predominant.
*
*
*04292010b yet another idea
*Balance patterns with flat line segments; interbalanced circles, triangles or squares with lesser examples of the other shapes. If the interbalanced examples of the same type of shape balance at least in one direction, then another balance pattern and/or flat line segment works. Uses the line-curve-dot perspective(relative shapes:
line general grid area, versus multiple points of influence/anchor/action, where the pattern with a definite beginning and end is evident;
curve various of the deepest response-and-screen approaches, versus one or a few points with each having more than usual echo/anchor/action, where the original anchor point and then a blurred wandering with (vertical and/or horizontal) levels is evident;
and, dot stability around a vertical (and/or horizontal) line, or a shape with such for a center, where a single spike tracing the vertical and/or horizontal line in spacetime as a dot is evident
what relative shapes do or have: 0 breakdown/buildup 1 size 2 opposition several mix infinity-1 repetition) and the one 15'TF line with supporting 1'TF lines approach.
*
*04292010a
* Vertical pivots are the most important feature to the line patterns approach. Thus, logarithmic curves must support (un)making them.
*
*04282010a one 15'TF TL (a "cool-looking one") for the current chart area and draw a bunch of 1'TF lines around it to justify its existence and the validity of use to inform the evolution of the chart. Essential is to fill in a bunch of the 1'TF lines to understand that TF first, because going from the 15'TF allows sloppiness and necessary /lots of hit SL's; at the same time, use correct 15'TF lines derived from those current 1'TF lines to segue any big gaps of attention time with the chart, as the 1'TF one studied and is familiar with from before will be completely and destructively wrong now. Sometimes it's difficult to keep to this, because, you will have had a really good session at one time and then, in the next session you trade, price is moving a lot while your old 15'TF line worked well some more while you weren't available to look.
meanwhile, keep an on-running dialogue justifying the entire 15' and/or 1' TF chart

Here's to the one who wrote " 7)Forget about trend-lines these “LOOK COOL” and thats about it. " (Waited to now for posting threshold to drop.)

*04292010
.

relative shapes:
line general grid area, versus multiple points of influence/anchor/action, where the pattern with a definite beginning and end is evident;
curve various of the deepest response-and-screen approaches, versus one or a few points with each having more than usual echo/anchor/action, where the original anchor point and then a blurred wandering with (vertical and/or horizontal) levels is evident;
and, dot stability around a vertical (and/or horizontal) line, or a shape with such for a center, where a single spike tracing the vertical and/or horizontal line in spacetime as a dot is evident
what relative shapes do or have: 0 breakdown/buildup 1 size 2 opposition several mix infinity-1 repetition
*
*04272010(later)
*#s: shape DIM, line PT.S
0 breakdown/buildup 1 size 2 opposition several mix infinity-1 repetition

*
*
*04272010(early) line patterns
*the patterns, each with their own properties, being circle, triangle, square, c-l - l.c. hz's, multi-trend balance patterns (1, highlighted in relief); the generalized properties of completion, derivation, direction, repetition, opposition; the lines upon which are trendline, midline, deviation line, midpoint line, trend centerline
*
*04252010
*new idea: s/r's form balances, which break from a given s/r with from condensed-logr to a c-l / l.c. compromise (see 'balance lines' post for an example) to logr cycle. Of course, logic dots also fit in this range of s/r balance breaks.
Shape lines tend to skew along the path of expanded energy (which is how I define TL's) that this range produces.
Okay, so shape lines (circle, triangle, square; repetition, opposition; trendline, midline, deviation line, midpoint line, trend centerline) and s/r breaks.
*
*
*04242010 using the shape lines template for all trades: 1
*
*
*04212010
*I found, through further listing of different types of lines, that pairs of types form different logarithmic cycles:
circle area - level, repetition-screen, corner-isolate(d balance), 1s (one-sided balance) - vertical pivot, midline-segmented vert line - logr resolu(tion), midline area - break, logarithmic area gridded - dot, pip line row break, condensed-logr, trend midline - trend centerline, fan -opp(osite-direction patterns), t-type level and vert trends (absent of a well-defined condensed-logr or other), and others
*
*04202010
*anchor types: branch, corner; repetition; fan, opp(osing direction)
*midline types: trend centerlines, trend midlines, deviations
*-- spaced relatively evenly between TF's to increase layered effectiveness in determining pivots and various breaks between them
*
*04172010
*The last technical method, with its various adjustings and add-ons, was too regimented to work. I rewrote it using this picture: . . Now TL's go right for the gut, crossing logarithms' turns, particularly-made regular pivots, and funny-looking new patterns alike.
*
*
*04142010 trendline-to-midline, that is,uneven price-time line vs. 'even' areas with 90 degree angles and all, ratio seems important to the method below, also, helping to reveal centers etc.
*
* *NEWS FLASH* Greed Floods Brain with Dopamine: Win Disappoints . Trader Fights, Loses Account!
*
*
*04122010
*add to tm below: tc's (i.e., trend centerlines) and tcm-tc's (trend centerlines near and/or through trend centerlines' midlines) make the inside job, temporary TL's that fill in the spaces the frame-like approaches below surround.
*
*
*04052010
*
*This trading method did well
*
repeated: same no. of TL's, pivot a no-pattern;
edge: no TL's, vert pivot angle;
whole/all-area pattern: single-candle-portion break, incidental TL's;
central: balance pattern, pivotal TL's;
ratio (TL's:ML's): T:M- deciding pattern, more TL's (lines)
*
*
*
*Trying to keep it simple: Make anchored lines (one or so -pip candles, that represent trend angles) to surround areas and thus trace trends, area-framing (threading several bunches of close trends together) lines thin to create deviations from that area.
Be aware of how price curves fast into a logarithm-like shape, does several of these mixed, and leads to another one.
Pivots at the top have particular angles (up and down, angled left or right), indicating an overall change in direction.
Shapes group into areas,
repeat in specific patterns,
and balance into themselves, are calm as flat areas, or isolated as a single dot or unusual, small shape.
Candle groups may have no TL, and then there is a much bigger TL from elsewhere that the group is working with. The price-time line is always responding to a TL, one just hasn't found it yet; at the same time, too many TL's is just a mess.
There are only patterns and their significance, the repetition, the extended pressure from their TL's, price-time line's reaction to their significance, and the local ranking of one pattern over another.
*
*
*04022010
*technical approaches, area-based :
frame area,
trend centerlines and compromise pivot angle,
major shapes,
shape area,
logr cycle (a tiny shape (condensed-logr), a line segment or a shape resembling one (level-dot), or a curve with lots of shapes (logic (measures bounds of two contrasting shape series, to predefined spot) dot)
*
*
*03292010
*another technical method, or rather an organizational approach to defining temporary chart patterns
*shapes
*definition: A shape (with concepts within - outside of, to -from)
*condition: level (isolate (1 pt), level (2 pts), balance (3+pts)) or unlevel (expand, converge, irregular)
*scale: individual, exchange, or area
*type: reframe (a 90-degree corner with a 45-degree line from the corner; two slightly skewed, parallel lines with a midline between them for a third line; a one-pip bar then a vertical series of spinning tops, or visa-versa) or anchor (a line with small patterns progressing along it to a turn, a line with a few small and then a very large pattern and then nothing for a long time progressing along it to intersect after another area's turn; a vertical series of spinning tops, then zero or more one-pip bars, then another vertical series of spinning tops)
*
*
*02272010
*The list of areas in a chart in a recent post just helped gather my methods. I've now one pivot method each number and its listed shape. A very straight line with flat or vertical (5) for anywhere / pip lines, a symmetric (repeating-pattern or with several midlines) trend with a balanced pattern on the next trend (4), a 'dividing line' (whose price-time line tends to wander more) with a condensed-logr (3), a logr/logic dot (2), and only the major portion of a logr/logic dot's cycle (1). Pivot 4 is new, 3 recently posted, and 5, 2 and 1 fairly old in my posts.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*02152010
*The underlying framework: I have to be a grid. A skew to the grid forms a deviational trend, which is still the grid, only an alternate. You align a pivot to the grid. The grid has a mid, which is a formal breakdown of the grid as the pivot aligns with the grid.
*One trades from the pivot to the mid, with the SL just on the other side of the pivot. It's a scaled exit from the mid: The mid is where the pivot's effect ends (so, exit), turns (so, exit and reenter in new direction), continues (hold position) or converts (figure new pivot and, optionally, trade it).
*Okay, there's the mm. Now the terms: Grid, skew, deviational trend; pivot, mid.
*grid: 00-50 with flats (areas with lots of one-pip bars) excepting, midlines between weekends, with verticals (high-spread bars,) excepting
*skew: spread patterns (hi, average, small)
*deviational trend: deviation: anchored or angled
*
*pivot: condensed-logr, dot, trans balance(, (more anchorish)) lines with midline help, hi: low vs. side
*mid: isolated balance/center lines, hi: mid
*
*
*
*
*02142010
*The condensed and logr areas of the same, small size and very close and often stacked, method
*vs. balanced patterns, midlines, deviations
*-- Both draw centerlines. The former anchors more, the latter balances/centers more.
*My purpose is to find the basic framework underneath the bsTL's. Right now, using
*TL's table (columns) imaginary, candles, shapes, multi-candle pivots, patterns (rows) anchor, balance/center, multi-/anywhere
*is necessarily creative, any line patterns derived from the TL's table isolated from the other line patterns.
*Having the current chart area's underlying interpretation of the next directions with whatever creative line patterns go around and rarely from it, covers any trade.
*
*
*02132010
*Got this from here: .
*
*
*02112010 TL's table (columns) imaginary, candles, shapes, multi-candle pivots, patterns (rows) anchor, balance/center, multi-/anywhere
*
*
*
*
*02072010
*
*It seems the 15' TF is easiest to found a continuous series of patterns that anchor, compound or separate to create effective TL's, often at the start of a week. It's also convenient to use anchor patterns on the 1W TF, and a temporary mix of all on the 1' TF. Denoting midlines aligned on a smaller TF with the week, with high-spread interruptions, uses other TF's.
*
*
* single: -high-volume candle: price usually returns to candle's range after a spell, except for rare occasions where a return is defineably far from the candle
* single, in a group: -midlines between vertical lines at the start of each week: the shape between them repeats, unless a large-spread candle intervenes to somehow and temporarily throw off this symmetry. Another space of such distinction is shape areas on the 1' TF, which, somewhat creatively, allows for small spread patterns on the shape areas' separator vertical lines; so too for the interweek midlines.
*anchored: spread patterns (-small, -average, -large)
* compound: -stacker patterns, where a dense set of lines of one size of area sits atop a logarithmic set of lines of the same size of area
*separate: -trend centerlines, and, ninety degrees to this, a line -through the center of lots of trends. Sometimes, trend centerlines are separate-trend versions of large spread patterns, making logarithmic patterns and then midlining. The latter type often is within shapes that have an elaborate balance to them.
*
*
*
*
*
*02052010 defining a TL through its anchor's degree of cohesiveness
big jump, or rather one anchor;
two standard shapes -- condensed with logr jump atop it -- with anchor changing according to where one of the areas is in relation to the other;
small spread pattern, or two separate areas that are close and vary a little in shape;
center line, where an area can be one or a bunch of areas that are not exactly aligned except through their center;
and, oddly dispersed patterns possibly regular on news and/or weekly, so that several shapes that don't align at all are connected.
*
*
*02042010
*1' for intraday central TL intersects with a central TL and other lines helping, 15' (w/30' gathering) for logic dot (example) / weekly - bignews, and 4H (w/1W making) for the most relevant bsTL I can get to align everything
*
*
*
tradeable TL's:





*01292010
*
*an attempt to measure pressure:
*
*
*I need the longterm to say what the pressure's about, and the related occasional shape that's pivotal to the longterm.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* for: 01262010
*
* Am looking for price-time line area with these characteristics (each of which also has its own method):
*peak, center, level, logr, opp-level
*
*
*01272010
*suggestion: Special patterns are inter-TF pivots which set a chart area from there,
*initiating the possibility of an extreme move that ruins accounts.
*
*
*noticing: Repeated patterns : The second or so one evolves into a turn at a statistically high rate.
*
*
*Knowing which ones are special alone and which ones will repeat may distinguish line pattern use.
*
*
*WORKED! Discovered another type of TL, a pre-bigrun centered set of repeating patterns will make a crossover point, which may help big runs that don't bounce solidly to make a good, clean crossover point.
*The thing about crossover points is, they can go anywhere and work; thus, the crossover point is in midair. It's the proportion that counts.
*
*
*

























trading with anchored and anchorless pattern TL's and candles

Demo.

Haven't made it very far, spend more time rewriting what I am to do than getting into actual trading. Sad, in a way. Anyhow, they're good rules, if not hewn to a real trader's specifications.

bsTL's: trading with gut instinct and its parallels with the logarithmic cycles approach, and Zurich's Axioms
--
review of post topics

Past overall methods: # 65, 86, 124.

notable posts on psychology are # 44-5, 50, 72, 77-8, 80-5, 87, 125-6.
Gut instinct, treated as a psychological chart indicator: # 85, 87, 90-3, 97, 118.
experimental journal entries: #126 (Any time my actual behavior differs from the norm, I state that "(I pretend)", and continue with what I am to do in this or a similar situation in trading.),

Technicals, a minor role of the thread, is in posts # 32, 42, 53, 58, 61-4, 70, 95, and others.

Last approach originated in post #100, from which I continued to discuss it;
it got its first real break in #128, with logarithmic cycles getting an area bsTL on the 15'TF right;
mm is on post #1, at the bottom of the page;
and, material from the other threads was tied in around the last overall (#124).
The technical charting approach founds on the bsTL in #128 for the longterm and here, with some smaller candlework, for the continuous 1'. I had four charts on my screen: (UL-UR-LL-LR) weekly bsTL and higher-TF l.c., for big picture; small groups of bars and balance lines, for tiniest picture; shape areas and its interarea lines, and l.c.-- trend centerlines, level and dot, for most symbolic picture; and selected bsTL's from the other charts, for the actual picture.

Current approach is after the pictures in #133.


-----

expansion of current post topics




trading rules of conduct

a per-trade summary of Zurich's Axioms, with my own order and paraphrasing --

(warmup)
Beware others' opinions: The majority, and otherworldly astrologers or know-it-all 'experts'.
(opportunity)
A hunch is fine, when have a reason for the hunch. It's from the 'tip of the iceberg' of own knowledge, so occasionally, when only intuition is due, more dependence is on this.
(confirmation)
Beware the orderly illusion -- History, charts, cause and effect. Random chance, at least through ignorance, is a powerful effect.
(plan)
Plan entry and exit. Optimism is dangerous, confidence, that is, when you also know when wrong so can respond easily to it, is fine.
(trade)
Take profits early; else, greed, optimism, hope, fear and regret are sure to follow.
Let losers go, allowing lots of small losers. Admit when wrong.

-- and the same order, taken from here:

a (warmup)

Major Axiom #4: ON FORECASTS Human behaviour cannot be predicted; our life consists of how we choose to distort it. Distrust anyone who claims to know the future, however dimly. More often than not, listening to prophets and tipsters turns out to be a mistake. You can’t profit from prophets.
Prophets make their reputation on a few biggies. The cost is many failures, which are ignored.
Not even self-fulfilling prophesies work every time.
Share prices change because of what people think a company’s future is.

Major Axiom #8: ON RELIGION AND THE OCCULT It is unlikely that God’s plan for the universe includes making you rich.
It may seem like divine providence, but before long, you’ll find that it’s really luck.

Minor Axiom #8.12 If astrology worked, all astrologers would be rich This applies to any esoteric doctrine.
No matter what any doctrine may do for your inner peace, it won’t fatten your bank balance.
All ‘major’ prophets have had plenty of failures to balance out (statistically) their famous successes.

Minor Axiom #8.13 A superstition need not be exorcised. It can be enjoyed, provided it is ept in its place.
The way to use a superstition is with humour.
The time to use it is in a situation which absolutely will not lend itself to rational analysis.

Major Axiom #10: ON CONSENSUS Disregard the majority opinion. It is probably wrong.
Don’t just follow the crowd. Think things through for yourself first. Beware of ‘experts’ (there is always another ‘expert’ who will disagree!). When there is varying opinion, only a minority will be right (often because the truth is hard to find).
Psychological tests have proved that the majority can sway one away from an obvious decision.
Advertising is forcing a ‘pseudo’ majority opinion.

Minor Axiom #10.14 Never follow speculative fads. Often, the best time to buy is when nobody else wants it.
Buying low and selling high is difficult, because it is going against the majority.

b (opportunity)

Major Axiom #7: ON INTUITION A hunch can be trusted if it can be explained.
Some will scorn hunches. Some will always follow them. The best approach is in between. Learn to use them discriminately, if you can.
A usable hunch is not supernatural, it is the subconscious using information that you didn’t know you knew.
A hunch can be trusted if it can be explained. ie. you might reasonably have acquired the necessary information somewhere, sometime.

Minor Axiom #7.11 Never confuse a hunch with a hope
When you want something enough, it is easy to believe it will happen.
A simple rule: don’t trust hunches about things you’d like to happen.

c (confirmation)

Major Axiom #5: ON PATTERNS Chaos is not dangerous until it begins to look orderly.
Beware unit trusts and fund managers, who analyse everything. They promise to find order which isn’t there, selling only the illusion of order. Trust least those who find most order. Trust illusion and you lull yourself into a false sense of security.
If you follow a ‘pattern’ and get rich - you were only lucky. Be aware, the opposite can happen too. Any formula must fully recognise luck.

Minor Axiom #5.5 Beware the Historian’s Trap.
History does not repeat itself. Share price changes are random.

Minor Axiom #5.6 Beware the Chartist’s Illusion.
Graphs are dangerous - they can make the historian’s trap look real. Lines which go up, don’t go up forever. Fluctuations change period. Life doesn’t happen in a straight line.

Minor Axiom #5.7 Beware the Correlation and Causality delusions.
It’s easy to connect unconnected things. We seek order and find it (and reason for it) where none exists.
People use this to explain things after the fact too.

Minor Axiom #5.8 Beware the Gambler’s Fallacy
If you think you’re ‘hot’, making all the right decisions, you’re not. Your just lucky.
Winning streaks will happen. But each toss of the coin is equally likely to come down heads as tails.
Don’t try to find out why random things happen. You can’t.
‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics’.
The only approach is to study the market, and have a go on something that ‘looks good’. Work more by feel than numbers.

-----

(from the original text)

Minor Axiom VI
Beware the Chartist's Illusion.

Representing numbers by lines on graph paper can be useful or dangerous. It is useful when it helps you visualize something with greater clarity than you could achieve with numbers alone. It is dangerous when it makes the thing represented look more solid and portentous than it really is.

The Chartist's Illusion is often a graphic extension of the Historian's Trap. This is best illustrated by the chartists of Wall Street. These are people with their own jargon, which hardly anybody else can understand; their own magazines and newsletters, which ditto; and their own starkly visualized illusion of order. They believe that the future price of a stock -- or a currency, a precious metal, or anything else for which frequent market-price data are published -- can be ascertained by charting price movements of the past.

The chartist begins by fastening his attention on a certain investment medium, let's say a stock, Hoo Boy Computer. He goes back through months or years of records showing the ups and downs in Hoo Boy's trading price, and he translates these numbers into points and lines on graph paper. He studies the resulting patterns. He looks particularly for jiggles and wiggles that occurred just before Hoo Boy stock began a significant price rise or a sharp drop. He believes these patterns will repeat themselves. The next time he sees a similar set of jiggles and wiggles, he will conclude that a new price rise or drop is on the way and will take the appropriate speculative action.

When things don't work out as he expects -- which, as often as not, they don't -- he will humbly blame himself. The problem, he insists, is that he hasn't been astute enough. He knows the market can be predicted by charting, if only he can figure out what patterns to look for.

He can't make himself believe the simplest of all possible explanations: that the stock market has no patterns. It almost never repeats itself and never does so in a reliably predictable way. Making charts of stock prices is like making charts of ocean froth. You'll see each pattern once, and then it will be gone. Only by blind chance will you ever see it again. If you do see it again it will have no significance, for it predicts nothing.

Another element of the Chartist's Illusion springs from the peculiar way in which a solid black line, boldly drawn on grid paper, can make a bunch of uninteresting and essentially disorderly numbers look like a Major Trend. The hucksters and con artists of the world have been aware of this power of the chart for centuries. Unit trust salespeople use it all the time. The value of a trust's units may have been creeping up so slowly that they haven't even kept pace with inflation, but by squeezing years close together on a chart page, and perhaps by bridging over some bad years they would prefer not to discuss, the trust's promoters can produce a honey of a chart for their sales brochure. You look at that soaring black line and say, "Wow!" The danger is not just that you can be conned by others, but that you can hoodwink yourself. You look at a chart depicting the value of the lira against the dollar in recent years, for instance. The line slopes upward. You think, "Wow! Maybe I ought to climb aboard!" But wait. Don't be mesmerized by the line alone. Look at the numbers it is supposed to represent. Maybe it depicts only the lira's yearly highs. Another chart showing the yearly lows might have a downward slope. In other words, the liradollar relationship has been marked by increasingly wide swings. The calm, steady change implied by that upward-sloping line is an illusion. The truth is that the relationship is one of increasing disorder.

In such ways do people allow themselves to be deluded by charts. A chart line always has a comfortingly orderly look, even when what it depicts is chaos.

Life never happens in a straight line. Any adult knows this. But we can too easily be hypnotized into forgetting it when contemplating a chart.

You look at a chart portraying the earnings of Hey Wow Electronics Corporation. The chart, especially prepared for Hey Wow's annual report, depicts unmitigated glory in four delicious colors. That upward-sloping line, so thick, so solid, so thoroughly established, looks as though it will never quit. Nothing can break it. It can be bent, but only slightly. It looks as though it will go up and up forever! But don't you bet on it.

----------

d (plan)

Major Axiom #1: ON RISK Worry is not a sickness, but a sign of health. If you are not worried, you are not risking enough. Adventure is what makes life worth living. And the way to have an adventure is to expose yourself to risk.

Minor Axiom #1.1 Always play for meaningful stakes. Only bet what you can afford to lose. Decide what this really means to you. Choose your degree of worry, eg. if the risk fails you are setup so that you lose 50% of your investment (50% is then your chosen degree of worry). You won’t get rich by betting small.

Minor Axiom #1.2 Resist the allure of diversification. The more you diversify, the smaller your investments get, thus breaking #1.1.
By diversifying, the wins will only cancel out the losses. Also, you become a juggler, liable to lose control of the balls. ‘Put all of your eggs into one basket - and then watch the basket’.
A little diversity won’t harm, but don’t speculate on more than about six items, and only speculate on those in which you are genuinely interested. The only chance you have of getting rich is via risk. And the price of risk is worry.

Minor Axiom #2.3 Decide in advance what you want from a venture, and when you get it, get out.
A peculiar phenomenon: After each win, the win feels like a given right, and it seems like you’re back at the start again.
The race ends only when you say it ends. Reinforce it by having a minor celebration.
Always sell too soon.

Major Axiom #9: ON OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM Optimism means expecting the best, but confidence means knowing how you ill handle the worst. Never make a move if you are merely optimistic.
Beware of optimism in risky things - it is a dangerous state of mind. You feel that the best result will happen.
It can lead you into places where you shouldn’t be, and it can persuade you not to leave.
Never make a move if you are only optimistic. You must have confidence.
If a situation looks bad, it probably is.
Confidence is knowing how you will handle the worst.
75% of ‘tips’ are based in optimism (because this is what people want to hear).

Major Axiom #12: ON PLANNING Long range plans engender the dangerous belief that the future is under control. It is important never to take your own long range plans, or other people’s, seriously.
You can get trapped in your plans. See Axiom #6. Don’t let a plan immobilise you.
Plans don’t account for the unexpected.
A week ahead may be seen. A month is foggy. A year is almost invisible. Planning gives a lifelong illusion of order.
It’s ok to plan, but keep it alive. A plan is never finished.

Minor Axiom #12.16: Shun long-term investments
Something that looks like a safe long term bet today may not tomorrow.
Long term investors are big gamblers. They are also lazy and cowardly.
Beware of unit trusts. Beware of statistics (lies, damned lies, and..). Always ask: Would I buy at the current price?
There is a balance between short term hopping and long term sitting. It is usually biased towards the short term.

e trade

Major Axiom #2: ON GREED Always take your profit too soon. If you can conquer greed, you will be a better speculate than 99% of all others. If you want less, you will go home with more.
Don’t be ashamed of being an acquirer. But aquisitiveness gone haywire is greed.
Any series of events which produces a gain will be of short duration, and the profit will not be big. Don’t wait for the ‘big one’; it won’t come. Always bet on the short and modest. When you have a good profit, cash in and walk away.
Never check on the price of something you have sold.

Major Axiom #3: ON HOPE When the ship starts to sink, don’t pray. Jump.
About half your speculations will turn sour. Half your guesses will be wrong.
It is one of the most difficult things, knowing how to get out of a bad situation. It takes courage, and a kind of honesty with a cutting edge like a razor.
The first obstacle is the fear of regret (see also #2), where you fear that a loser will win again if you cut loose.
If you wait for the investment to go up again, you could wait years, and your capital will be stuck, languishing in the slough of despond.
The second obstacle is the need to abandon part of an investment. Cutting loose hurts.
Never speculate on margin - ie. borrowing money to invest.
The third obstacle is the difficulty of admitting you were wrong. Refusing to admit you were wrong is the wrongest response of them all.

Minor Axiom #3.4 Accept small losses cheerfully. Expect to experience several whilst awaiting a large gain.
Take a small loss. If the ship continues to sink, get out.
Don’t use ‘Stop-loss’ orders (ie. standing order to sell if stock falls below a preset figure). It robs you of flexibility.
Don’t wait around for trouble.

Major Axiom #6: ON MOBILITY Avoid putting down roots. They impede motion
The more you seek being surrounded by the old and familiar, the worse a speculator you will become.

Minor Axiom #6.9 Do not become trapped in a souring venture because of sentiments like loyalty and nostalgia.
There may be times when you will have to choose between roots and money.
Get attached to people, not to things (eg. houses, places, companies).

Minor Axiom #6.10 Never hesitate to abandon a venture if something more attractive comes into view.
Beware of speculations which turn into hobbies (eg. when speculating in art!).
Don’t get trapped waiting for a payoff. Don’t get to feel the investment ‘owes’ you (or, worse, you ‘owe’ it).
Make the ’switch’ decision solely on the speed of payoff.

Major Axiom #11: ON STUBBORNNESS If is doesn’t pay off first time, forget it.
Perseverance falls into the same camp as optimism: it can often just dig a deeper hole.
It is an emotional response, feeling that the investment ‘owes’ you something.

Minor Axiom #11.15 Never try to save a bad investment by “averaging down”.
ie. if the price halves, double your investment (thus reducing the break-even price by 25%).
This is throwing good money after bad. See Axiom #3.
Only buy at new price if you’d do it anyway.


download of the above:
Saw a good attitude about consistent trading:
" I am not interested in how much you have made for today.
I am only interested on how long you have survive in this hazardous market. "


Key to this is how I deal when the method breaks down or I let the rest of my day negatively effect how I trade.
impression-like guided imagery

My hypothesis is that gut instinct exists to sketch (physically, in a verbalizable way) one's fight-or-flight response to chart's next pattern (focus) and other trading actions.

Discussion of the gut instinct will be in terms of it being, in Zurich's Axioms words, a hunch, for which I will occasionally break down what the hunch's literal physical rendition was in terms of the chart projection.




*
*
*05092010 " Cold, efficient consistency is the key to being a full time trader. That is from all the full timers not from me, I am still learning but I am very good learner. " -- romad7

*
*05072010
*Demo -> pennies $10 double account -> tiny $100 double account -> broke r's minimum funds to open account -> $400 double account small $1000
*
*

-----

small adjusted to mm: A process instead of a goal.


29-55 pips earnings;
50-95:1 leverage;
hold time <1 (1/2 small, 20 pips) to 2-5 (1/2 big, 40 pips) hours;
free margin, 5-175 pips;
+-38.2% daily variance on available trends;
trade(s) 23.6% of available trends;
under (low leverage) or over (high leverage) half each trend, on 1.65@ g/u;
chart technicals, here;
compound each trade;
+16.18% (+10% a day earnings plus +6.18% a day loss buffer) a day;
3:1 reward:risk;
10 (at 95:1) -18 (at 50:1) pips stop loss;
stop loss done myself if watching, and automatic if unattended

my own trading income
105 into ~1250, withdrawing after

1 month
3/4
1/2
1/4
go!

You'd earn about $3,750 in 2 1/2 months, about right for lower-income living,
and build your capital so you can withdraw a weekly income of $385 from $500 capital,
enough to live on for at least an extra income beyond a more stable, maybe parttime job that made up for the $115 missing.

If just finished writing method, practice, say, a month, taking the approach of demoing for a while to burn it in, then ease in heavy psychology with pennies, and only then attempt real, trading sporadically until comfortable beginning the program above.

(simplified: 10-15% per four hours completely traded in a row, compound each of these four hours for a profit (Consistent.) and each trade for a loss (Hurry and save yourself from it!), using 50% of top leverage if busy (2-5, 5-7:30, 9-11:30 am EST) else 80% of top leverage on entire account, withdraw last day of every month) 01112010


physical stop where started last day's profits

02062010 new prt:



own psych material
*
*
*06102010
On reading forum threads: I believe I've read and posted enough to figure from what I posted or carefully glance over new or the occasional old posts, to begin to commit trade to post. In saying this, I'm trying to remove the spectre of the hobbyist and begin earning $. Same amount, different type of involvement with ff.
I'll also project my next trade's results from prior history, at least every several trades, using the line patterns approach to study the results' chart. This is the easiest factual approach I can think of to tackle the psychological side of trading. It's a difficult approach, though, because one too easily falls into the trap of representing and not correcting one's many errors. Lots of time in each day, I must begin to do the latter.
*Finally, every trade, I will draw a stick figure describing how I feel before entering and after exiting. Whatever works, I say.
*No, wait, how about this, instead of the last two paragraphs. I'll use my chart study to describe how I act in terms of capturing my trade. For instance, I act level and forget to look for logr's . That is, I describe myself describing the chart, to intensify my creativity in reading the chart fully. That's a severe problem, as noted at an earlier date, of the line patterns approach to chart study: The heavy need for creativity to accurately-enough get the chart right. Anything to increase my charting ability at the same time as guide my trading / psych.
*
*05172010
*My job as a trader is to make complete sense of a section of MB Trading's 1' g/u chart with the s/p t:m version of the line patterns chart study approach and then stop when I make 10% (25% in push mode) for the day, on each of paper, simulator, demo, pennies and real. When I do this every day, I'll then be a happy camper.
*
*
*05142010 a suggestion: Run your trades so the rest of your life fails to interfere with the average you are capable of.
*
*
*04102010 My current psych/trading method (much unexplained here, thus for personal storage) . [04292010 note: unused since then]
*
*04092010
Still using last trading method, takes a lot of practice to even understand.
Have a psych approach to go with it (warning, some of it in own language)

Track stomach-heart ((stomach: center of gravity, and thus involved in the fight-or-flight syndrome; digests food i.e. foreign objects; home of gut instinct (a joke, unless based on provable facts (as in studying a chart's technical signals and then physically rendering within one's body what one figured from the chart study), which is all I'm referring to; then, it's useful as a really fast, clear signal) and, with abdominal muscles, expression of emotions); heart: brings blood to extremities, notably the acupressure point on eft hand, thus helping to control hand manipulation of objects, walking, etc., that is, locomotor activity within a given space; involved in personal like/dislikes (1 center of magnetic (electro-, thus cyclic) energy type of information; 2 HeartMath's FreezeFrame (involves heart in recalling a good and bad (also pointing to fight-or-flight syndrome) situation to remove the bad), 'coherence'; 3 organ-transplant memories) for its fight-or-flight syndrome (based on the vertical stance, and for example protecting the viscera in its 'fight' mode thus bending the body etc.) relations from one session to the next, and you will find that your center of interest about trading changes with the tide of how your social interactions change. After all, people you are in personal contact with can do anything they want to you, and so they deserve the most attention from your interest in self-survival.
Along with this, thinking (from brain patterns your mind visualizes about something (i.e., the usual pure-brain thinking), to a physical reaction in one's more 'physical' portion within the brain (not referring to brain parts that control physical reactions, rather the literal feeling of physicality within one's brain) to whether or not to interact with something (a body-brain thinking), to the pattern a recoil or attraction to an object traces along one's fight-or-flight syndrome physical pathways) (a body-only 'thinking', or at least thinking pattern) lateralizes when and where one is or can be when the stomach-heart reacts to / interacts with the environs.
One may think of where one is through compromise with another person or anchoring from one person and that situation to another (the next, since we tend to want to plan into the future for self-protection etc.) one. To imagine that this is midlining and anchoring, in context of reframing (which midlining involves), likens it to the trading method below. Of course, to literally link trading and your personal life is not realistic nor profitable, so considering how one's personal life settles one's mindset about the current trade, using midlines and anchored (trend) lines, merely reflects how one will trade that day -- Positive/profitable future direction, midlines vs. trendlines used, etc.

*51 . . . .
*
*04292010
.

relative shapes:
line general grid area, versus multiple points of influence/anchor/action, where the pattern with a definite beginning and end is evident;
curve various of the deepest response-and-screen approaches, versus one or a few points with each having more than usual echo/anchor/action, where the original anchor point and then a blurred wandering with (vertical and/or horizontal) levels is evident;
and, dot stability around a vertical (and/or horizontal) line, or a shape with such for a center, where a single spike tracing the vertical and/or horizontal line in spacetime as a dot is evident
what relative shapes do or have: 0 breakdown/buildup 1 size 2 opposition several mix infinity-1 repetition
*

-- There's a psychometrics device used called voice dialogue with the inner voice or critic. The 0-4 adapts to lists well, and my list of roles my inner critic plays are 0 the one who vomits (rejects), 1 the victim, 2 opponent, sev'l child (in a mix, that is a family; is automatically helpless, only in a (perhaps misguidedly) protected, sentient sense), infinity-1 zombie (by which I mean " a ...person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a force, usually for some [evil,] purpose. "; one who takes and obeys orders without question, in the extreme). Books already note 1-3, and I added, after years of use, the other two.
The shapes are me, others in my environs (optional, in trading) and my trading activity, and thus the position/definition/range of and between them.

The first use I did was to describe (in about five to ten words each) how each of 0-4 inner roles applied to a particular instance during my trading decisionmaking process, and do five or so instances. Recording this helps me decide what fails and works for me, if coupled with my actual chart study work and results of trading with this chart study.
If the majority of roles are being played with real entities and not only parts of myself, then it's more practical to start with shapes and add selected of 0-4 as energies that the real shapes take on rather than emphasize inner roles.






Weird, huh.
Since have described it, will, in just-described version of summary of personal life as relates to trades, use it in this journal from now on to show own mindset's affect on own trades.
*
*
*
*
-----

bsTL microverse: Overview, patterns (or, those with fewer or more candles), TF use, trading. (And its future: automatic; precise.) simulator.
.
.
.
.
.
--------------
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
****NEW POST #1****,
which is updated within this format relatively often (thus, a snapshot too) :
.
.
.
.
trader
saying "Cut losses short and let your winners run."
definition line patterns
skill -> CC r-prts.
product
self -- Keep one year's salary untouched in savings or to lower leverage.
others -- Reputation-build: Guarantee initial deposit with collateral savings: Matching funds, original investment on loan.
school Share, teach craft.
06122010 Realistically speaking, section one is an unobtained given, two defined emptily, and 3-5 absurd. Lots of work yet.
The one ray of hope is, that the second section gives me one set of directions to follow. If I do.

___________________________



saying

"Cut losses short and let your winners run."
06122010 Demo trading, to now, fails to obey this edict.

Googled.

__________________


definition


This section means the most to me. It gathers, into one umbrella structure, all of the different ways I discover to draw trendlines.
The goal of this section is for the reader to be able to draw an original set of TL's that effectively tell where the price-time line will go on the chart (at least, the 1' gbpusd MT4 chart.)
The motivation is selfish: When I can clearly state how to use line patterns, I can make trading plans from it readily, attach meaningful statistics to the results of my TL sets, and show others how I did in a way that inspires better performance from me and them while using line patterns.
A key notion is the examples for each portion of the TL-set gathering structure: How representative they are, how well they fit together in a natural chart setting, and how well communicated they are to the lay reader.
06122010 line patterns defined, in an instructions format. Examples, unlinked to as of yet, are old, mostly partial, and scattered through posts.





line patterns


perspective
To begin the chart study, make a simple description of terms about the L:M ratio on the chart shown.
example from 1, #1-4 -- vert. logarithm aftermath,
45-degree midline,
opposing 45-degree midline and logarithm,
vert. logarithm aftermath opposed and mirrored by a second vert. logarithm aftermath
(that starts a full logarithm).

division
balance-one, straight-motion – rep, mutate – level, manip – diff, act - blur
Modifier and name, a line pattern division grounds the entire approach; a name's original definition is from the local version '= and average/large'. To practice and warm up, take a much larger swath than the chart shown, and find an example of several of the original definitions of the divisions, to prepare oneself for the next two steps, in which one crafts from the chart shown effective, current line patterns.

general type
logr : midline detailed proportion of the two micropatterns, line pattern description, (its vertical trend pivot number, between two of which the angle of the trends of each pivot changes, a symmetric vertical from each making the ideal pivot; and, the one central pivot's position relative to the line pattern's shapes) --

1. L, balance-one, (few, and inside of)
2. >L, straight-motion - rep, (few, and inside of)
3. =, mutate - level, (varies, and varies)
4. >M, manip - diff, (lots, and separate from)
5. M, act - blur, (lots, and separate from)

local version
TL : area(regular,complex patterns) composition and size of the TL set's anchor --

1. <- and small
2. -> and small
3. <- and average/large
4. = and average/large
5. -> and average/large

summary
The ratio of the two micropatterns of logarithm and midline within,
and number of minor pivots (if any) and location of central pivot of,
a line pattern is different for each described,
with TL's or patterns' area of the anchoring space large/medium or small.
Through repeated use of the last two steps, a typical chart area has a selection of line patterns, each with a different TL:area ratio.


__________________________________



skill


-> CC r-prts.
You can ignore this, it's some made-up words I have yet to make practical use of. The entire section is wildly experimental, so you'll want to take this entire section with a huge grain of salt.
The section's topic is discipline, etc., the psychology-only side of trading.
06122010 No concrete results.


Track stomach-heart ((stomach: center of gravity, and thus involved in the fight-or-flight syndrome; digests food i.e. foreign objects; home of gut instinct (a joke, unless based on provable facts (as in studying a chart's technical signals and then physically rendering within one's body what one figured from the chart study), which is all I'm referring to; then, it's useful as a really fast, clear signal) and, with abdominal muscles, expression of emotions); heart: brings blood to extremities, notably the acupressure point on eft hand, thus helping to control hand manipulation of objects, walking, etc., that is, locomotor activity within a given space; involved in personal like/dislikes (1 center of magnetic (electro-, thus cyclic) energy type of information; 2 HeartMath's FreezeFrame (involves heart in recalling a good and bad (also pointing to fight-or-flight syndrome) situation to remove the bad), 'coherence'; 3 organ-transplant memories) for its fight-or-flight syndrome (based on the vertical stance, and for example protecting the viscera in its 'fight' mode thus bending the body etc.) relations from one session to the next, and you will find that your center of interest about trading changes with the tide of how your social interactions change. After all, people you are in personal contact with can do anything they want to you, and so they deserve the most attention from your interest in self-survival.
Along with this, thinking (from brain patterns your mind visualizes about something (i.e., the usual pure-brain thinking), to a physical reaction in one's more 'physical' portion within the brain (not referring to brain parts that control physical reactions, rather the literal feeling of physicality within one's brain) to whether or not to interact with something (a body-brain thinking), to the pattern a recoil or attraction to an object traces along one's fight-or-flight syndrome physical pathways) (a body-only 'thinking', or at least thinking pattern) lateralizes when and where one is or can be when the stomach-heart reacts to / interacts with the environs.
One may think of where one is through compromise with another person or anchoring from one person and that situation to another (the next, since we tend to want to plan into the future for self-protection etc.) one. To imagine that this is midlining and anchoring, in context of reframing (which midlining involves), likens it to the trading method below. Of course, to literally link trading and your personal life is not realistic nor profitable, so considering how one's personal life settles one's mindset about the current trade, using midlines and anchored (trend) lines, merely reflects how one will trade that day -- Positive/profitable future direction, midlines vs. trendlines used, etc.

*51 . . . .


-- There's a psychometrics device used called voice dialogue with the inner voice or critic. The 0-4 adapts to lists well, and my list of roles my inner critic plays are 0 the one who vomits (rejects), 1 the victim, 2 opponent, sev'l child (in a mix, that is a family; is automatically helpless, only in a (perhaps misguidedly) protected, sentient sense), infinity-1 zombie (by which I mean " a ...person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a force, usually for some [evil,] purpose. "; one who takes and obeys orders without question, in the extreme). Books already note 1-3, and I added, after years of use, the other two.
The shapes are me, others in my environs (optional, in trading) and my trading activity, and thus the position/definition/range of and between them.

The first use I did was to describe (in about five to ten words each) how each of 0-4 inner roles applied to a particular instance during my trading decisionmaking process, and do five or so instances. Recording this helps me decide what fails and works for me, if coupled with my actual chart study work and results of trading with this chart study.
If the majority of roles are being played with real entities and not only parts of myself, then it's more practical to start with shapes and add selected of 0-4 as energies that the real shapes take on rather than emphasize inner roles.


____________________


product

This is the calculator fantasy section. "Hey, I'm gonna..." AFter I'm consistent with my own edge.This is what I want to do, pay my own bills and set aside a little for emergencies, retirement, and something permanent.
06122010 Not started.

____________________


school

A vocational school, of sorts, on a forum, likely:
Exchange and cultivate ideas with others of how to trade only with line patterns;
know that others, too, make money this way.
06122010 This section is inert, ignorable.

-----

bsTL microverse: Overview, patterns (or, those with fewer or more candles), TF use, trading. (And its future: automatic; precise.) simulator

Been messing with keeping costs under control the past few days.
So, I'm dumping my stream-of-consciousness thoughts about it below.

-----

06182010 Used the basic chart study with optional TL sets, on the LFH Simulator. Pivots are a whole new field for me, which could get distracting. Nevertheless, I got comfortable with, in this light / nonexistent use of advanced input from 2)'s TL sets:
Full (40minilots on $10000 at ~ 1.75 price) SL 25, used when confident of faster move in desired direction;
3/4s (30 " ") SL 65 (borrowed from Nene, who said it applies well to g/u), used occasionally when uncomfortable with a half entry; and,
half (20 " ") SL 250, used when confident of direction happening at least eventually.
I've seen the 250 SL hit when I compounded the half trade atop another bad trade. Too many of one type of confidence is another tunnel vision error.
TP's first center on 30, with range 10 to 50 (30 being what the LFH Simulator's default is,) and then go anywhere the chart study says.
This approach is highly individualistic. The point is, I'm measuring how effective I believe the chart study portion of my trading plan is, and keeping flexible about how this changes for each trade.
06182010 100, not 250. Lost three trades of 250 pips each in two weeks, on simulator. 750 pips! It's all luck, and luck favors the prepared mind.
06192010 Raising the stakes -- 20, 42, 65 SL resp. for 1/2, 3/4, full position. is 1), edge, choosing one of the three for usual winner, GIVEN number of pips about same for each.
include these expected numbers -- "Cut losses short, let your winners run" 's 2) an exceptional highest-stakes winner, and 3) highest number of losses in a row.
Calculate expected performance, in percent profit per time unit, each ten trades.
new -- 2:1 P:L, always. Since TP always changes, SL must be adaptable to that TP, and certain trades will be rejected due to their low count. With 2:1 P:L, trades under 40 TP will most likely be rejected, unless I can really increase my edge and get a reliable 10 SL. Or rather, I must do this, and know the difference when I think I can and can't, because otherwise I'll just lose that much more.
test -- Even with this, I'm evening the dollar amount for each of profitable trades and losing trades, through a little fewer lots invested here or somewhat of an absurd TP number of pips there. So, I must strive to get over 50% of my trades profitable.
The absurd TP's hurt the most. Then, my proportions are skewed, and I don't know what's happening on the current move and its height versus the next and last moves and their height and relative position to the current move.
I put in the indicator ZigZag at 150 strength ('extDepth'), which keeps moves well above 20 pips on the g/u, to measure what trades I should be taking.
I need to set a maximum amount of loss per trade. I keep getting slippage, as in losing the same amount at 10k capital as at 5k capital.
5% loss a trade. I was doing 8.5%, or thereabouts. 50:1 leverage, tops.
2:1 TP:SL, so 10% profit a trade. I was doing 17%, or thereabouts.

how much leverage * how much money you got / what you're spending it on (each one) = how much you can spend on what you're spending it on,
that is,
(ex.) 50 * 10000 / 1.98748 = 25 minilots.

Okay, next.
Somewhere in the range of
10 pips SL and 20 pips TP, with 25 minilots at 1.98748
20 pips SL and 40 pips TP, with 12.5 minilots -- excluding exit early on either
50 pips SL and 100 pips TP, with 5 minilots
is every trade.
At 1.75 a pip, it's 28.6 minilots if trading 10 pips SL and 20 pips TP.
Okay, wait,
that's 2 1/2 % loss a trade, and thus 5% profit a trade.
Fine.
No. Wait.
"Cut losses short and let your winners run."
Thus, when can, trigger-finger losses to below 1% and rebuy on dips for TP's to above 10%.
Hey, I can dream.

So, for example, price is at 1.9855 and I have 9,228 capital and, as always, am using 50 leverage on a full (10 SL) trade. 50* 9228 / 1.9855 = 2.32384 lots. That's my base.
I guess price will move up 25 pips after an in-trade drawdown of at most 12.5 pips. (10/12.5)* each of ...

This is too much. I don't think I can control TP. SL, yes. So 1% on SL, somehow. Automatic. TP's enough to worry about.
Of course, I want to maximize leverage, only I'm not very good at SL's below 20 (or anywhere, right now : ) ). So I'll stick to 10 SL and 10 lots with 10,000 capital at 1.9855. 20 SL at 5 lots, etc. Formula, 20:1 * capital / current price = no. of lots


Okay, it's very obvious I'm slow on this math thing. I have to sit down and think about it for an hour or so before I get it. I DO get it, took it extensively in school so I'd better, it just takes a while.

You have a leverage, right?
You set #pips SL = #lots invested at that leverage, when price each unit is 1.98478 or about 2, right?
When, for example, SL=#lots=10 at price of 1.98475~2, loss is 1% of account, right?
Then, proportionally, a bigger SL means a smaller #lots, right?

If I want to vary the leverage used, I will, this way. 1% loss limit sounds nice, only I may want to increase leverage on a decent trade plan.

To avoid having to calculate at every price, I could just 'circle 20' (lots, SL) and proportionally go around that number if still unsure about a trade : Multiplier=divider; thus, 2 is 40 SL, 10 lots, for ex. Very loose, seems reasonable. TP, whatever I can get.

Okay, time to practice on (LFH) simulator again.

This is a post about different ways a trader thinks.

I moved it from another thread, where it disrupted that thread's flow, and use it here to relate to another regular poster's trading credo, in sum making a greater, different message I can use regularly.















With apologies to the poster, who erased this --
The gist of what you said makes sense. While developing my chart study in the past few days, I dealt with how trading challenges one's ability to think and act in different ways.
In the post you erased before this, you radically emphasized intelligence and natural depth of understanding as a trader on technical studies.
At first it was humorous and self-aggrandizing -- who among us can say different -- and then, with the rewrite above, it showed how important and deeply personal the subject is.
Another poster, a real ff trader, has a credo about 'disciplined' versus 'arbitrary', on a trader's skill in using any given technical study; it shocks me into reality every time I see it.
Combining the versions of your post with the signature of this other trader brought me to write the following:



emotional thinking
I usually apply the label 'arbitrary' to the ongoing, highly intuitive chart study I'm developing, only it just as well applies to the very messy treatment I give my trades. A lot of it may be due to narcissistically being relieved a bad trade will hit my SL, or hurriedly allowing myself to use a sketchy chart study, or getting greedy with leverage on a trade with an ordinary in-trade drawdown.
A few links: 1,2,3. From the third: "Emotions can influence the generation of an action in two ways: the tendency and readiness to act, and the decision to act. Different emotions correspond to different patterns of action."
Such realization calls on a trader to make a per-trade journal reviewing nervousness that one answers with emotion from preconceived notions about one's or one's approach's worth in trading, or other ineffective habits that substitute for adaptive responses to a necessary portion of trading.

creative thinking
I also found that I hit the wall in creating a portion of my chart study. I just couldn't handle the brain processing speed needed to draw on the chart: One set of TL's, and I was done.
I knew another temporary chart pattern would begin another set that faded or replaced the first, only I just wanted to keep using the one set. I got stuck. The first set required a eureka! moment, and that was all I got.
Often, I collect these inspired drawing ideas and organize them to make more precise drawings; this allows more breadth in how I can apply drawing. I was hoping to train myself to churn through creating several large-volume-candle, with a pivot's extreme-angles pattern's occasional and limited, TL sets in one setting trading on a simulator(,). Then, I could remove the practice from the realm of craftsmanship and standardize their making.

executive thinking
Often though, I didn't trust my TL's for trading because they were not important enough and instead are on a whole too arbitrary. Occasionally, there was some common thread between different sets of TL's, and being able to go from one pattern that gives TL's to the next one is a kind of reliability.
Only, this is not enough. (Reliability, from what I got here, is being able to get at the cause of an issue easily. Discipline, is kind of the opposite direction, timewise; as noted here, it is delaying gratification to just do something that has been planned in for a future and/or bigger reward.)
I finally brought in simple indicators that fed me more reliable data to find better patterns and their TL's. This boosted the trust index for my chart study.



Actions traders take, besides reading and trading, are plain:
A journal correcting my trading mistakes,
full-forced mental effort in producing my chart study and publishing the more useful ideas therein,
and regular monitoring of overall flow, reliability, and other general variables covering the information I process.
So, while I've a good way to go, I've found it has helped me a great deal to understand there are distinct ways to think in trading and physical limitations in thinking on any one way.

-----





-------------------------------------------------------

other stuff:
Included volume in trading; now the largest volume bars connect with stabilizing bars to make a TL set each that runs the show. I'm trying to get the more bizarre pivots to segue the price-time line along the path of these TL sets, with line patterns' discovery and/or explanation of them.
This new source of TL sets, big volume bars, may often need a lot of bars to make; I do know I trust them, because my trading immediately stabilized around them, even with huge mistakes that countered the large-volume-bar TL-set TL's consistent efficacy. Still needs one helluva lot of creativity, though, which has always been a big downfall (even if such lack of automatic reproducability makes it no problem to show it to others. )


If I were to change my method in terms of volume more, it would be in the direction of including more order flow or news importance.
About all of price - orderflow incorporated into my trading, and only recently for good, is a small, highly pivotal use of volume with its price-time candle. It's too difficult to get decent data without spending a little or using unusual, complicated platforms and indicators, neither of which seem worth it to me.
Maybe the idea of price - orderflow can be approached in different depths as appropriate to how the majority of one's trade study fits together. I guess I'd better read up on it, to see if this is too simple an idea.

(mm)
Found this, which explains how to increase or decrease one's SL or TP while the trade is running:

there is little incentive for retreat when the predator appears to be moving too rapidly for escape, and the crayfish would lose its own opportunity to eat. This was also true when the food odor was the strongest, raising the benefit of staying close to the expected reward. A strong predator stimulus, however, was able to override an attractive food signal, and crayfish decided to flip away under these conditions. (source)
some guesses as to how this applies to trading:
SL (low) is (high) predator, lot size (high) is (low) food (amount per pip earned in TP).
Low SL and high lot siz`e, or low SL alone, scares trader. High lot size, alone, invites trader.

(revised)

Hi,
I'm studying this group of line pattern (: ,) TL sets to get at least one decent selection that keeps the number of TL's per screen and applicable TF to a minimum. (Ignore the picture #s to the right of the slideshow links.)


area ex. 1: 12182009 1503EST to 12302009 0945EST

1) pivot, L,M

1a) pivot, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3)
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5,6)

2) level, L,M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures


2a) level, L:M
i a variables-list description, template, and detailed chart pictures (1,)
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5)
iii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

3) blur, L,M

3a) blur, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1, 2, 3)

4) rep, L,M

4a) rep, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1, )

5) diff, L,M

5a) diff, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

selection
i

Maybe if I use the slideshows to switch perception while I draw my TL's for each trade, and do a new area 1-2 times a week, then I will have spurred my creative side enough to draw effective, trustable TL sets.
I begin to realize that sometimes, it is more about the trust, and I will make cursory observations on the chart and its tick motions and then do well in trading. It's more a fading effect, from establishing the initial trust. Such a pattern of trading varies according to how I anchor it.



----------------

Whatever.

Decided to try something easier: TL traces of gann fans with a blur, a level, etc. template, slideshow. An L,M pivot, I guess.

(revised)

trading approach --

Combine the executive-creative-emotional thinking philosophy

creative
99% of one's work in practicing drawing TL's in an organized way in thecreative portion, thus engaging oneself enough to trade correctly with the market's true movements somewhat and for a little while, with

emotion
y/n gut signals and nontrading reasons discussions and how an effective trade can have



reasons that vary from, and often in a series that includes,

1. a higher-TF #pips from a lower-TF spot-on TL set -- trusted, since consistent in making them -- taking all one's profit, adjusting occasionally for small missed reasons
2. a spot-on TL set -- trusted, since done after exhaustive creative thinking use whose TL sets worked reasonably well -- halving one's profit, for lack of speed in getting enough reason and also underestimating the native strength of one's call
3. to glance at 2-3 trading forum posts and then five or ten high-TF candles -- trusted, only due to intuition borrowed from sensibility heavy TL-set drawing brought in -- halving one's profit, without good-enough reason
4. to depend on L or M, not both, thus dependence on gut instinct of intuition is very heavy, and gut instinct is often 'the facts only' and thus too narrow-minded and thus surprise with other is likely -- halving one's profit, with good reason
5. to conflict my versus another's gut instinct and voice about one's action(s), despite that little (wise) voice revising one's estimate about one's chances on the chart, with impulse saving the trade -- one of many vices (holding for too long) -- heavily distracted with nontrading stuff

increases need for adaptability to change to the maximum of acceptance -- even in the face of undercutting one's profit and thus an initial rejection of one's abilities from the beginning -- which is often difficult to achieve because of a strong need for rejection in nontrading issues, from a simple 'yes, my method more than works and thus I'm adaptable' to what information the chart provides me and thus I do a reasonable job of interpreting

executive
circle and multiplier mm around the trade and reason-based obedience to the "Cut losses, let your winners run" during-the-trade mm, to cage trust and retain a mind adaptable to the changing risks for each motion and thus reason on the chart, on the executive side.
The reality is, the first four in the 'emotion' list made profit at the expense of more profit easily had, and, from this concentration, rejected the sense of reducing losses speedily. When the chips were down, failure was okay and profit more easily let go of.

(revised) (why: I got seven trades in a row on simulator.)


PIVOT TREND ANGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WITH LOGR'S/MIDLINES, LEVELS/TL'S, AND RELATIVE STRENGTH OF EACH NOTED.
TL's are helpers, pivot trend angles MAKE EVERYTHING!
It's amazing. It's like the ... well... best thing you can imagine.

I've been getting everything backwards. And I'm stunned at how it all fits together as in a jigsaw puzzle. It's WILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So...
Pivot Trend Angles.

And I can apply all I've done to now -- the four (now five, with pivot-level-blur-rep-diff reincluded) pivot-angle (actually, TL-making) variables -- to another group of variables that surround how to make pivot trend angles directly:

1. # of pivot trend angles (or rather, pivot trend angle pairs/trend-stops, since alot of trend cycles are complex when larger trends react to other immediately-close trends) included in a study,
   entire areas of them, or only a series and one or a few at a time, to be compared;
2. specificness of knowing a pivot trend angle versus its nadir (the pivot's turn point) or contents (various pressures from/to/thru the pivot trend angle, oft represented with TL's)--
   from signal (only studying the peak of a vertical turn - type pivot, instead of the contents of the two trends that connect at that peak)
   to TL (which highlight a number of pivot-angles' pieces,
   making it needful for the TL to be specially made to reflect some pattern the chart reacts to regularly
   (thus, line patterns, the fifth TL-making variable)),
   rather than studying the pivot-angle and thus the nature of its contents directly --
   and thus struggling with deriving the pivot trend angle's nature versus going for its singular or projected worth
3. speed one devotes to knowing one's pivot trend angles, in general being from simulator which is 32 minutes a real minute in the LFH simulator, to paper which, while being zero, ranges from an 1-10 minutes for a cursory study to one or more hours for an intense, wide-ranging study
   and in divisions would be caustically troubling, since one may, without realizing it, study heartily before running up the simulator and more or less get the first few trades,
   and then, from exhaustion/stubbornness, watch the next portion of the chart speed by and study during that time before trading on the information tacked onto the well-crafted study,
   which is a disastrous or at least low-edge, levels -only (or similar overly simple) technicals, way to trade;
4. attitude, which for the variable speed example just given, would be confidence and then frustration and then a kind of desperation ("When will that chart do (what I want) -- Up-down (or always up) and always disobeying me (when I feed it random, contrary-plan trades)" -- gotta laugh at myself, after the fact)
   which is fine if I recognize and then stop it, to correct what's under my control to correct my reaction to what's causing the negative attitude,
   since pivot trend angles, alongside the variability of the timing of how orders enter recorded onto the chart (i.e., the variability of order flow, which is missing in most simulators), are what intuition in reading charts does, even before feeding one's indicators' / drawing devices' info to gut instinct to yea/nay a trade -- and thus, a contribution to the attitude would be a gastric disturbance from odd-speed study sessions ( : ) );
5. and, precision of reading the pivot trend angles correctly,
   where one could include all five of the TL-making variables --
   
   
   
   for pivot trend angles -- approximators or batchers for getting through pivot trend angles more easily --,
   and that may also work with in-trade drawdown, fast exiting of losses, etc.

There's my new trading method. To pivot trend angles!

Oh -------

What's a pivot trend angle?

A chart cycle.

examples:

read (without the highlighting boxes) at this level when trading




I suppose I'm reinventing the wheel, there being (the notoriously reinterpretable) Elliot Wave. Only, I'm not counting, I'm reading each cycle and interrelating the cycles' contents with s/r / TL's. I'm not even thinking in terms of cycles, usually, the amount of area that would explain a certain run being far more valuable.

So really, it's pivot trend angles, or just pivot-angle trading with TL's (line patterns, usually, for me).


I hope this revision of my technical chart study sticks around for more than a couple of hours or days.
Wish me luck!

Oh, and one more thing -- Reading candles for their own sake is in the past. The pivot trend angles take care of consistency at the closest level of the chart, leaving candles noticed as pieces of a shape described with variables. So, there's no more lurch of one's attention from such a microscopic consideration to an entire area of candles.
Though I've not done it yet, my next step is to smoothly transition from average to huge groups of pivots with the method.

storage --



"Cut losses short and let your winners run." Googled.


06262010 demo or less

#lots/SL
To avoid having to calculate at every price, I could just 'circle 20' (lots, SL) and proportionally go around that number if still unsure about a trade : Multiplier=divider; thus, 2 is 40 SL, 10 lots, for ex. Very loose, seems reasonable. TP, whatever I can get.




TL areas line patterns cover:

"It's not how, it's how well."

.

a loose grouping of the original ideas

REPEAT: LONGTERM STUDY
BORROW AND INVENT: DIFFICULT CHART STUDY ISSUES

representative examples -- with a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures -- 5-10 each, of ten divisions (five types, each with an L,M and L:M side to it) of the range of possible line patterns

area ex. 1: 12182009 1503EST to 12302009 0945EST

1) pivot, L,M

1a) pivot, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3)
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5,6)

2) level, L,M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures


2a) level, L:M
i a variables-list description, template, and detailed chart pictures (1,)
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5)
iii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

3) blur, L,M

3a) blur, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1, 2, 3)

4) rep, L,M

4a) rep, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1, )

5) diff, L,M

5a) diff, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

mix
i

modified selection

-- FOR MOST ADJUSTING OF THE EVERYDAY INDICATOR (MIDLINE TL's)

the ten divisions (five types, each with an L,M and L:M side to it) of the range of possible line patterns -- each sample with a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures -- broken down to find one approach, a midline area of various size (small, average, large) and sometimes using small-pattern series (which is read) or small-area separation (which presents more skewed and/or longterm TL's) to modify the central approach of midline areas

area ex. 2: various times (11252009 1503EST to 12182009 1503EST and some 06232010 1030EST +)

1a) pivot, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

2) level, L,M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

2a) level, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

3a) blur, L:M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

5) diff, L,M
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures

conclusion --
Compute a chart's four pivot-angles measuring variables to derive a technical plan:

1. logr <>midlines;
   
2. #dir'n (1s, 2s) balance;
   
3. simple vs. repetition-based structure, vs. 0 45 90 - degree direction;
   
4. and, respectively, all, some or none that is on-balanced and not just having a TL through decent midlines through a series of various shapes --

1. pattern-matching w/short, simple, dotted hz lines;
2. one pattern to match within, with its derivative TL's;
3. and, TL's to draw one after another matching each trend

.
i a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
ii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
iii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
iv a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
v a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
vi a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
vii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures
viii a variables-list description, template (EST), and detailed chart pictures