I’m still working out the right balance between public and private posting. I thought I’d share how easy the morning was to trade, if you knew what you were looking for. The first thing I do when I drag myself out of bed, is glance at some kind of overview chart. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I often use point-and-figure charts since it’s easy to see a lot of time in relatively few bars. Today, I scrunched up a 30-minute chart and saw this formation (click to enlarge):
(”scrunching up” is a highly technical term, used by many advanced chartists)
I wrote in our team area’s realtime chart reading section that I was looking short, since we were coming off the top of a broadening wedge pattern.
Then, I posted two easy-to-spot trades off the 5-minute chart. Once your long-short bias is correct, then your entry signals tend to work very well. If you just take entry signals without any kind of context, you will get screwed.
R-dawg,
Mind if I ask how much real time analysis you do with your MtM team? Is there a live chat room during the day, or is it forum based? (If it’s forum based, how many real-time analysis posts are made during the trading day?)
Thanks a lot,
James
It varies. Last friday I posted my 5 ES trades, 2 while still in progress and 3 right after I closed them. I’ve also got 3 or 4 realtime reads of daily stock charts in progress right now. I also post whatever interesting context I notice (like the 30-minute chart above, was posted right after I noticed it, or when I see price stuck in a dead zone I point it out). Others are encouraged to share their real-time contextual observations as well.
But, you’d never join in order to “follow” me or anyone else. So, the focus is not on real-time information delivery (it’s not a “live room”), but I’m definitely encouraging real-time reads of charts, because at the end of the day those are the only kind that could actually make you money!
I’m putting out my learning process and my homework and my indicators, and hoping to inspire others to put in the work they need to find their way. We do study groups, etc.
Richard,
Thanks so much for your public blog.
I’ve been thinking a lot of context versus indicators. Any indicator is a proxy for price action and so carries no more information; it’s just a matter of what the human needs to see at some time to confirm the contextual setup. At least that’s how I read what you’re saying.
But that begs the question: just what exactly is a context? It has to contain information not in the price action. I suppose a “pattern” is a context, or a “psychological thesis” is a context.
I’ve seen you blog that ‘trading is easy and you are complicated’. Maybe. But I’m having a bunch of trouble with context, and it isn’t for lack of study and trying, including trying to filter out the noise from my own brain. I’m not looking for the easy answer, but I am looking for a path to enlightenment (or at least the buzz of a dim bulb).