Welcome back everybody! I just returned for a one week break between my holidays and thought it won't be bad if I share some charts Here is the update of my daily ES chart:

So, I think it would benefit the forum if some other members besides roofer posted some .886 gap on 5 setups. I mean, I hope roofer keeps posting them, but how about if some other people post some, too. I'd like to have some potential setups posted before-the-fact. That's what I'm hoping to motivate with this post. We get a gap day (or a non-gap day with a gap in a particular issue), let's see what people are looking at, with detail, before they complete. Let's see if we can post some of these before-the-fact, then post some entries, stop levels, management points, and so on, as they unfold. I think this would be very useful and educational to the readers. Not that what we are doing now isn't valuable, but it's a lot of the same thing, day after day. Sound good?

Went to the highest part of the grouping, bounced up to form that flat/EXP hybrid bearish ABCD, rolled down to 33, then snapped up hard 4 points. It sure did 'see' that area, with its key line. From there it rolled back down and is sitting right on the line/area. I'm really 'hoping' it can keep rolling down from here... I'm mostly just waiting on the debt deal, which should be totally priced in, but which nonetheless I expect to produce a monster ramp up.

Originally posted by jimkane

Watching 32.00-33.75 next.

ES 120 minute.
I'm thinking we may be in W5 on 120 min.
And we had the first wave of W5.
I'm thinking we may form a W2 as a standard bull ABCD.
The B was this a.m. low at .447 fib.
The C was today high at 68.5 fib.
So the D needs to form - maybe at 1317 at the 127 fib which overlaps with .886 Price proj. or at 146 fib which would be a 1.0 price proj.
I've drawn some forks. But they may not be hit at the fib price unless there's a sharp drop very soon.

problem is,, it is alot of the same.... those who spoke to me privately knew i had no positions coming into today.. based on the setup on thursday in dia. i am set up to focus on that one setup... so that is what i do....jim.. it could be that no one else is trading hard and therefore is not seeing the work...and by my standards i am barely working....it would be great.... but i do not recall anyone posting all their trades here....

Well, what I am hoping for is just some posting of potential .886 gap on 5 setups before they hit, and then some discussion on entry, management, and so on. I am particularly interested in discussion on setups that are 'good enough' and ones that aren't. It's great for people to see near perfect ones after the fact, but like my own setups, how does one make the decision what is good enough in real time? Discussion on this before-the-fact, I think, would be immensely beneficial to people.

For example, how close to the .886 is good enough (or how much through it...)? How good does the geometry have to be (this goes to what tx asked me about 'bad' geometry)? Look at the SPY today (or SSO, for example). Gap on 5, and .886 at the high within 5 cents, with a 'retest' .886 within one cent. I had some geometry there, but was it 'bad' geometry i.e. not clear, run-of-the-mill geometry like we'd like? Was this one good enough? It played out quite well. It also overlapped my own setup. I'd love to be discussing ones like this in real-time, before we can see what they do, and comment on when they cross the line to 'good enough', and why.

One answer is to take only those that are so clearly great that it isn't a issue. I like to know where the line is. What is good enough, and what isn't. That's what I would like to get from this. But I would benefit most when the discussion is before it plays out, so I can see if I can pick good ones in real-time. Then some discussion on entry, stop placement, and so on. So, hopefully, as I said, this will stimulate at least a little of this in here going forward. We'll see...

what you are asking for is something no one has shown here... how my screens are configured.. how my scans are set up .... how i narrow my focus the night before... how i adjust my focus before the open... how i adjust my focus as the day progresses... what i write in my day to day notes for everything i trade regularly...i have a collection of over 3500 .886 on gap on 5... based on that i have a memory of what has worked best before....anyone who has systematically done the collecting would see what i see....

Right, and no one has and no one will. See, what I contend is that without the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of experience which allows the filtering, the setups (any setups) are essentially useless, no matter how potent they may be. And I feel many, if not most people will not develop the experience needed, even if they put the hours in, to properly filter trades. This is the conclusion I am coming to. Hence, I try to help with the learning curve via my mentoring and this forum.

I think only the smallest percentage of people, without guidance, will benefit from practice, to the extent of developing a winning 'Trading Plan'. This is just my new opinion based on my years at this, both in trading and in teaching others. That's why I am trying to always get some real-time dialog going as to trade setups, entries, management, and so on, for discussion.

It's why a huge part of my mentoring has evolved to student journals of trade sequences and endless discussion and analysis of said journal. But apparently the techniques I have found the most useful in my mentoring just aren't going to happen in here. So, I'm a bit frustrated, as I am not feeling this is really that great of a learning environment after all.

I mean, roofer has shown what he can show on his techniques, and as he says, go practice, and you'll see it or you won't. I've posted my levels and told people to do the work, but I've gotten few charts back showing what I post, so probably few can duplicate why I have those levels. So, again, it's essentially useless for me to keep posting them.

I could give up trading and my own efforts to develop my trading further and devote myself to this forum full-time, posting endless charts, explaining every detail and step along the way in real time, and perhaps that might help out two or three of the small handful in here. Think I should do that? Quit trading? Would you in my shoes?

I don't know, I guess I'm just losing the vision right now, and I can't see how this forum is really doing any good. Yes, it does what it does, but it is the same thing, day in and day out. I want to kick it up a notch, and when I really digest what I see, and read roofer's last post there, I feel it is totally futile.

On another note, time for the ES to go straight up. Let's see if it can follow commands.

Anyone paying attention to the Swissie, which I don't think will even stop going up, ever? Except against gold, where it is going down, like all fiat currencies. I think the Swissie trades better on the higher timeframes, for my methodology, than any other currency, even better than my favorite, the Aussie. Just an opinion.

i think the forum is doing a great job of showing what the trading life is all about... a boring tedious existence where the same things happen over and over... without REALLY understanding that.. how does anyone develop a trading plan?

Let's follow up on this. Go to the time shown below on your ES all-sessions chart. The ES was around 1290. It rose from there to 1294.50. Note the first level posted below. It then began to drop. It did a very typical 'W1' first move (my mentor students would know just how typical this was, but that is not necessary information for this example), a nice 'W2' pullback, and then headed back down, hitting a new low for the move at 1278.50. That was a drop of 16 points off the area posted.

Although I didn't post this because it was the middle of the night for me, my key level once this started to sell off was hit within one tick of the center of my grouping level (and the small bounce on the way down was also at an area I'd expect that from). The bounce up after of 22.25 points was right between my two most critical lines (do an obvious TL!). Just amazing, to put it mildly. So, once again, the same point. How, of all the places on the chart this could have risen to and then sold off hard from, why, again, was it one of the levels I posted (in advance, of course)?

Now, I am not saying this is a panacea, or a way to riches. Everyone who has followed me for any length of time knows I am not even hinting at that. I don't know which level, if any, this will respect. I have to have an idea what I think will happen so that I know where I may trade, and on what side. This takes experience. And as I've said, the setup is only 10%-20% of my 'Trading Plan'. But, if one can't see these levels in advance like I do, it's one part of the 'Trading Plan', a critical part, that is missing, and needs to be sorted out.

I will say, as an aside, I just can't let go of the bad experience I had out in the public area. So many jumping on the bandwagon, attacking me, wondering what my agenda was. How about this for an agenda: I seem to be able to find some key levels, in advance, on a repeatable basis and I want to share this with people. If you really want the details, I want at least a token, nominal amount for the books, which took me an incredible amount of time to write.

If you look at how many hours they took me, and how many I've sold, I think I've made like $10 an hour, or less (it's just a guess, I'm not sure what it really is). So, it's likely my motivation wasn't purely financial in writing them, huh? All I ask is to at least give me my $10/hour for my effort, and then I'll show you a big chunk of what has taken me just about 40,000 hours now to develop.

But, no, they hammered me for being a shill, and decided that it isn't worth looking at my work. Now I post the levels in here, for free, they get reactions over and over and over, and I'm willing to answer questions on how this is done so anyone can try to duplicate the work. And out there, they have no clue as to what we do. And they don't want to know. And they go on hating, patrolling the forum for 'people like me', making sure they are crushed and driven out. They are very good at what they do; they've succeeded. And we will keep on posting in here, stuff that, to me, seems so good it can't even be real. I guess they won, huh?

(Let me mention that none of the above comments are meant to in any way reflect badly upon Guy, the forum owner. He's between a rock and a hard spot in situations like this, in that he has to let people express their opinions to a point, or he will be seen as too overbearing. Give people freedom, but not too much freedom. It's a tough job.

I lay all the 'blame', 100%, on the handful of 'haters' out there who have an agenda that has little to do with finding truly valuable information, even if it costs, and more about proving the point that anything of value must be free (good luck with that one...), and that anyone who disagrees, or won't acquiesce to their 'authority' in their threads on this, must be driven out.)

Posted-07/29/2011 : 02:07:00

Originally posted by jimkane

Upside levels, short-term, in case we need them, are:

94.50-95.00 (.447 is at 96.41, 1.000 ABCD at 93.50, so in there somewhere?)

98.75-99.00

1303.50-4.75

Center of the areas, as usual. And I think we may be needing them, sooner than one might think...