From the Moderators:

PLEASE READ THIS - and heed the warning

This thread is devoted to Socrates' allegories relating to trader psychology, which combine to help raise advanced traders from the basement to the rarified levels of trading attained by very few. This thread forms part of the 'dark arts' of trading using just price and volume bars (no indicators or signals), and on this thread the practitioners of price and volume are referred to as 'darksiders'.

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## ANIMAL LESSON NUMBER ONE ## FIRST PART:~

Dear Frugi,

Ok, I understand your difficulty.
Let us create a model.
The model we will create will be a simple one whose function will be to illustrate a point.
Supposing we find ourselves in the jungle, in Brazil, and we are lucky to see the twig bird in action.
This is most likely to be the sequence of events.
The twig bird flies in with a very thin twig in its beak. It lands on a decaying tree trunk lying on its side, in a clearing. It finds a little hole in which there is a worm. It prods the worm with the twig.

The worm recoils and hides deeper in the hole. The bird persists. The worm moves from the first hole to another hole because underneath is a honecomb of tunnels the worms have burrowed. The bird drops the twig and flies away. Is this a failure ? No .

The bird returns and lands on the same spot., with a larger, but shorrter twig in its beak.
It puts its attention on the same hole as before. It picks up the thin twig in its beak. it proceeds to prod the same worm again. The worm squirms and migrates.

The bird observes this and uses the larger twig to plug a potential exit. It prods again using the thin twig. The worm squirms and migrates in another direction.The bird flies off again.

This time the bird has two twigs in its beak, both fat and short. The two fat twigs are laid down on the tree trunk. The bird once again picks up the thin twig and begins to prod. The worm squirms.

The bird chooses a hole to plug and plugs it. This process of prodding and plugging is continued until the worm is forced to come out of the only available hole that is not plugged
The bird has a very long beak, like a kingfisher. It plucks the worm and flies away with it.

Now sir, what I have explained to you above is a parallel model of what happened with the bars.
The last bar was dropped down just sufficiently to trigger the stop, this winkled out the targeted instrument in a similar way that the worm was winkled out of the hole.
If you do not still understand it I am willing to explain it again until you do.

CONTINUED ON #6

just noticed - a bird in brasil - sounds like me love life...... :)

LOL what exactly r u implying Socrates? :) she winkled me out of my hole? :)

shall i go back to good essex ones preying round in the likes of China White night clubs? :)

No, ha! ha! what I am implying........is that illustrating a concept using parables......is an effecive method of passing on knowledge....without disturbing that which must not be disturbed.
Do you now get my drift, China ?

Oh ! And by the way, have you all noticed how the Court Jester has not appeared for a long time, I do wish he would come out and do a pirouette or something entertaining to break the monotony of seriousness. The Principal Court Jester, that is. Gone quiet....

Perhaps he is wary of getting his head chopped off.

Regards

bracke

The Story of The Twig Bird Contnued.....ANIMAL LESSON NUMBER ONE ~ CONTINUED
FROM #1

Now Frugi,

The Twig Bird, having flown away to it's nest, and fed its chicks with the worm it has just caught,
"remembers" that there are more worms to be had, as the log just does not have one hole, you see,
the log is peppered with holes. Some of these holes will be occupied by worms and others will be empty.
It is now up to the Twig Bird, who has a family to feed, to find out how many worms there are and whether chey can be got. for the purpose of feeding. The purpose of feeding is different to the concept of food, this is an important point to grab. Food is incidental, whereas feeding is systematic, Bramble pay attention.
The bird is very clever because it able to remember the route it has to take also so as not to fly into danger.
In a jungle not every creature is inoffensive. There are some very nasty ones about with evil intentions, some through laziness, others through greed, others through hope, others are poisonous and so on.
We are observers of all this, and we are impartial, and not only that, but also we are able to come and go as we wish. All the creatures that inhabit the jungle are condemned to live there all the time and have to compete to to survive. We can go home and lock the doors, and draw the curtains, and feel safe. But I digress.....Now the Twig Bird goes back to the log and it sees there is a Wart Hog sniffing there, the Wart Hog is only sniffing for Mushrooms, but the Twig Bird does not feel safe in approaching. So it perches on a branch some small distance away and observes the Wart Hog to calculate if it is safe to proceed.
The Wart Hog becomes distracted and wanders off in another direction.Now the Twig Bird spots the opportunity to land on the tree trunk unmolested and with minimum fo risk because the Twig Bird is very astute. The Twig Bird warbles. This is to see if anyone of any consequence to its safety is around, there is no response, although not far away there is a big snake, but it is coiled up under a tree, having a snooze.
When the Twig Bird is satisfied that it is not being watched, that what it is about to do is not understood, and thet there are no other Twig Birds about to compete, It swiftly repeats the operation of the thin twig,
the prodding, the plugging and the plucking, and flies off again as quickly as it can back to its hungry chicks that need feeding, and so the cycle is repeated until no more worms are left. When there are no worms left this particular log all the worms have been lifted. The value of the lifted worms is enhanced in terms of the amount of effort required to find more. One could say that the Jungle Price of edible worms has gone up.

Then the "Prescott" bird ( Hasn't an original thought in its' head), saw the last foray of the twig Bird, and tells it's pals that there is easy food at the old tree stump. A big flurry of interest ensues as they all fight to get access to the log. The volume of noise and activity increases sharply as more "Prescotts" flock to the log.

If you had a volume meter the needle would spike up sharply.

Suddenly, it dawns upon the greedy feeders that there are no more worms. The "Prescott" bird and his pals have expended much energy for no real gain. They fly off as suddenly as they arrived, still hungry. The noise meter registers a sudden drop off in activity and noise.

But some hang around thinking that it will be easier to hunt now that many have flown away. They wait and wait but are forced, due to lack of food, to eventually leave and find food elsewhere.

The Twig Bird has not forgotten the log but waits for it to be re-colonized by worms, such worms are not likely to ignore a useful souce of habitat and food.Eventually the log becomes home to many worms, enough to make it worthwhile for the Twig Bird to return for another series of feeds. He is cautious and does not advertise its' presence to the "Prescott" gang.

Eventually the "Prescott", who has several homes and can transport himself by more than one means, notices the steady coming and going of the Twig Bird and decides to get in on the action. As before, the added attention of the Prescott gang creates a feeding frenzy sending noise levels spiking off the meter.

But Twig Bird is not worried, it knows it has eaten the last worm, and flies off to new feeding sites, putting the present log on its' watch list to begin the cycle all over again.

Apologies to Socrates

The Twig Bird continued
 

Neil, that is perfectly right, let us tell the story in sequence otherwise if it is out of sequence the audience will be baffled. The object is to "enlighten" using allegory, in sequence, do you get my drift, wihtout letting cats out of bags. And you and I know perfectly well what it is we are talking about but this is not for everyone, and I have been taught bitter lessons that I have learnt and therefore do not repeat blunders. And the 4 observers in the gallery are watching
quiet as mice, but we can see you ! LOL.