Hinges and Springboards

Whao this is heavy sh!t for a climax to the week! Way over my head but keep it going guys, this is excellent stuff here. Thanks to both of you for your input a lot of people will benefit from this debate.
 
dbphoenix said:
What weak hands and professionals are doing within the springboard is irrelevant to the springboard and to its function, as is candle by candle analysis. However, if you're eager to discuss all of this, you are free to open up your own thread to do so.

any probabilities that you'll expand further on what negates value of the actions of the participants ? the participants are creating the springboard in the present, here and now, unfolding........without the participants, their actions, the springboard is irrelevant the shape is resultant regardless of time taken.....we see and recognise the shape post production.......what comes before, the actions that lead to the shape........buggha......everytime I end at full circle with "the dam shape is irrelevant because I can only recognise it post-dated"

keep it comming........thanks

J
 
dbphoenix said:
And the point of the thread is not prediction and tactics.
I thought the point of the SITE is prediction and tactics.
That's what trading is all about. isn't it?
 
'I understand your frustration...'

An exceptional post.

What do you mean by 'Was there going to be a lot of pushing and shoving, or was activity going to become quiet? This can be seen in real time. ' ?

What can be seen in real-time that isn't on a lower timeframe chart ?

Porks
 
Can you describe the kinds of movements and interplay you see as significant (pace, extent, etc) ?

Or more specifically...what did you see live in this example that led you to believe the probability was to the downside ?



Porks
 
dbphoenix said:
Though some t2w gurus pooh-pooh Wyckoff, he's as accurate as he's ever been, and knowing something about the contraction and release that hinges and springboards represent can be of benefit to any trader.

Today was an especially good example of several of W's ideas.

1. A test of yesterday's high with lots of effort and little/no result.

2. Price consolidates/congests/whatever in a lateral movement. Volume (trading activity) practically disappears (3). There is no retracement or test by price, but the time spent in this springboard is a test in itself: the dog that didn't bark.

4. A short here is one of several possible entry points.

5. Possible Selling Climax.

6. Another PSC, but a Lower Low.

7. Another PSC, but a LrL.

8. A rally attempt, but zip volume, and price can't get past the last swing high.

9. Trading activity up on the downbeat. Covering here, or reversing, are options, but stops placed above this pause would not in this case be triggered.

10. Another PSC, but, again, a LrL. Not a bad short so far.

When I decided, many years ago, not to buy any more trading books I, still, had not got around to reading Wyckoff so, when I see dbphoenix recommending him I feel that I may be missing something! Is there any, specific, book title of his that I should buy to cover the subject of this thread?

Split
 
Splitlink said:
When I decided, many years ago, not to buy any more trading books I, still, had not got around to reading Wyckoff so, when I see dbphoenix recommending him I feel that I may be missing something! Is there any, specific, book title of his that I should buy to cover the subject of this thread?

Split
Here's the most well known one:

0870340646.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
 
Splitlink said:
When I decided, many years ago, not to buy any more trading books I, still, had not got around to reading Wyckoff so, when I see dbphoenix recommending him I feel that I may be missing something! Is there any, specific, book title of his that I should buy to cover the subject of this thread?

Split

Hi Split

Db has posted a pdf here - post 9

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=21142
 
dbphoenix said:
Timeframe is irrelevant.

dbphoenix said:
Many if not most traders, of course, have no choice. They aren't sitting in front of their monitors watching everything unfold in real time. They probably don't want to. And since all EOD charts are hindsight, analysis via these charts is more appropriate to those traders who aren't watching or can't watch in real time.
The process and mechanics of the analysis of charts is the same for me regardless of the periodicity selected. See your first comment which I quote.

Unless you are going to include genuinely dynamic data such as that provided by Level2 for instance, the process of analysis is identical. Whether it be 5 minute, 15 minute or 1 minute.

There is no 'real-time' to unfold as such. What we get on our screens is always in the past. But the difference lies in whether we see it as hindsight (missed that one) or a clue to what has a higher probability of happening next (foresight), and maybe even why.
 
Db,

I'm pushing this because you've mentioned watching activity live like this in the past too...and I'm not sure I understand what it is you're seeing that's significant.

So if you saw a springboard...what led you to believe it was a springboard from watching it live ?

If you can't recall this particluar example...what do you generally look for ?


Porks.
 
2 hrs of action?

Without volume, just price...what can be determined? Intent? What type of intent? Decision/indecision? Could anybody on this site look at 2 hrs of price action only and see anything without the bigger picture?

Even the name of chart (NQ) gives away a multitude of information.

Is the bigger picture more important than the smaller picture!
 
There is no 'real-time' to unfold as such. What we get on our screens is always in the past. But the difference lies in whether we see it as hindsight (missed that one) or a clue to what has a higher probability of happening next (foresight), and maybe even why.

True Connie, a fully printed 1/5/15 min bar is just that, the battles within viewed through a narrow window, reduced to just four basic pieces of information OHLC. Even if one breaks out the nested Russian dolls to split one mummy bar into five shorter baby ones the fact is they are still static, the dust settled and the shouts of battle have died away.

But watching the currently forming bar (a restful joy at times) provides information that is necessarily lost when the bar closes (unless I suppose one is using a 1 tick chart). Watching it in real time shows how the bar forms and this can reveal nuances unavailable to the history student. Remember a bar is just an arbitrary chapter in the story and as such may cut the story mid-sentence.

So what sort of things can one see while a candle, erm, burns and its wax is molten? The variation in speed and progression (texture, if you like ... some candles are lumpy, others are smooth) of the gyrations; the manner in which previous highs and lows are challenged, the nature and length of the pauses (has volume dried up or are people hurling everything they have at both sides), the manner in which the high is reached from the low (one fell swoop, three steps forward, two back, crazy ping pong central).

Patterns may start to emerge, even if one is unable exactly to put them into meaningful words or indeed understand much of the "why" behind them. Tantalisingly, it's not nearly as simple, for me at least, as saying 'every time I see this certain jiggle it means that pros are loaded up and ready to nudge this sucker through all those stops'. That is why, notwithstanding my crashing ignorance of intent, I am being irritatingly vague.

Even so, being able to view these fits and starts and tugs of war in real time and then filing this information together with the simple closed bar formations can imho be helpful. Even if the conscious mind cannot make head or tail of it, it gives the trusty subconscious software something novel to chew on. Even if one's method does not care for such detail, it might benefit from it later if the subconscious is allowed to regurgitate useful information clusters. You may start to see, for instance those purposeful marabozus that print cleanly and smoothly from bottom to top with barely a stutter (feel the tension as it pauses briefly on the brink of decision, decide to hold your long, then sit back as it continues to charge skyward) contrasted against the less purposeful ones that stop half way for a cup of tea and biscuits as if uncertain of their future. I also like to stick a (filtered) T&S and bid/ask delta indicator next door to see who might be involved.

I liked this post from "Vienna":

At one point - it took me quite a few years- you might get to where you really want to understand how price moves and how you can tell in advance where it is most likely to move. Then you might stumble across some people who can read price like a book [...] look at the market again and again and again, and, if you are lucky, suddenly you have an "Aha!" experience. That is all that counts - this "Aha" experience. Suddenly, you see a pattern in the way the market moves and you see that it can not do otherwise. It is like these images that flip and reveal another image. And that stage is LIGHT YEARS ahead from the people that say "you can make money with 50% wins if you use money management"(a la Van Tharp) or people who try to use statistical edges arrived at by backtesting (the second way). It does not mean yet that you consistently make money, but you are treading on the right path at last.

The problem is that until you actually "see" it, you have to fly blind on faith, and it is completely normal to strongly believe that this other way does not exist.. after all, you have all the years of "experience"proving it doesn't.....
 
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Frugi, one type of intent is position building. Can you see position building on a candle on a 2 hr chart?

Don't forget, mingled in is the other different types of intent.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a personal jab at you, it's just that i personally believe that the word intent is being bandied about a little too much and with no real explanation from the people who are using it.

I believe trying to look for intent too deeply is misleading to say the least.

That's all.
 
I don't understand intent, at least in practice. In theory I can see that there is a mass of people who unwittingly and repeatedly make themselves available for some form of herding, whether it is due to their unsuitable instinctive responses, lack of understanding, lagging systems, wish for confirmation or whatever. Intent is perhaps a word to describe how advantage is taken of this resource. It runs to a deeper principle of auction market theory than the mere mechanics of position building. It is a means by which pros can expend the least effort (risk) for a certain reward because the crowd are persuaded that it is in their interest to do the work that creates this reward, whether by means of pain or greed.

However the idea of this one group of pros always in control does make me uncomfortable. Often I feel they must be battling each other as much as "feeding" on the prey. To muddy the issue there may be different groups of pros competing over different areas of value, e.g. the position traders may be buying what they see as good value from the scalpers who see poor value. While other pros will no doubt adapt their tactics to the context. In SIFs especially there is also the matter of hedging, arbs, program trading. So all seen through a glass darkly.

I'm really not the man to ask about intent, if I have any strength it is humble pattern recognition, the 'how' not the 'why'. That said it is a beautiful thing when the market is wrong footed - the tank is in effect cheaply filled - the starting handle nudged and a furious trend emerges to the collective surprise of the majority and I can't help feeling that "intent" lies curled at the root of this sort of thing.
 
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A triangle is a price pattern, price is a by-product of buying and selling, what is the intent of the pattern, or is the pattern a by-product of intent, are triangles formed out of intent or do triangles exist for intent?

Can it be both?
 
frugi said:
True Connie, a fully printed 1/5/15 min bar is just that, the battles within viewed through a narrow window, reduced to just four basic pieces of information OHLC. Even if one breaks out the nested Russian dolls to split one mummy bar into five shorter baby ones the fact is they are still static, the dust settled and the shouts of battle have died away.

But watching the currently forming bar (a restful joy at times) provides information that is necessarily lost when the bar closes (unless I suppose one is using a 1 tick chart). Watching it in real time shows how the bar forms and this can reveal nuances unavailable to the history student. Remember a bar is just an arbitrary chapter in the story and as such may cut the story mid-sentence.
I am not sure if we are agreeing or not frugi. LOL.

If I understand your position correctly you're saying you can watch a 5 minute bar form and 'get a feel' for how that bar is forming. And sure, you can for example see 9/10th of the bar's entire volume hit the chart in the closing seconds of the current bar's formation and that may tell you more about what the next bar or may not do. You feel that dynamic review and micro-analysis of that bar's formation is lost once that bar is completed?

One way of demonstrating the illusion that any current bar of any periodicity is real time is to simply take it to its extreme. Switch from your 15 minute chart to a 1 minute chart. Switch to a 15 second chart, then 10, then 5....You will ultimately get to a point where all the information you felt you were getting dynamically, in real time in the formation of that 15 or 5 minute bar is displayed in all the previous, much shorter time frame bars. Nothing is lost in the process.
 
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