Taking off the blindfold

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BlindMan
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Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:41 am

Intro:

Well. So here I am. Lurker for a very long time. Been struggling for even longer. I don't know if the forum is still active, at least from time to time, but reading the thread from arkan1976 motivated me to create this thread. Also, a big thank you to TRO, MightyOne, Mr. Hyde, Mira, v8 (r.i.p.), es/pip, dragon33, and all of you who kept the forum going and gave so much knowledge asking nothing in return. Your posts and ideas motivated me to keep on trying.

I've been through the same cycle of interest, hope, effort, lack of improvement and hopelesness 4 times. Soon to be at year 4. Not profitable yet, but at least my mindset is in order and I don't make dumb mistakes anymore (thank you TRO for all your videos). The important thing is that I know why I'm failing.

So, the necessary evil. Time to look at myself in the mirror. The good and the bad.

It's not that I can't manage my risk, or that I'm not patient, or that I'm anxious. I can follow a method rigorously and I don't fear losing trades. It's not about that. I've lost count of how many methods I tried. But it's always the same result in the long run: barely breaking even.

The main reason I'm not profitable, is because I can't read price. I'm terrible at understanding price action. As of today, I don't get it. Airballing exits because I don't know what the market is telling me. It's like reading a book written in a foreign language. I can understand the letters (candlesticks) but I can't understand the words/sentences (context and the chart as a whole).

And it wasn't because I didn't put in the work; reading maybe more that was necessary which ended up being detrimental, watching videos, and hours and hours of screen time. I don't know how many hours and nights I've spent looking at charts, live and old. But I guess I was making the wrong observations or looking at the wrong things. Trying to find patterns, lines, shapes, support, resistance, trend, drawing more lines, trend lines, median lines, or something that would help me see why price was doing what it was doing. It was futile.

For every observation I wrote down in the chart, I could find another one that did the complete opposite.
"Oh, a pin bar is forming! That means price is being rejected, makes sense!" Then, in one scenario price reverses, and in the other one price keeps going in the same direction.
"This seems like a strong support level!" Then price absolutely obliterates that level and goes through it like a knife.

I was (and still am) spinning my wheels. I can't seem to be grasping the basics of why price does what it does. And I'm also at the point of information overload.

I believe this is one of those cases of "practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect". I don't believe my screen time was quality screen time. I don't want to say that all that time is gone to waste. Maybe it'll all come together. I don't know; time will tell.

But I'm not quitting this. I believe I just started with the wrong foot.

The Plan:

I'm going to do a "hard reset" and forget 99% of what I have read in the past.

But, to avoid being all over the place again, I'll keep 3 concepts that I found here which I think hold a lot of value:

1)
- The price breaks to new high's
- The price reverses from new high's
They happen regardless of time frame
They are phenomena that can be exploited without the fear if found out by others, that they might cease to exist.

2) If you can see loss then you can see profit. (Z-lines)

3) Body in the direction of profit, wick in the direction of loss; if price is closing higher than something then it is probably not going lower.

This isn't a trading journal per se, at least for now. It's going to be an effort to understand price, and why it moves from x to y. I'll be posting charts with observations, ploting a line here and there, and maybe some open questions, nothing more.

I know I will make mistakes, and very basic ones. So, if anyone wants to contribute, I'd be extremely grateful.

The blindfold has to come off eventually.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby Mira » Thu Dec 20, 2018 2:59 pm

BlindMan wrote:Intro:

Well. So here I am. Lurker for a very long time. Been struggling for even longer. I don't know if the forum is still active, at least from time to time, but reading the thread from arkan1976 motivated me to create this thread. Also, a big thank you to TRO, MightyOne, Mr. Hyde, Mira, v8 (r.i.p.), es/pip, dragon33, and all of you who kept the forum going and gave so much knowledge asking nothing in return. Your posts and ideas motivated me to keep on trying.

I've been through the same cycle of interest, hope, effort, lack of improvement and hopelesness 4 times. Soon to be at year 4. Not profitable yet, but at least my mindset is in order and I don't make dumb mistakes anymore (thank you TRO for all your videos). The important thing is that I know why I'm failing.

So, the necessary evil. Time to look at myself in the mirror. The good and the bad.

It's not that I can't manage my risk, or that I'm not patient, or that I'm anxious. I can follow a method rigorously and I don't fear losing trades. It's not about that. I've lost count of how many methods I tried. But it's always the same result in the long run: barely breaking even.

The main reason I'm not profitable, is because I can't read price. I'm terrible at understanding price action. As of today, I don't get it. Airballing exits because I don't know what the market is telling me. It's like reading a book written in a foreign language. I can understand the letters (candlesticks) but I can't understand the words/sentences (context and the chart as a whole).

And it wasn't because I didn't put in the work; reading maybe more that was necessary which ended up being detrimental, watching videos, and hours and hours of screen time. I don't know how many hours and nights I've spent looking at charts, live and old. But I guess I was making the wrong observations or looking at the wrong things. Trying to find patterns, lines, shapes, support, resistance, trend, drawing more lines, trend lines, median lines, or something that would help me see why price was doing what it was doing. It was futile.

For every observation I wrote down in the chart, I could find another one that did the complete opposite.
"Oh, a pin bar is forming! That means price is being rejected, makes sense!" Then, in one scenario price reverses, and in the other one price keeps going in the same direction.
"This seems like a strong support level!" Then price absolutely obliterates that level and goes through it like a knife.

I was (and still am) spinning my wheels. I can't seem to be grasping the basics of why price does what it does. And I'm also at the point of information overload.

I believe this is one of those cases of "practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect". I don't believe my screen time was quality screen time. I don't want to say that all that time is gone to waste. Maybe it'll all come together. I don't know; time will tell.

But I'm not quitting this. I believe I just started with the wrong foot.

The Plan:

I'm going to do a "hard reset" and forget 99% of what I have read in the past.

But, to avoid being all over the place again, I'll keep 3 concepts that I found here which I think hold a lot of value:

1)
- The price breaks to new high's
- The price reverses from new high's
They happen regardless of time frame
They are phenomena that can be exploited without the fear if found out by others, that they might cease to exist.

2) If you can see loss then you can see profit. (Z-lines)

3) Body in the direction of profit, wick in the direction of loss; if price is closing higher than something then it is probably not going lower.

This isn't a trading journal per se, at least for now. It's going to be an effort to understand price, and why it moves from x to y. I'll be posting charts with observations, ploting a line here and there, and maybe some open questions, nothing more.

I know I will make mistakes, and very basic ones. So, if anyone wants to contribute, I'd be extremely grateful.

The blindfold has to come off eventually.



Subscribed! Yes, the forum is still active but it’s a quiet moment.

IMHO there are two type of ‘learning’ in trading.
The first is about what you trade and the second is about how you trade.
We spend years over years to learn what to trade but, as TRO teaches us, is not what you trade but HOW you trade.

You don’t know what price will do next, price can break above a “supply level” or below a “bullish momo 50%/zline” when it wants and you can’t do nothing to stop it.
However if you don’t try to predict or force price but instead you try to trade WITH price then the market will be kind with you :D

1) Extremes give you a better RRR - WAIT
2) Price closes over a line - WAIT
3) Price wicks/doesn’t close over a line - ENTER
4a) Price goes in direction of profit - TAKE PROFITS
4b) Price closes back over a line - CLOSE + WAIT for another opportunity

Doing it with consistency will bring you from this -> 8) to this -> :shock:
__________ THE :smt096 IS A LIE__________

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:06 pm

Mira wrote:Subscribed! Yes, the forum is still active but it’s a quiet moment.

IMHO there are two type of ‘learning’ in trading.
The first is about what you trade and the second is about how you trade.
We spend years over years to learn what to trade but, as TRO teaches us, is not what you trade but HOW you trade.

You don’t know what price will do next, price can break above a “supply level” or below a “bullish momo 50%/zline” when it wants and you can’t do nothing to stop it.
However if you don’t try to predict or force price but instead you try to trade WITH price then the market will be kind with you :D

1) Extremes give you a better RRR - WAIT
2) Price closes over a line - WAIT
3) Price wicks/doesn’t close over a line - ENTER
4a) Price goes in direction of profit - TAKE PROFITS
4b) Price closes back over a line - CLOSE + WAIT for another opportunity

Hey, thanks for posting. As you said, and like TRO says, "it's not what you trade, its how you trade it". Anyone can trade anything. A reversal, a breakout, with any method. But doing so while being profitable? That's another story. All the pieces have to work together. Like our vital organs, if even one of them is missing, the whole thing falls apart.

On a side note, and relevant to the thread, TRO always says "Trade what you see." So first, I need to ask myself the question. What do I see?

I'll start from the most simple, basic, and obvious observations. Starting from absolute zero.

whatdoisee.png
whatdoisee.png (47 KiB) Viewed 5032 times


Well, I see a bunch of green and red rectangles, with lines going out from the top and bottom.

Now, for the sake of keeping terminology, I'll rephrase it.
I see a bunch of green and red candles with bodies and wicks.

After every hour a new candle appears after the last one, and starts where the line price is (and where the last candle closed). Just a little line with almost no size. This open never changes. Throughout the hour, the line price goes up and down. When the price goes above the open line, the color is green, and when it goes below it, the color is red. Also, when price goes away from the open, the body gets bigger. Wicks are formed when price goes back to where it came from.

From my observation, I can't say if price is going up or down just by looking at the candle color. The candle can be red, but doesn't necessarily mean that it's going down. For example, if a wick starts to form on a red candle as price moves towards the open, price is going up, but the candle is still red. I can only say that price is going down when it's moving away from the open line and while the candle is red.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I'm just pointing out what I see.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:29 pm

Bar size can vary a lot within the same chart, in relation to each other. From very small to really large.
They can also happen in a row, and price goes fairly quickly into the same direction. These series of bigger candles seem to have smaller wicks, and very large bodies.

whatdoisee2.png
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If I had to draw a line to follow these moves, the line gets really steep.

whatdoisee3.png
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Price suddenly went up from a place with smaller candles (a series of little red and green candles against each other). Then retraced a bit, then went back up (but not as high as the big move), and then went back down. But where did it go?

whatdoisee4.png
whatdoisee4.png (23.4 KiB) Viewed 5024 times


It went back down to where the move started. Which is also in the same line with the "top" of that zone of very small movement.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Thu Dec 20, 2018 6:43 pm

And I see that something very similar happened later. The initial movement was faster but smaller (if I compare it to the one before), and price went back to where the big move started. The "retracement" was faster as well.

whatdoisee5.png
whatdoisee5.png (40.44 KiB) Viewed 5021 times


And there's also this "curiosity". The retracement is about 50% of the size of the big move.

whatdoisee6.png
whatdoisee6.png (26.89 KiB) Viewed 5021 times


Mira wrote:You don’t know what price will do next, price can break above a “supply level” or below a “bullish momo 50%/zline” when it wants and you can’t do nothing to stop it.


Half of the big movement = "momo 50%"?

Is this related to what you were talking about?

How is "momo" or momentum displayed in a chart? Is it a large candle? Is it a combination of larger candles going in the same direction, moving price away from a line very quickly? Is it both?

This chart is from today. I picked the first chart that I saw.

Edit: is it possible that it can happen a 3rd time?

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby Mira » Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:41 pm

BlindMan wrote:
Mira wrote:Subscribed! Yes, the forum is still active but it’s a quiet moment.

IMHO there are two type of ‘learning’ in trading.
The first is about what you trade and the second is about how you trade.
We spend years over years to learn what to trade but, as TRO teaches us, is not what you trade but HOW you trade.

You don’t know what price will do next, price can break above a “supply level” or below a “bullish momo 50%/zline” when it wants and you can’t do nothing to stop it.
However if you don’t try to predict or force price but instead you try to trade WITH price then the market will be kind with you :D

1) Extremes give you a better RRR - WAIT
2) Price closes over a line - WAIT
3) Price wicks/doesn’t close over a line - ENTER
4a) Price goes in direction of profit - TAKE PROFITS
4b) Price closes back over a line - CLOSE + WAIT for another opportunity

Hey, thanks for posting. As you said, and like TRO says, "it's not what you trade, its how you trade it". Anyone can trade anything. A reversal, a breakout, with any method. But doing so while being profitable? That's another story. All the pieces have to work together. Like our vital organs, if even one of them is missing, the whole thing falls apart.

On a side note, and relevant to the thread, TRO always says "Trade what you see." So first, I need to ask myself the question. What do I see?

I'll start from the most simple, basic, and obvious observations. Starting from absolute zero.

whatdoisee.png

Well, I see a bunch of green and red rectangles, with lines going out from the top and bottom.

Now, for the sake of keeping terminology, I'll rephrase it.
I see a bunch of green and red candles with bodies and wicks.

After every hour a new candle appears after the last one, and starts where the line price is (and where the last candle closed). Just a little line with almost no size. This open never changes. Throughout the hour, the line price goes up and down. When the price goes above the open line, the color is green, and when it goes below it, the color is red. Also, when price goes away from the open, the body gets bigger. Wicks are formed when price goes back to where it came from.

From my observation, I can't say if price is going up or down just by looking at the candle color. The candle can be red, but doesn't necessarily mean that it's going down. For example, if a wick starts to form on a red candle as price moves towards the open, price is going up, but the candle is still red. I can only say that price is going down when it's moving away from the open line and while the candle is red.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I'm just pointing out what I see.


If price made a HH then it’s going up to me.
Then you have a pullback, it tends to happen at the breakout line, at the 50% of the move or at the 0%/demand level/zline.
After in the trade every opposite S/R is a decision point: take profits or not?

How do i trade it: i go down by one or two timeframes and I wait for a smaller setup away from my line.
The smaller setup offers me a line too, I’m going to use this last “smaller” line to open/close the trade.

C49C1989-CFC1-4416-ACF0-DD62E8A7D4E8.jpeg
C49C1989-CFC1-4416-ACF0-DD62E8A7D4E8.jpeg (177.49 KiB) Viewed 4993 times
__________ THE :smt096 IS A LIE__________

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby LeMercenaire » Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:27 pm

Welcome aboard. It's actually a good time to do so, as the holidays are steaming in fast, so time to read as much as possible and trade as little as possible, lol.

Happy to tag along and do what I can to help you on your journey, if I can.

Once the NY kicks in, I'll get myself back up to full speed but any questions, ask away, as I will still be popping in pretty much every day.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:52 pm

Higher highs are made after price breaks out from the previous high, after reversing from the previous low.

Price can only reverse or break out. But from what? From the open/close/high/low of candle? From previous higher/lower highs/lows? Or from a specific value in price? These are just specific values in price, that can be drawn with lines.

whatdoisee7.png
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whatdoisee8.png
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whatdoisee9.png
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Or out of a zone?

whatdoisee10.png
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whatdoisee11.png
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whatdoisee12.png
whatdoisee12.png (23.96 KiB) Viewed 4921 times


It's just a point in the chart where price hit that point, and either broke out or reversed. Lines or zones (determined by lines).

Price, more often than not will eventually move away from a zone/line.

In hindsight, I'd say that you could throw a random line in any place in the chart and make your trading decisions based on that. But maybe we could make a better use of the chart to place lines where entries, stops, and targets would make sense, based on what price has been doing.
Last edited by BlindMan on Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:20 pm

If I look at one timeframe, it can display something very different.

H1
whatdoisee13.png
whatdoisee13.png (45.37 KiB) Viewed 4913 times

M5
whatdoisee16.png
whatdoisee16.png (19.33 KiB) Viewed 4913 times


But the only reason it looks different is because I'm just looking at less time. It did the same thing, but it's only showing this part of the H1 chart:
whatdoisee17.png
whatdoisee17.png (18.07 KiB) Viewed 4913 times


It's just giving a more detailed look.

Because price is the same on all timeframes.

whatdoisee13.png
whatdoisee13.png (45.37 KiB) Viewed 4913 times

whatdoisee14.png
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whatdoisee15.png
whatdoisee15.png (59.26 KiB) Viewed 4913 times


But if price is the same on all timeframes, why do we need multiple timeframes? Well, zooming out that much might not be practical, and looking at charts might give us clues on what price is doing. If we base a trading decision on what we see on the chart, it'd make sense to use that timeframe as a "framework" of reference to work with. For example, I don't think I'd make a long term decision based on a 5 minute chart that's only showing me 100 bars.

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Re: Taking off the blindfold

Postby BlindMan » Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:31 pm

- Candles (bodies, wicks, and their size in relation to the other candles)
- Extremes
- Breakouts or reversals
- Places where price stalls over time
- Strong moves in the same direction (momentum).

Is that all? Is looking at anything else complicating the whole thing?
Last edited by BlindMan on Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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