Barney's Ballsups

[barney]

If they're big bars, flying all over the place, like an angry zebra on crack, then I stay the hell out of it.

.

Thanks for that post above Weat. Some good info in that ... I picked my favourite bit to "quote"

The world in fifty years will be unrecognisable.

Aint that the truth!!

Cars will drive you to where you want to go while you sit and watch videos! Or if you are real wealthy, you will have your own Aerocar which will fly you there in 10% of the time:car:

Barney once again great thread, from the chart you've posted I reposted it and outlined in the white where the best entry would be. I have seen this pattern many times and on many time frames. Can you see the psychology behind the price action and the why it finally breaks down.
You get the timing right and it's money in the bank my friend.

Absolutely "D". I understand the psych behind the Spikes and agree it can be a great setup.

Just another note on that same setup ... After the original Double Top/Spike/Fail/Drop ....... The retest up to the midpoint was almost exactly 50%. Again its something I can only eyeball test, but that 50% zone is Very repetitive I like to scale into entries so its possible to get fairly aggressive with the first positions.

On that note, I got overly aggressive last night on Poor setups and paid the price. That's why I shut up shop early. Often better to walk away than play catch up I've found

Chart of that 50% zone below just for reference.

ps. The ensuing Double Top also broke down for another quality Short back into a Fib Zone I prefer to see it as a 2% move ..... Fibs do seem to regurgitate, but I see % moves as more mathematically rational.

 

[tech/a]

Thanks for that post above Weat. Some good info in that ... I picked my favourite bit to "quote"






Aint that the truth!!

Cars will drive you to where you want to go while you sit and watch videos! Or if you are real wealthy, you will have your own Aerocar which will fly you there in 10% of the time:car:



Absolutely "D". I understand the psych behind the Spikes and agree it can be a great setup.

Just another note on that same setup ... After the original Double Top/Spike/Fail/Drop ....... The retest up to the midpoint was almost exactly 50%. Again its something I can only eyeball test, but that 50% zone is Very repetitive I like to scale into entries so its possible to get fairly aggressive with the first positions.

On that note, I got overly aggressive last night on Poor setups and paid the price. That's why I shut up shop early. Often better to walk away than play catch up I've found

Chart of that 50% zone below just for reference.

ps. The ensuing Double Top also broke down for another quality Short back into a Fib Zone I prefer to see it as a 2% move ..... Fibs do seem to regurgitate, but I see % moves as more mathematically rational.

Point a few of us are making is that showing these patterns on a chart after the fact is VASTLY different to trading them AS THEY HAPPEN---in any timeframe.

If someone would like to post up a few as they happen perhaps we can watch as they unfold to perfection as those shown have!

 

[barney]

Point a few of us are making is that showing these patterns on a chart after the fact is VASTLY different to trading them AS THEY HAPPEN---in any timeframe.

If someone would like to post up a few as they happen perhaps we can watch as they unfold to perfection as those shown have!

Tech, You may not have noticed, the name of the thread is ....... "Ballsups"

Nobody here is trying to show you how good they are; not me anyway. I've made it abundantly clear that I started this thread to try and improve my myriad of constant self destructive mistakes. (When I started it, I thought I might have been on to something ..... I have had to re-think several times since then

By posting up what "should have been done" (perfection) hopefully everybody learns something; I certainly do! You admit you know everything you need to know; you are fortunate. The "perfect" charts are simply a reference; and they are far from perfect but they are useful, and useful is a good place to start.

Cheers.

 

[tech/a]

Tech, You may not have noticed, the name of the thread is ....... "Ballsups"

Nobody here is trying to show you how good they are; not me anyway. I've made it abundantly clear that I started this thread to try and improve my myriad of constant self destructive mistakes. (When I started it, I thought I might have been on to something ..... I have had to re-think several times since then

By posting up what "should have been done" (perfection) hopefully everybody learns something; I certainly do! You admit you know everything you need to know; you are fortunate. The "perfect" charts are simply a reference; and they are far from perfect but they are useful, and useful is a good place to start.

Cheers.

Barney.

You need to know what it is ----You NEED to know!

If you don't---you just swim through information without knowing what it is you need and what to do with it----let alone how and why to implement it.

How about you list your myriad of self destructive mistakes.
Ill bet there aren't that many---a myriad Id say is 10+
I think you'd be surprised by how few they are.
Then post how you intend to over come the list.

In my view---Unless your developing a System based upon conditions and variables---past history is of little value.
You NEED TO KNOW how to implement and how to trade any hint given to you.
and YOU NEED TO KNOW in the NOW not how it panned out last time or last year!

For every time you see this set up (Double bottom or Double top ) It will fail more often than not.
HOW do you trade that---a failure?
How do you know when to hang in it when it corrects at some point?
How do you know when to exit.
How do you know when you should be hitting it a more.
How do you know when it should be placed on a watch list and not traded.
How do you position size it.
How do you set your stops--if any.

 

[barney]

Barney.

You need to know what it is ----You NEED to know!

If you don't---you just swim through information without knowing what it is you need and what to do with it----let alone how and why to implement it.

How about you list your myriad of self destructive mistakes.
Ill bet there aren't that many---a myriad Id say is 10+
I think you'd be surprised by how few they are.
Then post how you intend to over come the list.

In my view---Unless your developing a System based upon conditions and variables---past history is of little value.
You NEED TO KNOW how to implement and how to trade any hint given to you.
and YOU NEED TO KNOW in the NOW not how it panned out last time or last year!

For every time you see this set up (Double bottom or Double top ) It will fail more often than not.
HOW do you trade that---a failure?
How do you know when to hang in it when it corrects at some point?
How do you know when to exit.
How do you know when you should be hitting it a more.
How do you know when it should be placed on a watch list and not traded.
How do you position size it.
How do you set your stops--if any.

Just back in from doing real work ...... work is way over rated!

Tech, I appreciate such a detailed response.

Just a quick response to some of the above.

Actually this is more of an admission than a response, I am totally aware that I am not a very regimented person. I am self taught at almost everything I do (and in all humility, I tend to go ok at most things once I iron out the bugs)

I tend to treat trading in the same way, which maybe is not the best way to go about it ...... Try something; if it doesn't work, try something else until it does work.

That philosophy is working to a point as I see things happening on charts now days which I would never have even noticed a couple of years ago. One particular "pattern" I've been "testing" over the last week or so really got me interested. Its based around the correlation concept between currencies so it tends to be confirmed from more than one direction, but that is a work in progress, and doesn't address the grass roots stuff you have identified above

With no system parameters to back test you are dead right; I am flying blind; sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Unfortunately I can't get my head round back testing as Excel formulas etc bog me down and I am impatient (another failing!), so I meander around making the same kind of mistakes, like I did last night.

I remember Joe/Apocalypto suggested similar things a few pages back, so it might be time to "regiment" myself up a bit and get a bit more serious about making it work.

Will digest your comments above over the next few days and hopefully add some more constructive replies.

Appreciate the input.

 

[Weatsop]

OK

This guy is world renowned.

http://thepatternsite.com/Busted.html
Check out his busted section and the patterns
Double tops
And Double bottoms.

You can even score your setup.
http://thepatternsite.com/scaadt.html

Like all patterns they are a legitimate setup.
But there is more to them than just an opinion.
There are and has been a great deal of research on 1000s of patterns.
Everyone wants an edge.

You have a lot to learn.

Not sure if I misunderstood, but Bulkowski actually gives head-and-shoulders the highest rating of 1: http://thepatternsite.com/hst.html

"...the best performing bearish chart pattern in a bull market".

The busted section if for stats on what happens when the pattern fails.

LOVE the site, though. Solid gold for ignorant numpties like me. Eating this stuff with a SPOON.

I was way too worried about frauds and liars, back in the day. Now I'm finding reliable people to listen to, I'm getting a lot of good stuff.

 

[tech/a]

Not sure if I misunderstood, but Bulkowski actually gives head-and-shoulders the highest rating of 1: http://thepatternsite.com/hst.html

"...the best performing bearish chart pattern in a bull market".

The busted section if for stats on what happens when the pattern fails.

LOVE the site, though. Solid gold for ignorant numpties like me. Eating this stuff with a SPOON.

I was way too worried about frauds and liars, back in the day. Now I'm finding reliable people to listen to, I'm getting a lot of good stuff.

Yes but best read glossary warning.

 

[Weatsop]

Yes but best read glossary warning.

Yeah, I used to use some perfect trading setups to backtest stuff in Amibroker. It's a pile easier to do, just to give you an idea if something sorta works. Sorta like: if this happens, how often does it get to THERE before it goes to HERE? If it gets a daily low in my trading hours, how often will it drop another 10 before it goes up 10? Not a system, just an idea of what usually happens.

The biggest problem for something like this is going to be recognising it correctly at the time, even if the numbers line up. Once you count "complex" head and shoulders, it gets a bit... zen.

 

[barney]

Scale in Longs the GBP/USD ... no time to post charts etc ... just recording it as its a live trade See what happens

 

[barney]

Scale in Longs the GBP/USD ... no time to post charts etc ... just recording it as its a live trade See what happens

This is basically where its at ....... I like the trade ... I put a lot of thought into it ..... if it goes wrong I will wear it as another "miss"

 

[barney]

This is one of the places I get confused .....

All my scaled in trades are in profit ...

I still think the medium term trend is going higher towards my original points of analysis, maybe/maybe not

But my current profits are being eroded in the short term by the retracement ....

Should I:-

Switch to the lower time frame and trade the short term swings, still with a bias to the long side?

Should I simply close out a profitable Trade??

Should I add more positions on the dips??

Price action in this instance (if I'm correct) says the Pound will go higher in the short/medium term ........ This is where a good trader would know what to do ....... I want to be a good trader, so I will hang on the the current positions and if it goes pear shaped will look like a ...... but I will tighten the stops a bit to ease the potential pain!

 

[barney]

Pound still looks positive even into the retrace ...added and tightened stops ... profits being eroded slightly but it still "feels" long ....... Is it possible to trade by feel?? .. that's how I play guitar lol

 

[barney]

Closed all Long GBPUSD's .... Long EURUSD ...... see if that was a smart move


PS. Bad trade ... Should have waited for the double bottom on the EUR/GBP ... still holding as the trade is still valid ..... but underwater

 

[cynic]

Now looking more like a backwards "N".

Hopefully that'll turn into a "W" soon!

Briefly turned "W"-ish a while back, but now looking like a super ball bouncing over the edge of a cliff!

That's short flavoured strategies and QE for you! Definitely a challenging mix!!

 

[barney]

Closed all Long GBPUSD's .... Long EURUSD ...... see if that was a smart move


PS. Bad trade ... Should have waited for the double bottom on the EUR/GBP ... still holding as the trade is still valid ..... but underwater

Added to EURUSD Long ...Stops tightened ...... ordinary Entries on average again ..... Still expect it to move up, but taking heat where I didn't need to:frown:

 

[barney]

Closed all Long EUR/USD positions .... Crap entries ... crappy tading!!

 

[barney]

Long the Pound AND the Euro against the USD

 

[Wysiwyg]

Barney, Hope you don't mind me using this thread to produce the evidence of what I was posting before but I opened another short sell when the spread was 20 cents and took this screen shot. The computer time is lower right for real time facts.

 

[barney]

Barney, Hope you don't mind me using this thread to produce the evidence of what I was posting before but I opened another short sell when the spread was 20 cents and took this screen shot. The computer time is lower right for real time facts.

View attachment 60097

Yeah that's pretty outrageous

 

[barney]

Long the Pound AND the Euro against the USD

More crappy trading

Traded well early .... traded like a :homer: late