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Point & Figure Charting - secret weapon?


P&F has dynamic time scale = the intrinsic movement

The charts really do have velocity and acceleration.

Because the waves of buying and selling do !

A sneaking Bull is exactly that
note the 2005 chart The months prior crowd together
Some months can not even get posted

The waves have receded -- built down
( so look at a 10pt chart like I am now )

Look at the spacing of the months current...

What drives a wide fast and active market and what does it facilitate ?

What drives a narrow slow and dull market and what does it facilitate ?

This is tape reading
P&F is a record of the dynamic of the tape

It is the actual voice of the tape ( The market )


I will update the 10 pt chart later
We have had a good move up from the congestion
and now are at important test

Also Time is important in comparative studies
and Relative Strength Studies..

There are (only ) waves of buying and selling

They have a price range , They have volume , and they have Time ( as Duration )... They reveal what we need to know ...

All you know about what you call VSA is same principles as P&F

eg looking for absorption on the 10 pt chart

Because the chart has an objective scale ( squared grid )
relationships remain as we zoom in or out
The trend lines do really measure acceleration and velocity

congestion is really congestion etc

A Wyckoff trader ( at least this one ) uses P&F like you use EW
in conjunction with VSA....

principles like impulse confluence etc very similar..





motorway
 

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The pattern form the 2003 lows is a very significant and strong pattern
Dupire ( back in the thread ) gives such a pattern a 90% probability of moving higher...

Ok to the 10 pt chart why now

so far


Ok 10 pt chart Now
with count/ objective of the pattern 3750 ( Fulfilled )

10 pt chart as previous eg in Sept

Empty Spaces !

This is first 10 pt pattern to make sense
waves have built down now they will build UP

( magnitude not direction )


The three Wyckoff Qualities

range volume time

need to be judged by the 4th

Position
this = the close of a bar
or the last box on the figure chart

HLC
There is no open

because the open is only at the start

That the price of a stock reflects or crystallizes everything known about or bearing on from the first sale on the Exchange (or Prior) up to the present time.

The present is the close on the last bar you are looking at
or the last box that has been posted/filled

bar chart effort vs result ( volume in vertical dimension )
figure chart cause Vs effect ( horizontal dimension )

Both are tools to analyse
the four qualities
of the WAVES

Trade Moves
Not time frames
why trade 10 pt moves
when there are 100 pt

Why look for 100pt moves
when there are only 10 pt ones

When looking to go long
watch Esp the Down waves



motorway
 

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A couple of Books to consider for those interested in P&F

Books that get into the How of reading a chart
( demand supply... Story of the tape unfolding )

and I think a good starting point ( these are older books )



I think they should be Should be read in this order

1)
DeVilliers and Taylor on Point and Figure Charting
by Victor DeVilliers and Owen Taylor

This is the two volume set
reproduced By Donald Mack ( it is not the 1933 booklet or later abridged versions )... Was expensive but I see it is now available in paperback.

Victor de Villiers was a close associate of Richard Wyckoff . De villiers became a P&F purest.

Where RDW thought (insisted ) they were both ( + Bar charts ) of equal importance .

2)
Second book is technically out of print
but new copies seem always to be available
and should not be expensive.


Study Helps in Point and Figure Technique by Alexander H. Wheelan

----


S&P500 chart 2% x 1 reversal

The chart itself defines the work has it unfolds as either Accumulation or Distribution

ground gained
ground lost
congestion & thrust/stride , active ( speeding up ) dull ( slowing down )
trend & reversal

action. reaction... depth of reaction

ceilings floors , angle of movement.. empty spaces
etc

As the Chart "flows" it reveals the changing technical position ( that it is flowing through but also creating, eg like a rivers relationship to the landscape )


What the waves do and don't do. ( eg look at the counter moves/reactions )


Important point to grasp is the chart does not have to move
and never sideways esp sideways
the action at the top
the action now

sideways is always risk to something and someone
and new opportunity for someone else

sideways in particular reveals a changing technical position

eg in de Villiers the analysis of the 1929 top...

that is why ( It can and does stop )
P&F is a superior map of volatility

motorway


Market prices move in jumps,
where physical time is a poor measure of significance
 

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For instance see the number of (Xs) postings in the S&P500 chart ?

( and their changing behavior but esp the number & width )

The year 06 to 07 ! 07 to 08 and 08 to 09

Ok very different to a BAR chart ?

Now read part of this research paper from SVQuant

Silicon Valley Quantitative Advisors (SVQuant) is a proprietary trading firm located in Silicon Valley, California.

Our technology is based on proprietary techniques that are based on over a decade of intense research



SO ???

Well this is P&F charting

So why do it ( and why from 1881 did people do it ) ?

SVQuant Find :



motorway
 
We demonstrate that by using this
new data series in technical trading indicators and rules the performance of these
techniques can be greatly improved.

Among their findings ..For example making use of support and resistance ..

They conclude with a very strong statement


Eg Support and Resistance on a Point and Figure chart
vs Support and Resistance on a Bar Chart ( or anything else )

Remember their market time data = intrinsic time
= the flow of the P&F

OK... The old books are valuable because the fellows who wrote them
were not just writing about the misbehavior of markets

But were The Misbehaviour itself and sought to profit from it..

They knew all about intrinsic time because they were "tape readers"

Activity and Volume unfolds
It only misbehaves when seen in terms of the ticking clock

( when you use VSA what are the focal points VSA = tape reading too )

Some charts

Shanghai
S&P

Thrusts
halfway points ( and halfway points of those etc )

( law of proportion )

The 45 degree movement
( law of 50% )





congestion + empty spaces=
pattern ( some nice apexes )


active -dull ( coming or going eg alighting like a feather on support ))

All this is implied ( and often stated )

even way back pre 1900

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...all+street&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0#PPA42,M1

page 42&43

motorway
 

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Looking for Shanghai to breakout Monday

on the 100 pt chart ( valid upside targets )


Also the 50 pt ( white spaces make patterns more powerful
because they point to larger scale forces ) to look inside the 100 pt

RIO too after all it is a Shanghai Stock also


dyor

motorway
 

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That pattern on RIO
is a strong one...

We do not filter to conceal but to reveal

We have levels of magnification
because there are scales of magnitude

We can filter by price , by volume and by time

In P&F, though it appears that price is filter

It is really the flow of prices ( traded prices ) that is the filter

Hence time is what is really being filtered

We duck when the punch is thrown regardless of the timeAll things alive are non linear

The secret to anything is knowing the correct time..
When the forced moves unfold

Markets continually get into positions of forced moves
At the right Time they just fall over or soar up

This Time is non linear

Volume and flow ...

I saw on another forum the linking of TA to signal processing
moving averages as low by pass filters etc

But it was all linear... No one using the techniques would ever duck until after the punch was thrown and in most cases LANDED..

Yet a punch is a forced move it has a preparation it Unfolds...

like standing a ruler on its end all it can to is fall over
just like the Stock market did.
When the time comes ... The non linear time >>


Many applications of signal processing deal with processing an input signal and producing an output signal

eg a Bar Chart or a Point and Figure Chart----Then various indicators derived from these


eg Trend line - Moving average


A common scenario occurs when a signal is transmitted through a channel which corrupts it with noise. Consequently, the receiver must attempt to reconstruct the original signal as closely as possible from the corrupted one.


In general, this is a difficult problem, especially if the receiver has no knowledge of the signal or noise characteristics or statistics. However, in many practical situations, the statistics of the noise are known.


For instance, if it is known that the noise is modeled by an additive Gaussian process, then a linear filter is known to be optimal.


This optimality result is one of the primary reasons that linear filters have been a primary tool throughout the history of signal processing. Other reasons for this are that linear filters are well understood and they have some elegant theoretical properties. Their simplicity follows mainly from the linearity property.


Besides this, linear filters offer acceptable performance in many situations.


Linear = fixed time scale = a Bar chart


Nevertheless, in many instances it is impossible to find an acceptable linear filter, such as when noise is non-additive or is non-Gaussian. ( Stock Market ) For example, it is well known that linear filters can remove additive high frequency noise as long as the signal and the noise do not overlap in the frequency domain.


Sometimes the "noise" is the signal.


In signal processing , the signal often contains meaningful high frequency components, such as edges and fine details ( turning points major & minor ).


A linear lowpass filter, ( A Bar chart a Moving average on a Bar Chart ) if applied to such a signal, would blur these sharp edges and details ( coarse lag ) thus producing unacceptable results, so nonlinear filters must be used.




Price distributions do not follow the expected Gaussian bell curve but are fat tailed with dramatic variations four times greater than “what they should
have been.” And for extremely short intervals of time price extremes were
even larger: up to 10 times the predictions of the classical model. ( Richard Olsen )


Non-linear = dynamic time scale = a Point and Figure chart.


motorway


I have adapted this from this link
A good description of non linear filters

http://personal.systemsbiology.net/ilya/NONLINEAR.htm


noise is signal / signal is noise
depending on the Time
 
page 39

http://www.mta.org/eweb/docs/Issues/08 - 1980 May.pdf

page 33

http://www.mta.org/eweb/docs/Issues/51 - 1999 Winter.pdf

Surprising close to accurate history of Practitioners
and how close the connections



Ancient babylon 2twocents ) Green(e?)/Hoyle/Klein/Wyckoff-----------------------------> Sexsmith / de villiers--------> Taylor----> Wheelan

And others forgotten whose efforts have been reinvented.

Also Edmund Tabell ( Richard Wyckoff's Grand Nephew )---> Anthony Tabell----- >Kenneth Tower

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811089,00.html

on to the moderns as mentioned in the thread

eg Richard Olsen scale of markets shocks in intrinsic time..


Why did it evolve as it did ?

because it never strayed away from the reality of the tape
When the tape moved There was a mark to be put down
when it did not there was NOTHING..

After enough marks recorded there was the voice of the market ( Wyckoff's CM )
Recorded in it's intrinsic time and rhythm

Really the Song of Composite MAN ..

Wyckoff Went to work in Wallstreet 1888 So any attempt to understand
the practise or the history of P&F (or a lot else )
without understanding something of Wyckoff and his method

Is very incomplete imo.....................

What people understand as P&F is a particular trading system..
And even here 3 box reversal charts and even the use of X and Os date way back

As charts from the 1920's reveal

motorway




De Villiers chart from early 1930s
 

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RIO

1 x 2% chart

Both log and Linear charts have their advantages ( and differences )

The two moving averages are just a way of measuring

The increase in detail with increase in magnification

ie ... This 2% chart reveals more information than the 4% chart does

Some De villiers pointers on his 1930's chart above



What both charts show
is that supply was overcoming demand
to the extent that prices tanked

Finally demand meets supply and there is a climax and liquidation

( The 2pt chart maybe clearer.. But the majority sold out at the low prices )

For every seller there is a buyer

So in a few blinks the technical position totally changes..

Why--> because it can not go up, is not going up to go up

Till after "they" sell

It is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of studying the technical position, particularly when making a speculative commitment.
Richard Wyckoff


“One of the few flat statements you can make about the stock market is that any price trend will eventually be carried to excess.”
P&F Chartist
John W. Schulz

The RIO chart

reveals

That

Equilibrium has been regained and a new up trend channel is in process of being
established.
Here, demand begins to overcome supply---

Victor De Villiers

This is the first touch of the upper channel since the actual top .

process of being important to note.. nothing certain all is flux...
But How many of the best 10 days of gains have been missed from the top ?

These 10 days that if you miss you never make up ?
The chart says that a lot of people hung on so as not to miss them
only to sell out at the lows... What good did it do them ?

Wyckoff teaches that the most important thing anyone can know about a market or an individual issue is its trend and the position that it occupies in the trend. The trend is the line of least resistance.

Inportance of the empty spaces

Prices flow like a river/creek

Around from and to them...


''Here, demand begins to overcome supply''

well we have to find that out


motorway
 

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The further back you go in the history of market analysis
The closer you get to pure demand and supply



Update on the Shanghai charts

looking for this to keep leading the way

The whole theory of supply and demand is briefly but clearly shown.

The principle is old; it is easy to
understand. Very few people apply it.


Richard D Wyckoff



Anyone reading de Villiers work will see a lot of Wyckoff in it
and really nothing very far from the reality of demand and supply.

Even so Richard seems to think Victor went to close over to the dark side
of mechanical patterns ( fantasy )...
With his Fulcrums and Catapults

Ground gained ( demand ) Ground lost ( supply )
Ground Held ( support ) Ground withheld ( resistance )

length of thrusts
length of reactions

Equilibrium gained or lost

What is winning ?
What is waxing , what is waning
emerging or retreating

Demand Supply

"The whole theory of supply and demand is briefly but clearly shown.
The principle is old; it is easy to
understand. Very few people apply it."




motorway
 

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RIO too after all it is a Shanghai Stock also

update that RIO chart

and also post the 2 box reversal chart

When the dynamic TIME is up, price movement will start and large volume will begin, either up or down."



Here is a P&F chart..... It is strong also from the TOP ( there are no overhead 45 angles from the top.... THERE are lesser angles though and with P&F they show up on the (2) 3 (,4, & 5 ) box reversal.....


quotes from the gann thread

A trading method should be as simple as it can be.

motorway
 

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M/W

Would you be able to post a chart showing a few trades from inception to completion?

Ive never seen one traded with P&F.
I dont know how you would apply P&F analysis to a trade and never seen it done.How you'd analyse an opportunity through to managing the trade.

Would be interesting to watch if you could add some commentary.
Thanks M/W
 
Analyzing the XAO with a 75 pt chart atm ( remember earlier I was looking at the 100 pt )

We can then compare other candidates and objectively determine Technical postions

stocks ahead or behind ( in terms of buying and selling waves )


You can see for example RIO compared to XAO ( I am currently long RIO )

IF you look at the XAO chart you can see the chart is at a balance point

( one way is the line with the 2 in it if we break the phases up we have 5 boxes across / We are Five boxes High from that point )

So as posted in the Gann Thread XAO needs to move above resistance
or move back down for an optimal buy point

The thread should be full of P&F charts
But it is not

I left the thread with two books recommended
( They are good introductions )

All My entries are Basic Wyckoff

eg A Last point of supply after a Sign of Strength

You can not have an uptrend unless there is a reversal on a P&F chart
which not trapped in a time frame will be Timely

And does not move unless something moves it



motorway
 

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Thanks M/W.

I guess I should have a good look at Du Plessis which I have.
Have you adapted Wyckoff to P&F?
OR
did Wyckoff see P&F as "The" chart style for his method?

I note the VSA guys have removed P&F from their software.
As P&F was designed for recording 'ticks" I guess it can be used in anytime frame.
 
Thanks for the post, MW. I can understand some of it...

When you say "rise above resistance", I assuming you mean it has to cross above your 100% line. How many squares does it need to rise above to be a valid cross?
 

Wyckoff Used P&F on all time frames

With intra day he traded off P&F with volume (based on every tick & Tick Box size)
"Tape reading chart" ( I can send you an example )

Du Plessis is OK covers a lot

But he knows very little Wyckoff
And a few holes ( that are important )

P&F was never just a breakout method
Du Plessis has one page about buying underneath the pattern for example

Wyckoff used it for larger time frame ( SMI course )
as a tool to define objectively every stock of interest
it's trend /postion in the trend / capacity for a move --which way

Larger time frame he used Bar chart and P&F equally
and made the point you could trade of either alone

There is a VSA seminar that had a lot of Wyckoff in it ( Pruden was involved
it might be still available )
and some P&F and a promise to incorporate best P&F in a new tradeguider

( So scan P&F for setups like Wyckoff did )
Also determine Market strength or weakness from aggregating all the P&F charts..



motorway
 
Thanks for the post, MW. I can understand some of it...

When you say "rise above resistance", I assuming you mean it has to cross above your 100% line. How many squares does it need to rise above to be a valid cross?

First it has to cross
Then it is what happens

Any "work" at that point ( sideways movement ) and move down is negative
A thrust up and down is just part of a larger base building

Sideways but hold the gains is bullish and would want to go with move up from that point

A break up of THREE BOXES
would want to see the space retained from the breakout

very bullish

McClarren ?( talks of Spacing Gann )
Difference between a true and false catapult

Good spacing is Bullish sign

guidlines only
All is manipulation

motorway
 
Got it.(I actually do!).

You use a P&F package with a search type programme is that right?
I havent seen anything that searches P&F charts.
Surely you dont do all that labelling and numbering manually!
 
Anyone interested in P&F
and other methods of complete reality .

And The Scales Of Market Shocks/OlsenScales
are P&F CHARTS ( 100 of them )


Will be interested in this

http://www.olsenscale.com/about/video_archive/

esp the 5th and 3rd videos
And as an intro the 1st

4th is interesting too

How so very much
Something that is old . IS very new too..

Time frames distort ( and worse ), hide reality

Through

Distraction -->Getting lost in noise (clock ticking when it should not)
& Oblivion ---> Missing the significant.. ( clock not ticking faster when it should )

The challenge -->Move away from Clock time to Intrinsic time

To Event driven Reality where the velocity of Directional Change ( P&F Box size & Reversal ) and Overshoot....
Define Intrinsic Time---> Market Time----> Completely Real Time..

Re read the quotes from the 1930's of De villier's/Wyckoff
& compare




Should be many P&F charts on the forum
Because They are unambiguously
Completely
Real

Real = what has efficacy

completely --> Speaks for itself

Richard Olsen , and others , have come to their version of P&F
Through correct theory
Tape reader's came to it empirically

Both are RIGHT 100% in their choice of tools

When one deals in Intrinsic time ( and that is what deals with us in ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE )
One Finds that
The many things that people spend/waste ( WORRY ABOUT ANXIOUSLY ) time on in trying to crack the markets ( or LIFE )

Do not even exist..Let alone are in any way important



For Discussion


Where is the REAL ?

What is real . What is just mere artefact ?

--->

---> conventional time series analysis, focusing exclusively on a time series of regularly
spaced observations, is far removed from both the fractal viewpoint and the real nature of
the raw data

is far removed from the THE REAL....from TRUE TRENDS...
from TRUE SUPPORT and RESISTANCE..

Every Column = an EVENT ( it matters
= A TREND
EVERY REVERSAL is an EVENT = SUPPORT or RESISTANCE it matters

No Event
Never Matter
No Matter
NEVER MIND

Only the Real, counts
It has effect
It is an EVENT

-->and of course there is ALWAYS more

What does FRACTAL mean
It means when we remove Time Frames
All markets are basically the SAME
& all (effective) SCALES are the same

and ( controversly ? ) Are traded basically the same

Scaling Laws -->SCALE
They are invariants

It is only
conventional time series analysis

That obscures and makes differences that are not there
By distorting intrinsic time ( reality )



motorway
 

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Good stuff Motorway; yes, Olsen's videos are almost a text on PF charts! Thanks a lot for the link to those.
 
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