Welcome to the Best Trades forums

A risk management video would be great. Also a description of lot sizes, and contract sizes. As well as tick and pip value based on each size. A video on identifying channels, being that they are such an integral part of Al's program. Trend line drawing. These are just a few thoughts. Take care.

Let me tell you, what made me buy this course. It may give you some more ideas.

I've studied Al brooks books and courses for 2 years. And I'm now sitting with about 200 pages of handwritten notes.
Don't get me wrong, I love it! But it can be a bit overwhelming, trying to condense that much information, into an easy to follow strategy, especially with priceactions more discretionary nature.

I'm in the process of writing a trading-plan.
With specific rules for the analysis, setups and management parts.
So I can avoid getting too creative in the markets, when emotions take hold of me.

I believe your "best trades" course will help me in this process, as it is already a shorter version of it all.
None of us trade the same way, but an example of a priceaction trading-business-plan could be interesting to see, to get some ideas.

Right now I'm trying to turn it into, "If-Then" scenarios, and the binary decisions that Al sometimes talks about.
2 examples could be:
"If the market does this", "then I do this."
Is it a "bull leg in TR" or "bull leg in trend", but with a short description of what to look for, to tell the difference.

I also hope to find some "study buddies" here in the forum, so we can help each other towards being consistently profitable traders.

Best regards
Emil Rehder

I think this site is a great idea, thanks Richard. I've been trading for almost 8 years and would call myself consistent and profitable on longer timeframes (daily bars). I day trade sporadically around my day job, but am looking to go full time within the year. Day trading has been hit and miss and I'm aiming for more consistency before sizing up.
I think the smartest thing for this site would be to have everyone looking at the same chart: example ES 5 minute. However, it looks like people here will be trading a variety of charts.
I'll post some of my trades when I figure out how to annotate charts.

Dave

Thanks all for your valuable feedback.

Given the effectiveness of video, I plan to add videos on useful topics as suggested above and elsewhere to help us all do better. Just back from a 2 week break in the Australian bush country where Internet access was not good enough for any serious work online. Now back at my desktop PC, catching up, and ready to get going again. ; )

Hi Richard,

your videos are a highly condensed version of Al's course, focused on the essentials.

This helps to get profitable with those essentials, and continue to study Al's material, which needs, at least for me,  a lot of time to be processed.

However i'm missing one important topic which is stop management. (Loss & Take Profit)

It would be great if you could add some material about this.

Thank you in advance

Kind regards

Peter

Ok Peter,

I am happy to hear what important topics you and others need. I can address these through blog articles and videos. Stop/trade management is a common need, with so much confusion out there.

Will get to it as soon as possible, and likely revisit topic often!

Thanks for your input.

Hi Richard,

Enjoying your course a lot!  Your focus on four types of trades is so helpful.  I've been trying to do it all:  swing trades, scalping, stop entries, limit entries, scaling in and out, with mixed success.  Your course has changed my mindset and I'm focusing solely on MTR and breakouts.  Now if I see a trading range, I don't feel obliged to scalp, which for me reduces anxiety considerably.

Here's something I'm hoping you or another member might address:  Why do certain patterns work?  For instance, why are wedges often reversal patterns?  What's magic about three pushes?  Why do MTR patterns result in a swing reversal about 40 percent of the time?  Why are legs in measured moves the height of prior legs or trading ranges?  Obviously these patterns do work, but the reasoning behind why they work has eluded me.  Attributing the patterns either to human nature or computer programming isn't much of an explanation, so I'm hoping for illumination.

Best regards,

Bobby

Hi Bobby,

Happy to hear the reduced focus on fewer setups helps, as it surely should. We do not need to know absolutely everything to make money. I would add pullbacks to your arsenal as they are so common and easy to identify. Just be patient and wait for the second pullback (High/Low 2) for higher probability if it looks likely. But if you are happy with breakout trading, High/Low 1s are good in small pullback trends.

Ref your "Why do certain patterns work?" query, let me quote your message and give my view to each point, starting with your last comment that really needs to be highlighted!

>>Attributing the patterns either to human nature or computer programming isn’t much of an explanation, so I’m hoping for illumination.<<

Why isn't human nature or computer programming not much of an explanation? The market is composed of thousands of human beings, all with the same basic DNA and emotional hangups, all looking to survive the uncertainty of the market and make money. Thousands of computers, many more than said live humans, are also in the market with the best programmed by humans to rake in money by understanding and manipulating human behavior. So what we see over and over are the patterns left by greedy humans, fearful humans, insecure humans, and of course very clever humans (aka smart traders). Different skill levels for smart traders, and we are all working to be more smart than the average trader, right?

>>Why do certain patterns work? For instance, why are wedges often reversal patterns? What’s magic about three pushes?<<

Because enough traders believe they work so a self-fulfilling prophesy I would say. Nothing magic, except the market and us human participants are perhaps magic enough.

Another interesting thing about wedges for me is they often seem to be due to big players pushing market down 'one more time' from a 2 leg move to flush out weaker traders. So always be wary of having stops too tight.

>>Why do MTR patterns result in a swing reversal about 40 percent of the time?<<

Market inertia. The market usually continues doing what it is has been doing. So if a trend is in progress, any reversal has to be a low probability event, with lower risk and higher profit potential.

>>Why are legs in measured moves the height of prior legs or trading ranges?<<

Mathematics and programming I would say. Just the ubiquitous computers driving the market looking for a second profit run after taking their profits on the first leg. If we did not have the market going up and down, moving in legs, and such, speculators could not make money.

Just my 2 cents as they say. I welcome any other ideas on this important topic. Hope it helps.

Posted by: @rse67dtinsight-com

Because enough traders believe they work so a self-fulfilling prophesy I would say.

Richard,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. 

I suspect this explains most of why the patterns work.  After years/decades/eons of seeing the same patterns, our collective minds start to believe.  So much of what we think and do in all facets of life is based on pattern recognition.  The patterns become our 'truth'.  

Computers control the market, but people program them, so the same human bias drives the programming.  

In the end, we can't fight city hall; the pattern work and that's that!

Posted by: @rse67dtinsight-com

I would add pullbacks to your arsenal as they are so common and easy to identify. Just be patient and wait for the second pullback (High/Low 2) for higher probability if it looks likely.

Richard,

On the cusp of adding pullbacks, as you suggest.  MTRs and Breakouts are great, but the day includes a lot of thumb-twiddling if that's all I look for.   

My confidence in trading pullbacks has increased substantially recently.  I spent hours looking at charts to make sure I really, really understand high/low 2 and bar counting.   I re-watched videos here and on Al's site.  Then I spent time when the market was open watching a five minute chart and identifying high/low 2.  It's paid off, as now I see good potential pullback trades in real time.  The lesson for me was profound:  Don't settle for half understanding basic concepts.  Take whatever time is needed to become conversant.

Dear Richard,

I just watch your life trading video, I understand the scalping of 2 points and the continuous of scalping (entry and exit on chart) from Al's video.  In doing that, do you enter right away on the open of the next bar after you exit with 2 points profit on the last or current bar? When to stop, how do you manage all these trades and your emotion. How does it really work in actual trading? It would be very helpful if you can do a live trading video of continuous scalping.

Thanks.