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Re: Price&Time/Miner/Elliott wave.



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Terry S. Smith wrote:
> 
> Without sounding like a parrot. Bob Minor's Dynamic Traders new book at
> 98.00 really is the best deal I have seen in a long, long, time in this
> business. It is packed full of useful advice that I continue to go back and
> read and re-read almost weekly. This course has turned into my bible. 

Maybe it does not really matter - I am sure I read a recent interview
with him were he described himself as an educator/advisory service - he
did not use the term trader.

I thought it might be worthwhile resending a post that I first sent
earlier this year.

Please note the last paragraph - this is not an anti wave post.

Start of earlier post.

ramon barros wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> Let's be fair to Miner.
snipped

> In this case, Miner has specified this a
> CIT trade, we are in a price zone, with
> the time window extending into the end of
> April (I think). Once the time expires,
> unless the sell signal is triggered, the call
> in invalidated. He is also looking for a specific
> entry signal and has a stop in case the trade
> goes wrong.
> 
> You can't ask much more from an advisory service.

I agree. He is simply highlighting a high probability set up according
to his approach. Further he states "if the SPX makes new daily and
closing highs after April 29 AND above 1200, the bull trend should
continue into at least the second half of June". 

The price, time and pattern approach for picking the end of trends does
not suit my makeup. So I do not a have a view on Miner's call other than
to say at least he lays out all the parameters and a specific and clear
plan of action ie. he has laid out a script to be followed in real time.
See Market Wizards.

I have his Dynamic Trading book and I highly recommend it. It covers
much more than Price and Time topics and is therefore vey usefull even
if P and T does not suit one.

One thing it lacks ( which the software may have) is a "robust" non
subjective method of determing the trend that is independant of E Wave.

The P and T method of catching market turns appeals to the greed / fear
in most of us. Therefore there is a certain seductive appeal to the
ideal of picking turns. I think that this gnaws away at most traders who
have had exposure to "picking turns" methods but who have not personally
experienced the reality of actually trading such methods. 

During my trading education so far I have looked at many approaches and
devoted hundreds, probably thousands of hours to trading. Along the way
I started to learn to ask some good questions. One of them would be
along the lines of - will this approach really produce significantly
improved results(use your definition/criteria) and will I be able
implement it? 

Now think about a P and T approach for picking the end of a trend AND
immediately entering a trade in the assumed "new" direction. Observation
of market action after (even valid) "calls" will show that what happens
next has no relationship to a valid market turn call. Sometimes the
market will then go sideways, retrace, accelerate( in either direction).
In other words it will do what it is going to do any way. I submit that
it is what happens next (ie. after the top/low is in) that determines
the outcome.

Big money moves markets. Things like, is there background weakness (left
side of the chart before the current high/low (Wycoff type stuff),
seasonals, commercial interests, experienced and battle hardened P and T
er's managing big money, oh and I almost forgot the astro guys and
girls, then there is the astronomy crowd etc. There are many highly
paid, mostly dedicated professionals with many other advantages that the
average trader does not have. They are each making there assessment of
what to do and place there bets accordingly. Hence for example Miner
uses patterns to confirm the P and T picture.

The BIG PLUS in all of this for the smaller to mid size player is that
we get to see what the NET result of all this decision making is and we
get to position our trades in high volume markets.

There is a time to be long, short or flat. Overtrading, lack of patience
and inability to make decisions are commonly sighted trading problems. 

I submit that for the majority of traders a P and T approach not backed
up with a suitable trend filter will result in inferior results over
time. All the P and T methods I have seen take up a considerable amount
of time to :-

a) research and learn

b) backtest - you will never trade it consistently unless you do this.
You will be onto the next holy grail quick smart if you do not.

c) implement - always lots of alternate possibilities. Lots of homework
to do. Can lead to burn out or simply giving up.

d) put on sufficient trades to build trust in the approach . This leads
to fighting markets and going for "home runs" when everything is
"perfectly" setup. Sound familiar.

The majority of traders simply do not have the required amount of time.

Using a sound P and T method may be usefull for taking profits. It may
be even more usefull for entering new positions after counter trend
moves against the underlying trend.

Knowing more about the enemy within
-----------------------------------

Here is another reason the manual was a good investment for me. Miner
details various P and T methods and shows how to combine them. Good
explicit information. However nothing I read convinced me that all the
extra work (even with the software) would produce proportionately better
results. For me possibly the inverse. 

They say that knowledge is power. I would say that knowledge when
correctly applied to one's own circumstances results in power to the
individual. The knowledge I gained from Miner's book made it easier for
me to further let go of "picking market turns" seduction. Hence it helps
me to be more balanced as both a trader and in other areas.

This is not to dismiss P and T methods. The vast majority of traders
lose. To the best of my knowledge there would only be a handfull of
traders in the world who enter at the end of trends AND who achieve
better results over time. The question for most is how to get into the
winners circle. Beware the tantalising thought of picking "THE" turn.

Most of us would be much better off finding a simple, defined approach
and putting more time into money management, trading and personal
beliefs etc. Every long term trader has stories of people who "blew up"
fighting markets ie. this usually means fighting trends. Remember there
is always an alternate scenario which gives a higher/lower level for
price.

See below.

> ----------
> > From: PGREC <PGREC@xxxxxxx>
> > To: RealTraders Discussion Group <realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: Re: Stock Market Report from Robert Miner
> > Date: Thursday, April 23, 1998 8:54 AM
> >

> >
> > Robert Miner is good, but you should be aware he has written similar
> warnings
> > many times in the last year or two. 
Snipped

In the article and at other times Miner says this is only the third such
period since the 1994 low. If this is not the case, could someone who
has followed his stuff please post a message to the group. 


If I believed every prediction of the
> > potential for a bull market ending top, I would have been out of the
> market a
> > long time ago. Maybe he will be right this time, but he has been far from
> > perfect.

When I first came onto Realtraders I used to save and print all such
predictions. I do not trade the stock indexes by the way. It got to the
point that people where wrong so many times that people stopped posting
such predictions.

In fact at one time there were very few, curiously this was at a time
when the market was really rising strongly for some time. Then it dawned
on me that there would likely be a larger than usual correction. Sure
enough there was. 

None of the above is intended to cast any negative light on any method
or individual. I am sure that if I posted successfull trades for a
while, and then made a prediction then it is quite likely I would be
wrong and less likely to post another trade for awhile. It just seems to
be how things work.