21
ANATOMY OF A CHART Let’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them. 1.) Bar Charts: The 4 main parts of a bar: High - Highest Price that market traded Low - Lowest Price that market traded Open - First price the market traded Close - Last price the market traded What does a bar represent? A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day. Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time. 2.) Candlesticks Candlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher. Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed. LESSON 1 QUESTIONS? CONTACT US. [email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com TRACK 2 HIGH OPEN CLOSE LOW HIGH OPEN CLOSE LOW 30 0 10 20 9:30 14:00 16:00 12:00 BAR CHARTS CANDLESTICKS

ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

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Page 1: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 1

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

HIGH

OPEN

CLOSE

LOW

HIGH

OPEN

CLOSE

LOW

30

0

10

20

9:30 14:00 16:0012:00

BAR CHARTS

CANDLESTICKS

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Page 2: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

TRACK

LESSON 1

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

FOOTPRINT

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WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Page 3: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Bull or Bear Flags Head and Shoulders Double Tops or Bottoms

Range Consolidation Swing Highs or Lows Crooked M’s & W’s

Page 4: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

TRACK

2

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Page 5: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 3

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

TRACK

2

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

ORDER FLOW

SUPPORT(GET IN)

RESISTANCE(GET OUT)

find where many othertraders are trappedin a position

Page 6: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 4

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

IN

Page 7: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

LESSON 4

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

TRACK

2

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Page 8: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

TRACK

LESSON 5

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

GANN

DARVAS BOX

BOLLINGER BANDS

FLOOR PIVOTS

FIBONACCI

TREND LINES

MOVING AVERAGES

OSCILLATORS

Page 9: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

TRACK

LESSON 5

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

Page 10: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

What is Support and Resistance?Support and resistance are simply prices that a market might respect and bounce away from.

Support: is a price or an area of prices that are below where the market is currently trading.

Resistance: is a price or an area of prices that are above where the market is currently trading.

Many traders use support and resistance. However, the key is to qualify which support and resistances are good enough to trade, and which ones you should remain away from.

3.) The FootprintAround 2003 a trader using only bar and candlestick charts said to himself, “There has to be a better way!”

I think innovation always starts with ideology like that. This trader wanted to see what was “trading inside these bars or candles.” In the corresponding workshop video, we will cover what is shown on a Footprint chart. These Footprints are the main tool to mechanically track buyers and sellers inside a candle or bar. This trader took the volume and incorporated it into charts.

VOLUMEWhile bars and candles show price and time, the Footprint begins to introduce volume to the equation. Volume can be viewed in so many different ways. It can viewed along the bottom, along the side with a profile, or even “inside” the bar or candle.

MARKET AND VOLUME PROFILERSThis can be viewed as both a charting technique and/or theory which start to use volume and time to understand market structure. It’s well worth mentioning these elements because they have a large presence in this business.

There are many professional traders using MarketProfile and VolumeProfile techniques. I would consider this technique important to understand it at least on the surface. With any skill set you need to be able to execute it. Many bias creators are not always good bias executors. In other words, you want to be good at attaching trades to your opinions. Both volume and market profiling create excellent opportunities to understand a market but you still need to qualify it

Edge-ism | Professionals understand volume through the prism of what other traders are doing

SUPPORT/RESISTANCE

What Chart Patterns are Important?Markets can show similar patterns therefore, some traders like to identify a pattern and use it to predict the next move a price may take. This educational series doesn’t promote many of these patterns unless the trader knows why they sometimes could work. However, it’s important for the reader (trader) to relate and understand to what others might be looking for.

ANATOMY OF A CHARTLet’s look at charts in the three major ways that traders view them.

1.) Bar Charts:

The 4 main parts of a bar:High - Highest Price that market tradedLow - Lowest Price that market tradedOpen - First price the market tradedClose - Last price the market traded

What does a bar represent?A bar represents a specific moment in time. For example, one bar can represent one entire day in that market. So with the example, of one full day, if the highest price in that day was 30 then the top of the bar would reside at 30. The dash on the left of the bar would indicate the open or the first price traded that day. The dash on the right would represent the close or the “last price” traded that day. Finally, the bottom of the bar would remain at the lowest price traded that day.

Typically, the bottom of a chart would specify the time of day and along the right-hand side would represent the prices. If you follow the markings on the chart, you can follow the price it was trading at and at what time.

2.) CandlesticksCandlesticks are an alternative way of viewing the same data. High, low, open, and close is still the data shown. However, the body of the candle represents the price range between the open and the close. If the price closes lower than it opened then the body would be “red.” This would represent a market moving lower. The reverse of that is if the market closes higher than it opened, then the color of the body would be “green.” This would represent a market moving higher.

Outside of the body block, the “wicks” simply represent the highest price or the lowest price the market traveled before it closed.

EDGE ALERT LEVELSI can safely say that a common denominator in many traders (both professional and retail) is looking for support and resistance. Places where a market might go, stop, and even go the other way. These levels give us a place to execute or open a position. One common pain point however, is not taking the trades of the levels that work but getting trapped in the trades that don’t work. It brings me to the “qualifier” or Order Flow which helps traders to miss more losers but catch more winners. We use support and resistance as well; both to get in and out of trades. Let’s examine the differences between how retail and professional traders use these levels.

Many retail traders devise their own levels from mathematical formulas. The problem with that is that the market doesn’t care for math. All a market is concerned about is how many traders are long or short. Edge Alert Levels create a better line in the sand because they track buyers and sellers. The way to find the best support and resistance levels, is to find where many other traders are trapped in a position.

Edge-ism | You will never find what you’re not looking for

EMOTIONMarkets move of based on emotion. Price is more likely to move because traders are exiting positions, not entering them. When was the last time you exited a losing trade? How did you feel? Imagine if you could spot on a chart where many other traders have to exit a position and feel the same way. When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped, emotional and HAVE to get out!

Real Life Example

To those traders reading, how unique is the price you trade and open a position. Let’s say you are long from 31 even and the market did nothing but lower against you since the trade was opened. Then, it rallies back to where you got in the trade and where all the pain started. Now it has given you the chance to exit at a break even, what are you going to do? Sell it probably, and get out because that price is unique to you and you don’t want to feel the pain again of sitting through a losing position.

After you buy it, you’re a seller.

That’s one of the Edge phrases that resonates most with traders. After you go long you’re a seller. Knowing that, it’s now your job to find where others might be stuck long or short. Those are the best support and resistance levels out there. Now, on to our second point of the retail trap. This involves a poor or non-qualifying process to select what levels to trade and which ones to stay away from. Catch more winners and miss losers.

What separates professional traders from retail traders is the use of order flow and market relationships, in real time, when a level or decision comes into play. We look at correlating markets, as helpers, to enter and exit our positions. It is no different to consumers when qualifying the price they were quoted to buy a plane ticket, a car, or a house.

Real Life Example: Divorce

If you were going to buy a house and you knew the sellers were getting a divorce and had to SELL, where is price likely to go? The sellers are emotional and just want OUT! Just like trapped longs now have to sell to exit that position.

Edge-ism | It’s not about being right, it’s where others are wrong.

Keep trying to embrace the skill set you already have when valuing prices and remember,after you buy it you become a seller!

TECHNICAL/FUNDAMENTALWhat is Technical Analysis?Technical Analysis uses technical indicators or tools to try to disseminate future price movement. There are a myriad of these tools, so let’s list a few of the more popular ones.

TECHNICALSTechnical traders look at the theories and math we touched on previously. They use this list of tools we explained earlier to predict price direction.

These two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

When enough traders put on trades or positions on what should happen and the price doesn’t react like it should, look out! These are the clues we are looking for to recognize there’s something off. Like your nine year old son smiling when he says “I didn’t do it!?” Successful traders, like good parents, are detectives, and with the right techniques stack probabilities in their favor.

Using just fundamentals or just technical’s to shape your bias, ignores the most important element of all, executing that bias. If everyone thinks the same way, it won’t work. Where can I identify on a chart where many thought something should happen? Only to find it’s not happening! Where on a chart are traders stuck trying to implement a technical idea or a fundamental bias? There’s nothing wrong with many of the theories or techniques used to create an opinion. The problem lies when you don’t qualify them with the same technique used since the price was invented, comparing correlated markets and tracking buyers and sellers.

Many of these tools are considered “lagging” indicators. Hence, they don’t always aid in the predicative skills you need to trade successfully.

These tools are used more effectively through a qualification process. Qualifying, is recognizing or confirming that a market might respect this technical analysis. I am exposing readers to some of these technical tools so you can grasp how other traders use these techniques while trying to predict future price action. Also, how it has become one of the main traps that many fall into.

Building out scenarios is where traders start to create an idea or bias of what’s going to happen next. They take these seductive tools that look like they make sense but actually create false hope.

TRACK

LESSON 6

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

FUNDAMENTALSWhat Are Fundamentals?Fundamentals are information that affects and influences price movement based on real life events. These Fundamentals include:

Fundamental vs. TechnicalThese two camps only base their concepts on what should happen. Professional Traders base them on what should happen, but doesn’t.

You need to ask two questions when you begin to decide what analysis is appropriate and sustainable.

Here are a couple of questions to consider:1. Does it help you follow buyers and sellers? 2. Does it include following what other markets are doing?

These questions bring into play Order Flow and Market Relationships, two techniques which we’ll discuss in our future sections.

When you begin to weave these professional techniques into trading it makes other tools more effective. Not many would debate how you value price in the consumer world. When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

Edge-ism | When was the last time you brought a Fibonacci chart into a car dealer to show the salesman that his price was too high?

COMPANIES EARNINGS

GOVERNMENT ACTION/INACTION

TERRORIST ATTACKS

GEO-POLITICAL EVENTS

ECONOMIC NUMBERS

CENTRAL BANK ACTION

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

Page 11: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

LESSON 7

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 12: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

TRACK

LESSON 7

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 13: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

LESSON 7

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 14: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

LESSON 8

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

“I bought a pullback off the highsto hop onboard the uptrend” Style = Trend trade

“I faded that spike right into that resting offer where I seen everyone get stuck long”Style = Counter trend trade

“I scalped around the pivotall morning”Style = Scalper

“I bought through the top of consolidation figuring that’s where all the shorts were going to puke” Style = Momentum trade

Page 15: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new onesTRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

LESSON 8

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

TRACK

2

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 16: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

LESSON 9

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

TRACK

2

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Short = scalpingseconds, minutes, hours

Scalping a market is typically defined by short-term execution for small profits. It’s also connected to making several trades a day.months.

Medium = swinghours, days, swing

Swing trading is associated with both inter-day trading but also carrying positions overnight or from one day to the next.

Long = investingdays, weeks, months

Longer-term trading or what I would consider investing is a time frame that could amass several days, weeks, or even months.

Page 17: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

TRACK

2

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

LESSON 9

Page 18: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

TRACK

LESSON 10

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 19: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

TRACK

LESSON 10

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 20: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

TRACK

LESSON 11

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

Page 21: ANATOMY OF A CHART SUPPORT/RESISTANCE … · When many traders are stuck they feel trapped, and that’s the greatest predictor. We want to get in when many others are feeling trapped,

TRADING PSYCHOLOGY

Real Life Example

Say you’re on the operating table and you begin to flat line. Do you want your surgeon to stop and do breathing exercises so he can calm down before he proceeds? Or do you want him to know what he’s doing?!?

The best therapy for any professional, in any field, is to talk to others in that field. However, some in that community should be successful in that profession: Not trying to do it but, doing it. Too often traders get into groups for the simple sake of community. While community is essential, there is such a thing as a bad community. No community is intentionally bad for you however, some have many who are digressing. Spinning their wheels, distracted, faced with too many other people’s thoughts or opinions. Own your opinion and your trade; just make sure you’re using the right technique when you go to execute it.

Anytime you start a business you set goals. Even throughout the life of your business you continue to set and try to attain goals. What if the goals you set were unrealistic? What’s very dangerous in trading is when we set unrealistic goals but assume others in the industry are achieving them. This is an example that many fall victim to when they get started and set profit goals that are unrealistic in relationship to the size they are trading or the market they are trading in. They set themselves up for failure or at the very least, frustration. Often traders will try to look for too big of winners to meet some unrealistic monetary goal. They change an entire strategy to chase these unrealistic goals. We created a metric in the EDGE that gives individuals a ratio of what you can expect to make versus the size you are trading and the market you are trading. In addition, how different markets yield different risks and rewards. Less liquid markets typically create more risk and are difficult to trade small. Being in the right market that fits your personality, trading account size, and other criteria are important to setting accurate goals. Also, it gives you the best chance to get and stay successful. We offer what we call the Market Finder in The Edge that helps traders find a good fit and put them in the right market. We also address, in the Edge, a sizing plan that incrementally grows your trading size. This plan looks at trading stats that are important and shows you how numbers can lie.

COMMON PAIN POINTS & PSYCHOLOGYLet’s talk briefly about some common pain points in trading:

1. Missing trades that would have worked and taking the ones that don’t

2. It’s a challenge I can’t lick!

3. Unrealistic goals

4. Family isn’t supportive

5. Stress

Edge-ism | Trading is like shooting fish in a barrel, and sometimes you’re the fish

A great way the Edge helps others, is by sharing what we found to be common among the enemy. We explain where hesitation comes from. How taking monetary goals alone can lead to inappropriate strategies. Any time you try to conquer something, you will always have detractors saying, “you can’t do this.” This creates a certain amount of stress, and the inability of knowing when and when not to trade. The Edge attaches solutions to these problems.

Too often traders go down the wrong path to understand this business and then when they haven’t achieved success they figure that it’s all about the psychology. So they read books and learn how the right side of the brain talks to the left side. They learn breathing exercises aimed at calming them down when in a trade. The best way to calm yourself down is to know what you’re doing! Know why you’re doing it and understand that you are supposed to be wrong. As humans, we try and avoid being wrong at every turn. While some risk management techniques are helpful, you must remember that the best way to manage your risk is to manage yourself. Manage your emotion. When you trade your “money,” you will be emotional. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Know your exits before you entries and scaling out of profitable trades (as explained in the Edge). All this hones in on managing that emotion every step of the way.

ORDER FLOW AND MARKET RELATIONSHIPSPeople often spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future while ignoring the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in a trade and executing to get in and out of a trade.

That brings us to the trader type that yields a technique and a bias all in one. When you finally say, “I’m using these concepts to execute,” is the moment you should know you are doing the same thing as career traders.

Here are some examples of professional trader speak based up on trading styles:

Executing your bias is and will always be more important than creating one. When talking to a trader, who was trying to understand these techniques from us, he said. “Man, you can create, execute and manage a bias from order flow alone!” At that moment, we knew he got it. He knew the “why” of why markets moved.

Edge-ism | 5th graders can create a bias but stink at executing it

COUNTER TREND TRADERA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally. They are always looking for a market to revert back to where it came from. One of the pivotal moments in our career came about 2 months in, around June of 2000. We remember looking at a chart and seeing how the price had rallied. Also, how it rallied so sharply. Then we remember thinking why would it then go down coming off the highs that it just made. That question was the “moment of clarity.” Why would it go up and then go down? I focused on the first part. It went up because there were more buyers than sellers, right? If there were more sellers, price would not have moved higher. So the conclusion that there are more buyers than sellers led me to my next thought. More buyers equal more potential longs and when a market reaches a point where there are too many longs it must go down.

Edge-ism | After you buy you’re a seller and after you sell you’re a buyer.

Once a long position is open, especially for shorter-term traders, sell orders go into the market, usually above where the position was opened. However, if the market stops going up that long position still must be exited. Long positions are exited with sell orders. Let’s recap this moment of clarity.

Sharp rally = more buyers than sellers + more buyers that want to buy but can’t get filled.More buyers = More long positionsMore long positions = More sell ordersMore sell orders = Markets having a high probability of going down

This is why many of the techniques used by professional traders are those that incorporate the notion that markets are easiest to predict when you can locate where other traders are going to “exit” a current position. A counter trend style isn’t necessarily contrarian to a trend or opposite of the herd, it’s trying to locate where that herd or trend is going to turn. Predicting when the herd becomes too big and using order flow tools (locating buyers and sellers) creates better locations to execute. Contrarian methods are most popular because opportunity is born out of where people “have” to exit. Opportunities are born out of where emotion surfaces. When traders “have” to sell and exit a long position, and there are a lot of them, look out below!

SCALPINGThis style is often inappropriately defined. A scalper is typically a trader who makes several trades a day. They seek to make small incremental profits, in shorts periods of time. Longer time frame traders will sometimes incorporate scalping to exit some of their positions for smaller profits. This allows a better overall entry and reduces the trader’s emotional capital. This technique is explained with greater detail in track 3.

MOMENTUMMomentum traders look for just that, “momentum.” Faster price movements up or down. Whether it’s with or against a trend doesn’t matter as long as it’s fast. Let us tie this into to the previous trader type, counter trend. Momentum is created by a large collection of trades exiting the same position, “long or short” at the same time and around the same price. Stop orders that are collected in the same area is where momentum becomes momentum and the tempo picks up.

Real Life Example

Let’s say you think the market will go up so you decide open a long position and buy it. After that, you place a sell order above the market for your potential profit. You also have to protect against being wrong, so you put a sell stop order below the market. If your sell stop order is at the price of 12 and there are 100’s of other sell stop orders that are at 10, 11 and 12, then guess what? There’s going to be a lot of momentum to the downside once the price of 12 starts to trade. Momentum traders will try to sell right above or into where they assume there could be this collection of sell stop orders. This strategy is also a breakout opportunity. When a market finally traps enough traders one way it tends to break out the other way. Traps create turns in the market. That’s why it’s imperative to identify and track where buyers and sellers are, no matter what type of trader you become or strategy you implement. Opportunity is always at the turn.

Edge-ism | Markets move because traders are exiting positions, not entering new ones

TRADING STYLESWhat Are Some of the Different Trading Styles?While there are a few common trading styles, and what you have to understand is that each individual’s personality can alter how you execute that particular style.

Let’s take a look at a few common trading styles:

TrendA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction.

Counter Trend TraderA counter trend trader is a type of trader that looks to buy a break or sell a rally.

ScalpingA scalper is a trader who looks to make several trades a day, seeking to make small incremental profits, in short periods of time

MomentumMomentum or breakout traders look for just that, “momentum.” Fasterprice movements up or down.

Below we go into a deeper explanation of these trading styles.

TRENDA trend trader is trying to identify if a price of a certain product will continue to keep moving in one direction. In this picture, we will see what an inter-day “up-trend” looks like on a chart. There are many different ways to predict how a trend will last but one common thread we are trying to weave is that a couple of your consumer skills are the beginning, middle and end to “qualify” the decision. Trading a trend is two sided, one is identifying that it’s a trend and secondly, getting into the trade or as we like to put it, getting on the team.

Order flow is tracking buyers and sellers. More importantly, it’s tracking who wants to buy or sell but can’t. Those are the ones who get emotional.

Real Life Example

For example, if four people went to buy a house and “bid” on it. It’s safe to assume or predict where the price is going. Up! Not because four people will buy the house but because four people want to buy the house. One of the buyers will actually buy it (get filled). However, the other three were very influential in the direction of price. Also, by knowing that there were four “bidders” on the property was instrumental in predicting where the price was going to go.

That analogy is order flow when it comes to the world of professional trading. Sticking with the housing market example let’s now analyze the next step in the process. After the buyers and sellers agree on price for the house, the buyer goes and gets financing. The bank comes in and hires an appraiser to see if the house is worth the agreed upon price. What techniques does this appraiser use? For the most part, one. They compare and contrast that house to others homes in the neighborhood. There is no high tech scientific method that appraisers use other than that simple technique.

That analogy is market relationships in the world of professional trading.

As we continue on the journey to the advanced stage (Edge), we take these two techniques, used in the consumer world, and make them applicable to the world of professional trading.

TIMES FRAMESYour job isn’t to know when to get in, it’s to know WHY.Your job isn’t to know why to get out, it’s to know WHEN.

Let’s help piece this puzzle together.For every concept there’s a technique.For every technique, there’s a time frame.

Below is a list of time frames traders can be categorized in.

Let’s take these three time frames and understand them with what they have in common, an idea! To commit capital, is to decide to take action and it all starts with an idea. All trading is based on, is the decisions that execute ideas. If you think the market is going up in 10 seconds, 10 hours, or 10 months, then you make a decision or a trade. What happens in an instant is you attach action to the idea. It’s only an idea to lose weight, however, when you start exercising than you are attaching action to that idea. That’s why markets move because so many ideas are being executed, for so many different reasons, and in so many different time frames. What’s unique and often unknown is that no matter what your idea or your time frame they all have one thing in common. They have to be executed in REAL TIME. They have to be opened and closed in the present.

Real Life Example

Do you know what professional athletes prepare for? They prepare for the present! They prepare to be able to walk up to the line of scrimmage and read the defense, which puts them in the best position possible to avoid making bad decisions. Professional trading is not about making great trades it’s about trading out of bad ones. It’s about qualifying in the present, walking up to the line of scrimmage and qualifying if this support or resistance level will work.

Edge-ism | Homework is for 5th graders, learn how to prepare to analyze the present

So many times people spend too much time analyzing the past to predict the future and ignore the present. Order flow and market relationships are the present. We want to underscore a very important element to successful trading. That is the execution. Executing to get in and out of a trad. We’ve been asked – what’s more important? Our answer is that anytime money is being risked, all facets of the trade are important. The action of the market after you get in is important. Your emotions, your personality, your time frame, the market you trade, your trading style are all important. Your ability to fit your personality to the right market and style will go a long way in your sustainability. Moreover, qualifying like a professional trader, threads in and out of whatever type of trader you become.

THE APPROACHWhat’s needed to succeed in trading is often different than other businesses. Often people come into trading having conquered and succeeded in other Industries, in a previous career. Only to find this as a challenge they can’t seem to lick. Instead of laying out all the differences between trading and the rest of the world let’s explore what is similar.

Those watching this who have achieved ultimate success elsewhere will relate to this next point. We never arrive. There’s never a moment we say “I got it, I’m successful, I’m done.” Success means that you found the technique that allows you to meet the challenges of business every day. It could be a technique that attributes to a successful relationship or marriage. If you had a great product but a poor technique in selling it, it wasn’t a success. In trading, the right concept is the product but the right technique is the success.

THE PROCESSThere is no beginning, middle or end to trading successfully. It’s a process where there’s never an end but you can be successful throughout the process if you’re using the right techniques.

When you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, the path is laid out. However, if you want to be a trader, “which way do you go?”

Try to make sense of the path you choose. Your goal is to see opportunity by predicting which way a market will go. A successful business opportunity always needs the right technique.

Every trader has different opinions at different times. What makes a market a market is this; the fundamentals, the technical, and the psychology all wrapped up into one moment, which has people trying to buy or sell.

What’s going to happen next? Will we rally or break? Am I a short-term trader who wants to trade short-term price movements? Should I swing trade and catch a larger chunk of a move? Futures, stocks, or forex, what should I trade?

We cover that, and much more, in the Edge.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

TRACK

LESSON 11

2

QUESTIONS? CONTACT US.

[email protected] 1.312.922.7800 1.877.906.2692 edge.marketdelta.com

After reading this material and watching the videos our one question for you to consider is this:

No matter what style of trading you partake in remember the core lesson:How do you predict and decide where price is going when you buy a car, a house, or a plane ticket?Take the skills you already have to value price and re-apply them to trading like a professional.

Edge-ism | Don’t worry what people are going to do, worry about what they already did!

Now you have the foundations...Now, it’s time to start trading!

WATCH THE VIDEO FOR THIS LESSON