Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Squaring the Range made Simpler?

Nice range, eh? I thought I'd give an example of squaring a range that doesn't require any fancy Gann square. This method is simply taking a range or price and counting out x amount of bars. If it's a lot of bars, I'll also mark off divisions. (Essentially recreating the Gann square time levels.) I'll count of bars from the start and end of the range.

In the chart below I measured off a range of 276 pips. The reason I chose that range is because it was the first move out of the double top. Double tops/bottoms can be tricky. This time it happened to work out from the first top and I haven't worked out the second one yet.

After marking off the range of 276 pips, I then counted out 276 bars. Price fell hard right down to that time marker. A bone fide go long signal. So I waited for the bar to close and went long. Interestingly enough, 276 x 2 = 552 and price had gone 547 pips from the first stop. A near perfect time-price squaring of 276 bars of time and 276 x 2 pips.

Is this a major turn? I don't know, but at worst it's a good counter trend trade for a few pips. And that's what it's all about in the end... forecasting areas of possible/probable reaction, evaluating the trend, and then risking accordingly. In this case since I'm going against the trend, the trade amount is small with a tight stop. As of this writing, it's up 50 pips. Not too shabby.



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If the chart doesn't show up click here.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Trading on Impulse


In one of Gann's writings.. I don't recall which one.. he said something along the lines that the initial move contains the vibration of a given market. I've described the technique elsewhere in this blog when discussing using the Square of Nine. I'd like to revisit the concept because it's really the simplest thing to do and a simple technique for even the noobiest of Gann students to employ.

My buddy Soso also came to the same conclusion independently and worded it very well (considering English isn't his native tongue at that!) I've quoted this elsewhere in my blog and I think it's worth quoting again:

"If you think about it, to trade, we don't really have to arrive to the vibration factor of time through some calculations, it is also possible and much simpler through simple observation when trend changes the first 2 swings or so can tell us the vibration factor of time." - Soso Beton

So the big question is what is a vibration factor of time? I don't know exactly know what it means to Gann or by Soso, but I do know that how I do it works and works well.

The first thing is to accept the concept that price and time are equivalent the same way that Einstein says space and time are equivalent. Therefore, it doesn't matter if price moves x amount of points or x amount of distance because the units of measurement are unified. There are a lot of ways to unify price-time. Squared charts where each point of price is x minutes/days/bars seems to be the "standard". I have issues with how a lot of Gann software/authors use this approach, but that's a deeper topic I've talked about already and don't feel like talking about again.

But basically I prefer to square the range. Again, there is a post somewhere in my blog showing how to do that.

This first chart is a simple example where I had squared the range to create a Gann Square. Inside the square are a bunch of fan lines for the 1x1, 1x2, etc. diagonals from the 4 corners. For now, ignore those. The lines to pay attention to are the dark purple grid lines. I use these to measure price and time within the square. As you can see, the first impulse move up went 5 squares of price. That move in price will have an echo in time. By counting over 5 squares of time, there was a distinct change in trend almost to the bar. This wasn't quite the top but was pretty darn close. (Gann preferred to divide things by 8ths. However, I divided this square by 9ths in order for price to hit the line flush. The concept would still work for 8ths, but it's easier to count 5 exact squares of 9ths instead of 4 1/2 or 4 1/3 squares. Drawing horizontal and vertical lines through the fan intersections are a way to pick up those 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4's.)


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Up next is an example where the impulse move wasn't substantial.. only 2 squares of 8ths, but the 2 squares of time was dead on for the end of a down move and the start of a major up move.


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And for the third and final installment I present a chart where the moves aren't as orderly, but the technique was still valid in finding a bottom.


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If you study the posted charts, you'll also a lot of other ways in which a Gann square and fan lines can be combined to map out paths for price. Just remember... this isn't about predicting the future. It's about knowing when the future has arrived and risking accordingly. Happy Trading.



Edit - If the charts aren't showing up, here are the links:

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