I guess all we have to do is change our parameters until they give us the signal we want 
A man with two watches does not know the time. - Chinese proverb.
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I agree with you Charlie. Here is my Chart.
Weird how Arkk is going down when TQQQ is still up.
Andy
Pete,
Optimizing parameters is a fun back-testing game, but it doesnât produce good out-of-sample results.
Andy,
To see why ARK and TQQQ are trading differently, pull their holdings. Also, do line chart overlays to see how theyâre tracked each other (or not) in the past.
Ed Downs --of OmniTrader fame-- argues that each stock has its own personality.
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Pete,
Youâve mangled that proverb. It should go like this.
âThe man who has two watches never knows what time it really is.â
But that proverb is irrelevant to investing/trading, because market time is fractal, which is a comment Iâll unpack another time, because Iâve gotta prep for tomorrow.
I would say Pete you have to match the chart with the way you want to trade. Everyone has their own indicators but the ones you feel most comfortable with are the best.
Andy
Charlie, you are taking things too seriously. I donât know if I have the quote exactly right, or if you are quoting Segalâs law and the proverb is different, but I am quite happy that my version is elegant and pithy, just rolls off the tongue.
It is relevant to trading not in the sense of time but as an analogy of trying to use multiple trading systems that end of giving conflicting signals.
I do appreciate your feedback and that of all others on this board. Thanks.
âA single conversation with a wise man is worth a monthâs study of books.â â Chinese Proverb
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Pete,
Letâs try again. Nothing without RULES will fail and will lose money.
I think you are combing both techniques at the same time that is probably confusing you.
There are two (2) ways to Buy or Sell.
Simon Sez:
It is suggested at first that you use a two (2) month chart as a learning curve. Or 3-month chart or 1 month chart. BUT, once committed, stick with the chart monthly for a long time. I prefer a 2-month chart.
Technique 1: Just Buy and Sell the Green and Red bars ONLY ignoring the blue line. The basic HA.
OR
Technique 2.: Any bars (mostly Red as you see) going below your Blue Line is a Sell signal.
Any bars going above (mostly Green as you see) your Blue Line is a Buy signal.
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The TSI is used as a confirmation signal.
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If all is confusing, go to the Top Panel and just Buy and Sell per the colours.
Letâs review SARK and follow per the RULES using the 2-month chart.
re: SARK: Using Technique #1. Follow along
buy 4/1/24 (first green bar after the smiley face)
sell 4/23/24 First bar after the Frown. 4/22/24 is was on standby (wait)
drag the chart to the left. By dragging the chart, you would have been on that date at the far-right side.
smiley face on 5/3/24
Buy the first green bar on 5/8/24
smiley face on 5/10/24
Sell the following day (TSI confirms a sell signal.
Smiley face on 5/15/24
buy on the next Green Bar on 5/23/24 and there is a confirmation at the below TSI
The top panel confirms as well going into the green zone.
The above has a lot of chatter but on a daily basis every morning at 10 am. Time moves so so slow. It is the waiting and waiting for a GO or a no GO.
I would recommend that you guysâ practice and practice reading charts until you are blue in the face.
Every night I read all my 12 SDDRs with my both type of charts. Smiley and the OHLC.
Quill -
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How am I doing with XLK - ca-ching, ca ching.
Making money is booooooooring . Meaning the waiting and waiting for a signal to do something.
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Pete: the unstated part here is you only buy and sell around the smiley, frowny faces, not just random green and red bars??
OK, letâs just talk about this simple technique. I have removed the blue line and just overlayed with the TSI.
I might call this the âJoan of Arcâ variation of Simon Sez. Here is my kid-style storyâŚ
When Joan of Arc is on fire with red bars, she is not happy. One day, the fire seems to subside and Joan starts to smile. After that, a green bar rises from the ashes of the fire and we buy it. For a while, the green bars grow, maybe with an occasional fire that is inconsequential, but after while Joan begins to worry a fire might come back and she starts to frown. She may frown for consecutive days or there may be some more green growth, but one day the fire starts (red bar) and we immediately sell hoping not have our assets burn to ashes.
So based on the dates you provided, here is what the 2-month, HAsmoothed, TSI overlay chart for SARK looks like, annotated with buy and sell actions.
One question to help me better understand the unstated rules. If I come across this chart today, I see the green TSI line has moved above the red TSI line, but I should NOT buy this because it is too far away from the âStarting Gateâ? Donât join the race in the middle?
Thanks, I will ask a different set of questions once I am confidence of the rules for Technique #1 âJoan-of-Arcâ
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Quill,
This is how Iâd chart SARK for the same April period you analyze. Some of our entry/exit dates coincide. Some donât, because I tend to not ignore price moves against me as much as you do.
@Arindam Charlie, what is the rule that made you sell on that lonely down day two days after you bought on April 1? I donât see a MA crossover or anything like that. Is that just a feel after many years of experience? Could your rules be coded into a computer program?
Pudding,
Good eye, and thanks for the question, because it lets me introduce a technique Quill makes no use of, namely, Candle Pattern Analysis. (CPA) and some good, old-fashioned tape reading.
What is the candle pattern on the 2nd? A Gravestone Doji, right? a nearly infallible suggestion of possible trend change. Thus, in the evening of that day, as one is doing oneâs chart review and prepping for the next dayâs market, oneâs immediate thought on seeing that candle pattern should be this. The dayâs price was a gap up from the previous day, and the rule of thumb is this. âGaps get filled.â Therefore, oneâs expectation --or prediction or forecast-- should be a down day in the 3rd.
Whatâs a doji and how/when do they form? Buyer and seller indecision, right? If that indecision occurs in an ongoing downtrend, one wants to be buying the next day. If in an ongoing uptrend, then the opposite is the case.
How many days does it take to suggest a trend is forming, up or down? Three or four is plenty. So, look back in the chart and count 'em. 3/26, an up day. 3/27 was technically a âdownâ day, for prices closing lower than the previous day, hence the bar gets painted red. But the dayâs movement --from open to close was upward. Hence the bar is hollow. The next day is a Hanging Man doji and a suggestion that the trend could break down. But I would have risked holding. The next day, 4/1, vindicates that risk taking. But then the gap and doji on the 2nd occurs, and all bets are off. It has become time to GET OUT.
Greg Morrisâs book (now in the third edition) is the best source for learning CPA. but there are plenty of website that cover the key points. The point that Morris and his co-author, Norm North, made in earlier editions is that the killer combo is to combine CPA with Western-style indicators. Also, Norm --who lived down the road from me in Salem-- wrote and sold a charting/scanning program called Candle Power. Regrettably, the program is no longer sold or supported. But I can slam though hundreds of stocks in seconds, and the program picks out the turning points. From time to time, I feed a few to Quill who always agrees, âYep, thatâs an at-the-gaterâ
Charlie
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@buynholdisdead Andy, I subscribed to Barchart.com with the âPlusâ subscription rather than âPremierâ because the comparison chart just seemed to show added advantages for options and futures. At any rate, when trying to use Flipchart off a watch list, I have not way of setting a 2 month timeframe (see graphic below).
Is this what your flipchart view shows? Can you show a screenshot with the 2-month capability if you have it?
Quill said thisâŚ
The flipcharts come from how you built your many types of charts.
If you see a different month, go to the upper left-hand corner and after the ticker symbol, click on the first gray box which you can change. I believe it defaults to 6M at first glance. If you change it, you are going to get cranky. Otherwise get out and call up your chart and change to your favorite timetable.
I canât always translate his lingo. I think he is agreeing that it wonât do a two month, and if I donât use the default 6-month things wonât work as well (get cranky).
If I donât have a 2-monther, all the smiley faces are wrong and it seems useless.
Thanks, Pete
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Pete,
When youâre in flip chart mode, the program defaults to whatever chart template you previously told the program to use. But when youâre in flip chart mode, the template can be changed to one that you previously created that has a two-month lookback (or any other lookback period you want to see).
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What Charlie said Pete. Here is mine without flipchart set for Simon Sez
Hereâs mine in Flipchart set like you did. But I know it is Simon Sez 2 months.
To verify that hit the arrow to the far right by multichart that says pop out to new chart and you have this.
Andy
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RE Flipcharts. Thanks guys, clearly there was an error between the chair and the keyboard. I had applied my SimonSez template but saw it still said 6 months. But when I now look at the calendar dates at the bottom, it is just 2 months. I guess I am even dumber than I think.
Thanks again.
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After reviewing Quillâs various instructions and Andyâs instructions, I have found some discrepancies. I was using the MAT(5) and Quill told me to take it off for the simple âJoan-of-Arcâ he wants me to start using. (That is buy based on Frowny/Smiley) not the MAT(5). I noticed Quill had OHLC bars and HA smoothies, but Andy did not. Quill has settings for the HAsmoothie (1,1), but I donât think Andy can do those setting because HA bars are his main indicator. Quill uses OHLC and then adds a study for HAsmoothie and does settings of (2,2). So I donât know what Andyâs settings might be.
These pictures might help. Final product.
The 3 states of being
- Standby: meaning we wait for the next day to Buy or Sell.
- Buying: Buy the first Green Bar AFTER the (red) Smiley Face.
- Selling: Sell the next bar after the (green) Frown Face at the top.
So that is what I am working with until Quill says I am wrong
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Pudding,
Donât blame yourself. BarChartâs flipchart menu doesnât permit selecting â2 monthsâ on the fly. 1 or 3 months? Yes, but not 2 months. Thus, to see a chart in flip charts mode with a 2 month look back, a template has to be built outside of flip charts and then imported into it.
Poke around in the âsite settingsâ menu. Some of your hassles can be fixed there.
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