Psychological warfare and some tips to help you

[MC]

Ask yourself is there significant volume near or outside of the current range extremes and what is the prices reaction to that volume.

Supply would be shown near or below the lows, demand would be shown near or above the highs. Everything in the middle is noise quite honestly.

Look at the market like this...
Trending periods are emotion driven.
Chop is a thinking period that balances the bulls and bears.

There is some money to be made in chop through scalping or shorter term trades though you can as it sounds, get chopped up to hell. The real money is preying on peoples emotions in the trend phases. This is why range breaks are so explosive, it's a stampede of emotions all clicking their order buttons at the same time. Just be sure the move holds before jumping in as there are of course many false range breaks. The safest, least aggressive entry is a pullback test to the area the of the range break.

One other tip...gapping outside range extremes are quite often moves done to keep retail traders out of the move. You'll sit there and hesitate because it's "too high". Look left, if that gap overshot a significant supply/chop range it's probably a breakaway gap. They gap that way like I said to keep you out, but also to keep those in the red from selling and impeding the rally. It's all psychological warfare in the market, think of how you felt when you were a bagholder of something. You just want break even to exit right? Well you just got your wish and then some, your now in the green off that gap. Greed takes over and MOST won't sell now.

Don't trade noise, trade other peoples emotions. It's far more profitable.

Now that I've shared that brainstorm, who wants to share some stockfetcher scans to find what I've described above? I have psych on lockdown, my programming type skills are severely lacking and could use help in that arena.

[MC]

Realizations I've come to, though I am still developing the psych to exploit my knowledge.

1) Big money runs the show, follow their lead. You will profit by trading with them, not against them.

2) The market moves on trending and balancing periods. Prey on the trending periods since they are fueled by emotions. Use the balancing periods to watch what's unfolding or to get an entry near the congestion lows in the direction of the prior direction (assuming there's been no trend changing professional activity).

I will only look to enter trade when something is either channeling, or when something is trending overall but is in a balancing period.
I will exit the trade when that channel or trend has proven to be over.

This is my grail. There are many like it but this one is mine. My grail is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my grail is useless. Without my grail I am useless.

[MC]

Originally Posted by MC

The market moves on trending and balancing periods. Prey on the trending periods since they are fueled by emotions. Use the balancing periods to watch what's unfolding or to get an entry near the congestion lows in the direction of the prior direction (assuming there's been no trend changing professional activity).

BUMP...
This is a crucial concept in the markets. As a market comes out of balance (breakouts as an example) this is your chance to prey on emotional trading.