MrGecko's briefcase

Recently I have been making comments and posting some documents over on the Making Money Trading thread. However, If I continue to do so it's just going to clog up the whole thing up. So, I've started this thread as a place to put up any more notes on PA or essays I write and invite discussion. I hope there will be something for old and new traders. If people are interested (and serious), I will continue to post a variety of essays I believe to be relevant to any aspect of trading; be it a continuation of the PA stuff so far, some introductory economics (I have mentioned the phillips curve), or Basic Quantitative finance for Idiots (no offence), and so on.

I am willing to answer questions in the material I post, but I don't want to get a barrage of "what do you think of this?", "where should I sell that" and so on (listen to me, who do I think I am???). I wont make any live trading calls either, I have seen it is just a can of worms that is best avoided. With any luck, any new trader, after reading the material in the thread, will be closer to making their own calls than accepting someone else's (give a man a fish and all that).

If anyone disagrees with anything I've written, or has a different view, then please comment. I only ask that it be reasoned and sensible, not playground namecalling.

Here goes, something I wrote on how (IMO) entries should be considered and R:R determined for any PA trade setup. Hope someone finds it helpful.

and for the sake of completeness, some PA commentary I did over on Trader_Dante's thread.

EUR/GBP

Usd/chf

I tried to post these a while back, but the site wasn't working properly (I still can't post them in their original format as a .pdf, hence the crappy quality).

Entry Setups:

A collection of 5 entry setups I use to get into a trade, plus a guide to generic E[1], E[2] entries etc... (IIRC I mentioned these in another document).

Anyway, the point of these is that once you have got the hang of picking S+R levels, or if you trade patterns, sometimes perfectly good trades go by without any familiar candlestick setups emerging. These 5, plus the generic conditions, give me a little more room to manoever, let me use a little discretion when I think price is going to move.

Of course, these are the setups that I like, doesn't mean they'll work for everybody. And it goes without saying that it's where price is that's important, before you look at what price is doing.

NB: These are also pretty good for trade management; positioning stops to protect profits. For example, in a long position, a Tweezer top might be a signal to move the stop to just below the pattern - if the Tweezer top triggers, it's an indication that bears are in control (so you want to take your profits).

Secondly, my understanding of the anatomy of a breakdown.

It isnt that often that price behaves as the textbooks say it should. Double tops become triple tops, Head and Shoulders patterns fail, price retraces and retests, and so on.

This is my attempt to explain to someone how a trade can be built up from a breakdown. The purpose of this is to identify an opportunity for a entry setup, trigger, and stop - it isn't enough (IMO) to say "sell, it's going down".

In this case, the crux of the matter is how to anticipate the pauses, retracements and retests that can and do happen at price levels - and how then can be included to identify setups, triggers, and entries. Sometimes it bolts straight out of the blue, but other times it doesn't - shouldn't mean we go away empty handed.

This is an example from USDCAD; before anyone starts giving me grief, yes I did choose this example in retrospect, because it is a good one. There are no hard and fast rules here, it is more a case of eying the levels and reading the PA. Sometimes price doesn't retrace or retest at all, sometimes once, sometimes twice. The aim here is to get an idea of if and where these retracemenst and re-tests might occur beforehand, and how to incorporate them, along with entry setups, into a trade.

P.S. Again, couldn't post the original .pdf without the spelling mistakes etc, so It's crappy quality. Sorry.

might as well put this up as well...

all it is is a piece of paper to write down the trades you are watching, timeframes, setup details (multiple support + fib confluence) and entry details (pin bar, DBLHL etc...)

thats about it, but it can be handy.

Isn't it nice without you know who around?

NB: This bloody worked as a .pdf - will it be because of the file sizes???

'cos I'm on a roll....

Ito's lemma in the B.S. equation...

Great posts, cheers.
Not a lto to add, but had to write something otherwise I wont get the emails letting me know when someone else had added something here
if anyone else has info to add, the more junior amongst us are more than happy to learn from it

Mr.Gecko,
Much to be learned.
Great instruction.
Thank You

+ Rep. Thanks for the read. Those pdf's are now on my wall as a reminder.

cant rep you, Mr Gecko, as I have to "spread some around" first.
anyway, your 2 pdfs on Entry-signals is excellent. as are the other analyses.

Great stuff, totally missed this... reading time!

MrGecko said:

Here goes, something I wrote on how (IMO) entries should be considered and R:R determined for any PA trade setup. Hope someone finds it helpful.

Click to expand...

Isn't something missing from this post? I'm interested in reading about what you were going to say regarding R:R

firewalker99 said:

Isn't something missing from this post? I'm interested in reading about what you were going to say regarding R:R

Click to expand...

yeah... I went back through it a couple of weeks ago and noticed some glaringly obvious mistakes (same thing with the Ito in BS post). I'll correct them and re-post for sure, but I'm up to my ar$e in it ATM.

Great Stuff. Simple and powerful - I just love this combination. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

Please come back!

MrGecko said:

yeah... I went back through it a couple of weeks ago and noticed some glaringly obvious mistakes (same thing with the Ito in BS post). I'll correct them and re-post for sure, but I'm up to my ar$e in it ATM.

Click to expand...

Hey, MrGecko

It looks like there is more to be added and for beginners to learn here.

Are you still busy, or have you forgotten this? Must be the former.

I'm sure I'm not alone in eargerly waiting for your next post!

Webinvester

Great Thread Mr G
I am a subscriber ...

Parting Gifts... I wrote this, but much of the info is in the public domain anyway.

thought this would get a few "lulz"...

a mind map of my strategy, going through the stages of finding a trade.