Bob Volman Price Action Scalping

[michael45]

This week has been the quietest I've experienced. I hadn't made a single trade up until today. However, I thought that the price moved really well today. I made 3 trades in total. 2 were DD's and one was a countertrend RB.

Here are the charts...

It is good and I'm happy about you are sharing ideas with others. Thank you

 

[shotgun77]

Nice work!

This week has been the quietest I've experienced. I made 3 trades in total. 2 were DD's and one was a countertrend RB.

 

[billyd]

Yeah, I saw the frequency of occurence which does say something you're right.

Personally I'd like a table that had all the setups ranked from High-Low probability based on a lot of experience and large sample size. There might be a couple of these tables based on the market conditions at the time.

Not that it would provide huge value but would give me an idea of how often and how much risk to put on each (how tightly to trail tipping points)

Off the cuff, I'd rank them like this:

IRB
RB
BB
ARB
SB
DD
FB

but I can't assign any kind of percentages to them (which would be pretty nice)

I think he's asking about the probability of success for each setup, instead of the frequency. Say you take 100 DD in 20 weeks, what percentage of them can be considered success?

In the book Bob mentioned SB usually has high success rate if it's a proper setup.

 

[stehlikpetrmsncom]

Yeah, I saw the frequency of occurence which does say something you're right.

Personally I'd like a table that had all the setups ranked from High-Low probability based on a lot of experience and large sample size. There might be a couple of these tables based on the market conditions at the time.

Not that it would provide huge value but would give me an idea of how often and how much risk to put on each (how tightly to trail tipping points)

Off the cuff, I'd rank them like this:

IRB
RB
BB
ARB
SB
DD
FB

but I can't assign any kind of percentages to them (which would be pretty nice)

To assign percentage to each setup would require immense database of trades, which surely none of us here possesses (plus sometimes we are even uncertain about the validity of trades). Personally I think that all you need to know is whether the trade has more then 50/50 success rate, then it's good to trade.

Also you have to realize that for example all RB's don't have the same success rate, there are poor RB's, good RB's and excellent RB's. The same applies for every other setup. This means there will be setups that require agressive/conservative trailing regardless of their name. You could even divide these 7 setups into many sub-categories depending on the context where they appear.

Personally I think the trailing is one of the easiest things to learn, when I'm not certain I prefer to trail less, but most of the time it is very simple to decide where to put your stop and when to move it. The ema is a great guide as well.

By the way, FB is definitely one with the highest success rate, but smallest appearence rate.

 

[samich1262]

I have a question about this chart, Week 40 #13. In that 20 level trap RB, doesn't that look similar to the continuation/flag ARBs that we are supposed to skip? I was wondering what makes this one acceptable.



I found today a little weird too. That DD that showed up right after nonfarm payrolls were announced, and it broke through the bottom of a range, from the top of a range with no buildup, so I skipped it. It's hard to tell how powerful momentum will be after a news announcement. It was probably the right decision to skip it, but it is hard to watch it work out after not participating.

 

[cha-ching]

I have a question about this chart, Week 40 #13. In that 20 level trap RB, doesn't that look similar to the continuation/flag ARBs that we are supposed to skip? I was wondering what makes this one acceptable.

View attachment 148768

Hi samich, could you please elaborate this "continuation/flag ARBs" thing a little? I haven't caught up with all Bob's charts yet.

I found today a little weird too. That DD that showed up right after nonfarm payrolls were announced, and it broke through the bottom of a range, from the top of a range with no buildup, so I skipped it. It's hard to tell how powerful momentum will be after a news announcement. It was probably the right decision to skip it, but it is hard to watch it work out after not participating.

This one was discussed in the past. See post #84 by Kalp, #88 by johnwolf, and #89 by BLS.

 

[BLS]

I have a question about this chart, Week 40 #13. In that 20 level trap RB, doesn't that look similar to the continuation/flag ARBs that we are supposed to skip? I was wondering what makes this one acceptable.

It wasn't a straight move like it was in charts 21 and 24 on week 43.

 

[shotgun77]

Personally I think that all you need to know is whether the trade has more then 50/50 success rate, then it's good to trade.

On page 84, Bob says there is no higher probability than a with-trend trade after a pullback peters out. So I guess that would favor the FB, SB, and DD. Also the BB in certain contexts.

In middle of page 176, he says all valid setups are equal and not to think in terms of what is safe and not safe.

In my own experience, I get a lot of stop-outs in ARBs. So I'm being more cautious with them. RB, IRB, and BB are so similar that I sometimes don't know what to call them so would think they may have similar probability - assume 51%.

 

[Pete501]

Is his book available in a digital copy. My bookshelves are all full!

 

[samich1262]

Hi samich, could you please elaborate this "continuation/flag ARBs" thing a little? I haven't caught up with all Bob's charts yet.



This one was discussed in the past. See post #84 by Kalp, #88 by johnwolf, and #89 by BLS.

Yeah, here's the ones that I was talking about:




Also... That trade in the 2nd chart that Bob Volman said an otherwise good trade except for the unfavorable conditions... It looks like an ARB, similar to the flag. But is it not a flag because it didn't start from the bottom of the range? It started from just under the middle, which would be more bullish than the other ARB flags that he said to skip. Just trying to get an idea of the difference, a good portion of my losing trades have been ARBs.

I thought Chart #11 was similar to a flag in that 2nd chart I posted (#24 wk 43) but the presence of that cup/handle formation probably validated it. And the move up was weaker than in the other two charts.

 

[BLS]

Is his book available in a digital copy. My bookshelves are all full!

Nope. You'll have to buy a physical copy. You can find free excerpts here:
https://infofpas.wordpress.com/

 

[cha-ching]

Yeah, here's the ones that I was talking about:

View attachment 148806
View attachment 148808

Also... That trade in the 2nd chart that Bob Volman said an otherwise good trade except for the unfavorable conditions... It looks like an ARB, similar to the flag. But is it not a flag because it didn't start from the bottom of the range? It started from just under the middle, which would be more bullish than the other ARB flags that he said to skip. Just trying to get an idea of the difference, a good portion of my losing trades have been ARBs.

I thought Chart #11 was similar to a flag in that 2nd chart I posted (#24 wk 43) but the presence of that cup/handle formation probably validated it. And the move up was weaker than in the other two charts.

Thanks for giving the example, but what's the rationale to skip these kind of continuation pattern at the barrier? (Sorry if this has been discussed. I'm not lazy, just wasn't able to trade or study due to Hurricane Sandy for a whole week. I'm finishing up second reading and the overall picture is much more clear to me now. My next step is to review all Bob's new charts and the whole thread.)

 

[stehlikpetrmsncom]

Thanks for giving the example, but what's the rationale to skip these kind of continuation pattern at the barrier? (Sorry if this has been discussed. I'm not lazy, just wasn't able to trade or study due to Hurricane Sandy for a whole week. I'm finishing up second reading and the overall picture is much more clear to me now. My next step is to review all Bob's new charts and the whole thread.)

Continuation pattern is something you'd trade in a trend, it is expected to continue due to the momentum. Range breaks however need some buildup to get through the barrier properly, not a one directional move from the top that stalls. It's just viewing the pattern in context - it is continuation because of the earlier one directional move. Just compare those charts to few other proper range breaks and the difference should be clear. In other words, it would be like using a trending setup as a tool to trade range break.

 

[BLS]

More charts from Bob:

With the east-coast storms hijacking the first few sessions and the NFP number the rest of it, this was a week that most traders would probably love to forget. Still, week 44 was extremely easy to trade. The main reason for that is that there were not too many valid opportunities to engage in. And that always makes trading life very simple. It is not hard to imagine, though, how many scalpers will look upon this as a tough week. Two reason for that immediately come to mind. 1: they still cannot shake their constant need for a trade (a typical illusion of the novice scalper). 2: As a result of that, they allow themselves to get sucked into low odds ventures; and that tends to bring pain rather than pleasure.
In that respect, I think slow sessions like these are very valuable for they teach us to be humble and not to force our will upon the market.
By the way, did anyone notice, from all the additional charts sent so far, how often the well-chosen trades either run to target or can be scratched at a level better than the original stop. Whereas the poorly chosen trades, mainly stemming from impatience, frustration and a lack of focus, tend to fail more often than not and on top of that they often get taken out at full stop. Think of that for a moment. What I am trying to say is that if you do a bit more of what seems to work well and a bit less of what often fails, then the only logical thing that could happen is that your bottom line will improve. For those still struggling more than their current skills should allow, try this experiment for the coming week: abstain from all wagers you are not hundred percent sure about. Just skip them. And then only take these trades that are begging to be taken advantage of. It would be interesting to evaluate if that brings any changes about in the overall results.

 

[stehlikpetrmsncom]

More charts from Bob:

Thank you BLS and Bob, I'm really grateful for the new charts.

 

[shotgun77]

Thank you, BLS and Bob, for this week's charts. Bob put some really great comments and examples on the charts to help us out. I feel lucky and privileged for his help.

 

[Yorkshire Terrier]

Much appreciation to Bob & Bls for the the charts, as i work away from home through the week and are unable to follow live charts.
Its very help full when i get home at the weekend to follow the weeks action through the posts and charts made by members and bob.
The charts and commentary that bob supply's is an excellent addition to the book and appreciated by all I'm sure.

 

[Yorkshire Terrier]

@ Giorrgi
Sorry mate i was unable to reply to your PM regarding ninja trader, i was unable to use PMs due to my post count.
Hope you got sorted if not let me know ill try to get on line this week if i can find a hotel with a decent wi-fi connection.

 

[vanica]

Thank you for invaluable studying material Bob and BLS!

 

[Giorrgi]

Missed a pretty good RB today, for two reasons:

1. The barrier was lying at 1.2782 and I was scared of trading straight into the 80 level. I realize now that this is incorrect reasoning, since 80 or 50 levels are not, per se, resistance to a "break" trade, but only to DD/SD type of trades.

2. I confirmed this resistance level by scrolling back to the PA at 8:35 London time: the previous trend had been stopped precisely at the 80 level. However there was no 'break buildup' at that point. This was also deviating from the strategy, because Volman advises to not look back further than 1h30, here I looked back 3-4 hours.

@Yorkshire Terrier - I figured it out, thanks !