As regards trading daily charts (see my post above), the SLA/AMT becomes about as simple as it gets. The number of decisions one has to make are minimal. When one has to make them depends largely on the trade management and risk management aspects of one's individual trading plan. These cannot be prescribed. Though the SLA/AMT rules apply throughout, the decision regarding how much risk one can and is willing to tolerate must be an individual one. Not everyone is willing to risk a hundred NQ points on any given trade.Before evaluating a given set of circumstances, then, a "market picture", one must first decide, again, just exactly what it is he wants, how he plans to go about getting it, and how much he's willing to risk to get it. Without that, whatever "trading" he engages in is essentially masturbatory.
In the set of charts above, posted again below, one can see that price was in a downtrend until Tuesday. All this has been addressed in this week's posts. The daily supply line was then broken. What does this mean? It means that there was a change in stride. Does this change imply reversal? Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn't matter. One can't know in real time whether one has a reversal or a dog. But one can plan in advance what he will do about either.
If one is the nervous sort, he would likely exit at the break of that line. But then what? If he were watching price move in real time, he would note that price rallied up to 4360 and feel smug about having exited his short (if he weren't watching price move in real time, he could use the hourly as a proxy in order to determine what price had been doing while he was absent). But then he would see price run out of gas and make a U-turn, quickly breaking his demand line, at which point he would likely begin calling himself a schmuck again for having been frightened out of a perfectly good short.
If one simply cannot tolerate the sort of movements involved in allowing price to swing on a daily chart, in this case over a hundred points, then he has no choice but to revert to the hourly in order to re-enter and manage his trade. The upside is that the risk of doing so is so much less. The downside is that he is now enmeshed in hourly swings, and these will take more time, more attention, different management, and a continual re-assessment of risk, of what is being risked, of what can be tolerated. If one had entered the short properly, 400+ points higher, the 100pt break in the supply line might not be so intolerable, particularly if he understands the implications of AMT that price will likely reach 4125+/- (which it did, forecast in advance by anyone who can draw a straight line). Yes, these are substantial moves. Mega-moves. But that's what trading daily charts is all about. You're not scalping for ticks so that you have something to chat about on message boards. If one can and did tolerate this break and chose instead to observe price rather than freak over the break (he is after all hundreds of points in profit), then he is just fine. The events since the break are of no importance, other than what turned out to be a retracement was confirmed the following day and his short is still good. All is well in Smugville.
But if he couldn't stand it, if he segued into the realm of the hourly chart, even if he entered properly at or shortly after the break of his demand line, he would soon be faced with the same issues of line break and how much is too much and how much of a break he can and is willing to tolerate. Rules are rules, but no one can make these decisions for him. Rules are rules, but whether or not the trader follows them is out of the SLA/AMT's hands (so to speak). I'm not going to draw in lines highlighting swing highs and lows and ranges and halfway levels that the trader might incorporate to help him make his trade management decisions. The point here is that once one leaves the daily highway and begins following the hourly detours, he can easily find himself dealing with mud and busted fences and washed-out bridges and flocks of sheep blocking the road and flat tires and running out of gas in the middle of what appears to be nowhere.
Trading the daily chart is more than was that a good entry yesterday, much less dwelling on the missed opportunity from last week. Or last month. Trading the daily chart requires a thorough understanding of and acceptance of one's tolerance for risk. One may understand the SLA well. One may be able to draw the lines and spin out scenarios like the best vendor explaining the best hindsight charts in the most expensive trading academies. But unless one has come to terms with risk, it's all masturbatory, and one can look forward to years of wandering the same roads, even after his car has died and he must travel on foot, living on nuts and berries, if he's lucky enough to get them. Dandelions and tree bark if he isn't.