Directional bias? maybe

Hello,
So I have been following the likes of PeteFader, and PruplePatch as well as innercircle. These members have been monumental in my trading education. I still have yet to enter into the real market as I have been really busy being a golf professional. This has lead to a herniated disc, and now its great. I have six months to commit to trading. (sorry for rant, going through some *&$%#)

Ok here is my question. I understand entries and exits really well, and have a good grasp on candle stick price patterns, and volume, or vsa. I prefer to trade almost naked drawing fibs and trend lines myself. The only "indicator " i would use is volumes. I know this has probably been beat over the head but I am having trouble searching for a method to help me establish bull/bear bias on a longer term basis. i.e. 3 days to a week.

I am exploring innercircles COT method as of now but additional understanding is required.

any books or reading would be great, or an explanation of how you go about establishing your weekly to daily bias.

and yes i tried search just Dont know the proper vocabulary. (Directional bias???)

thanks AJ

It really just boils down to screen time… Sure there may be some indicators that tell which Direction the price has been moving in… ADX would probably be the best of them… But it is really as simple as looking at the chart and observing whether price is making higher highs… Or lower lows… If highs are being broken you are in an uptrend… If lows are then your in a down trend… Understand fundamental concepts of economic indicators and news releases and you are good to go.

Problem is I don’t see VSA fitting in with ICT’s stuff.

Course Purple is set on proving that it can be used in conjunction but I would only really take interest in purple and if he found something like an extra 10% edge on your consistency Assuming your in the 60-70% win rate.

I cant say that I follow VSA to the letter. I tend to think of it more of a macro view. Accumulation / distribution. I like to try and think like the smart money and find where the stops will be. This I think is the key. I have found that there is ALOT of overlap between what pete talks about as well as inner circle. Not in the exact methods of entry or exit, but the way they think about the smart money, place fibs, etc. I like and hate the fact that it probably is screen time and experience.

I am a small amount versed in economics, however my intermediate classes from university are forgotten. Any recommend starting places on learning how to interpret the economic news?

I agree with this, your additional edge must be statistically significant (t-stat > t- critical) . Otherwise what ends up happening is you either add complexity for no reason (no additional gain or possible negative effect) or you end up making your system less robust by decreasing degrees of freedom. either way unless i can concrete prove that mixing them does well together. I wouldnt

I focus on ‘sentiment’ when listening/reading the news. I feel its more about the how the market ‘feels’ about some news, not the number itself. So watch how the markets react to some news and then log how you thought it would react. They call some markets ‘bad/weak’ markets for example on bullish news turn down. Or “strong” markets ones that can take bearish news and still rally. Now all these TV news guys say it after the fact. Practice it on your own, you know the estimates coming out or you know potential out comes. Do some ‘what if’ scenarios and then decide on what you beleive should happen. No one really knows whats going to happen anyway. Personally that’s how i trained myself to “listen to the news” I have a much better feel for it now than before. But its not exactly what you were looking for, just my take.