AR - Automatic Rally.
Have a read of hankpruden.com to learn a bit about it
You need to be much more specific rather than quote a page or two and ask what it means. It will seem confusing, but you will need to read it more than once to understand. maybe some of Peteās vids will help.
It would be a good idea to go through his vids from beginning to end and re-read MTM. It will help your understanding a lot. Itās not easy to start with. Actually, it seems like a foreign language, but when the light turns on, it will seem like you talk in VSA speak.
The thing is that you cannot get it simplified down to a level where you learn it in a day or two. You still need a lot of time to study and slowly understand it - otherwise we would all be experts in a matter of days.
Other good books - Trading in the zone and most books by Alexander Elder. They are mostly on trading psychology, which is an often missed part on trading. Everyone thinks the holy grail is finding the right system/method. I think the holy grail is inside us all, inside our own psyche, and we need to unlock that power to become consistently successful at trading.
Thank you, Tassiefx!
Iām with you on this one myself. I to have had a hard time understanding Tom Williams reading material. But, it is correct that the more you study VSA and Richard Wyckoff the better you will understand it. In your example the way I see it is to the bottom left you have a trading range with a mix of long and short traders who canāt decide which direction to go. The sudden rise represents institutional traders marking up price to try and get undecided traders to buy into the market, so as to markup price so the institutional traders can make more money, higher prices bring a better sell off. Buy low, sell high. When the price reaches the top they (Smart Money) will then distribute, sell into buyers (you and me) so that supply takes over and the market then drops so that the Smart Money can buy low again. If I am wrong please, someone correct me. Read and study as much as you can on VSA and Wyckoff. Plus study this thread.
Iāve been looking at the E/G lately ever since hopital pointed it out a couple days ago. Iāve never done this but hereās my prediction for the E/G.
The Euro has come down to the .50 fib from the fib drawn from July lows to August highs. The volume on the 4HR shows high activity at this level, forming a double bottom with the volume confirming no continuation of a down move. Effort vs. Result. This could be strength in the Euro.
The Pound however has formed a double top, with volume confirming no continuation of an up move. For the E/G to rise, there doesnāt necessarily need to be weakness in the Pound but an imbalance in the two comparatively to the USD.
The E/G now is showing a double bottom, once again with the volume confirming on the 1HR. The rectangle I have drawn in is from the initial move down, which found demand and rallied to this AR. It has yet to be broken but I would assume it should be eventually.
I donāt usually do this but Iām hoping to expand my trading abilities, using VOL to maybe hold a long term trade here and there. My whole analysis could be completely wrong, sorry if I wasted your time. But you miss 100% of the shots you donāt take.
Good analysis on E/G. That is a classic Wyckoff/VSA reversal pattern (although I donāt trade this pair). Breaking AR will be the attempt to start trending up, so the reaction will be very telling. If no weakness is shown, high probability of a strong up move. Maybe it will do the break/low vol test/continuation off AR keeping it very textbook.
G/U, E/U I would have to see the 1hr confirming, not just 4hr but thatās me. 1hr is home base.
Yeah I havenāt analyzed the GU or EU yet, 1 hour is home base for me too.
If the AR is broken during the Asian session, is that still valid? It seems very likely since itās a mere 5~ pips away. I ask because I wouldnāt want to take the breakout on low VOL in Asia session only for it to reverse come London with VOL thatās typically higher.
No reason why itās not valid, maybe just more risky getting in then.
I think identifying if a trading range is accumulation or distribution is the main ability required to be successful, and this would be a great summary, but it got me confused as hell.
What Iām confused about: this pdf says that in a distribution, the tests down should have relatively larger spreads and volume than the tests up, the opposite for accumulation. Hereās a quote from page 2, speaking of distribution:
āOne of the ways Phase C reveals itself after the standoff in Phase B is by the āsign of weaknessā(SOW) shown at point 10 on Schematic 2. This SOW is usually accompanied by significantly increased spread and volume to the downside that seems to break the standoff in Phase B. The SOW may or may not āfall through the ice,ābut the subsequent rally back to point 11, a ālast point of supplyā(LPSY) is usually unconvincing and is likely to be accompanied by less spread and/or volumeā
and, btw, schematics 2 picture represents an accumulation while text is referred to a distribution. This adds to the confusion.
Now, my understanding of trading ranges is basically the oppositeā¦ larger volumes/spreads on the support show demand, not a sign of weakness.
Later in the pdf, we find out that, in general, using the law of āeffort vs resultā helps to identify if a trading range is accumulation or distribution, which seems to confirm my method, rather than what they just said.
Can anybody shed some light on this?
From what I read there:
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There are buyers in the ranging area then the syndicate/institutional traders mark up the price, [B]then this is good for us isnāt it[/B] ?
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[I]āThe wide spread bar is to put you not to trade because its human nature to not to buy price which is cheaper just a moment agoā[/I], [B]but I thought their main trick is to lure buyers when traders see huge bullish candle like that[/B] ?
And there are more contradicting things in his writing thereā¦ so I donāt really get his pointā¦ well maybe at that section he just tried to tell what is going on in such a situation and he didnāt really have a point about syndicate/institutional traders plan
Anyway, Iām downloading the video nowā¦
hi guys,
i have been studying vsa for a weeks now and am finally getting the hang of it. (thanks pete for this thread, been a great help)
But i have question which will help clarify things for me, and also save me from going through hundreds of pages from the previous thread.
do you determine the market phase (accumulation,mark-up,mark-down) on the higher timeframes and then look for trades in the direction of that phase on the lower timeframes, or do you get the major support and resistance levels from the higher timeframes and then plot those on the lower timeframes and determine the phase on the lower timeframes.
im sorry if this question has been asked before but any help would be appreciated.
thanks.
The market is weak when SM wants to sell.
The market is strong when SM wants to buy.
It`s true, please?
Itās hopital! Lol.
Iām not in the hospital yet. Thatās why Iām on VSA. Trying not to have a heart attack on forex 
The 1HR is the main time frame one should use when trading Peteās style of VSA. From there, you can use VOL to see where SM is buying/selling and determine which phase youāre in. The higher time frames should also be used but not necessarily to gauge market activity. Like you said, major support/resistance levels and fibs could be drawn from the higher time frames due to their chances of reliability being higher then those from smaller time frames. Trading from the 5 min is the usual point of entry. Watch Peteās videos because he goes over all of this with charts and whatnot.
Yes, I think thatās about right. Although, just because SM wants to buy or sell doesnāt mean the market is automatically strong or weak. If it was that simplistic, prices would soar and fall immediately. You could see signs of strength enter the market, but prices wonāt rise if thereās still supply. Try to read the market as if it were a book and youāll know whether itās weak/strong based on what price has done.
dhdillon64,
unfortunately, there is no easy way to learn VSA. It is not like a person can draw a picture or two for you and have you turn into an effective VSA trader. If you want to learn it well, sifting through those hundreds of pages is something you will need to do. Donāt think you have to do it all at once, give yourself 10-15 pages a day to read. It wont take too long to do that as a lot of the questions are just that - asking questions. However, the answers are also embedded in there. First port of call should be Petes videos though.
"The market is weak when SM wants to sell."
Emphasis is on the word āwantsā.
More accurate term: The market is weak when majority of SM wants to sell. The SM does not uniform, but consists of groups.
Sorry for poor english.
Took a loss on the E/U on what I thought to be strength entering the market.
But I entered the E/G, probably going to hold on to this for a couple days, hoping to see continued strength.
Got an entry dis morning on E/J and am still riding it ā¦+60pip
runing and 45pips in d bank ā¦lol
Nice, I saw that the Yen pairs were bound to take off but I didnāt see entry. What time you saw the entry?
EDIT: A G/U short is looking likely, but I donāt how strong the downside isā¦
It was simple ā¦NS at 10:25 and confirmation and push tru at 10:30 ā¦sweet and simple.