I'm new to your site. Thanks for putting all this information online. I saw your recent work on Live Hogs on 3/20/23. I'm hoping you can answer a question of mine. How do we know when we are dealing with a shifted pitchfork where the median line is not quite achieved (I believe Tim used to call those occurrences, 'undershoots,' versus applying the Hagopian rule?. I hope you can understand my question.
Thanks for the question. Technically, the Hagopian Rule isn't triggered until price trades back through the upper or lower parallels. For example, if price found a low and comes out of a pivot hot, and fails to reach the ML, then pulls backs but stays inside the lower parallel, then the Hagopian Rule was never triggered. It takes price zooming the lower parallel to trigger it. Tim always said the rule was over utilized. He would say if it got close - within 80% - he would not call it a hagopian no matter if price left the lower parallel or not. He did all the stat work on 'Hagopians', so I have no doubt that he knew what he was talking about. Myself, I am more of a purist I guess. If price misses the ML by 'X' amount, it means something. I may not understand what it means, but it didn't happen by accident. Price may crawl inside the upper and lower parallels for a year - never leaving it, but that miss means something. If we miss something by even a tick that we should have done, that tick (or more) will show up someplace else opposite - because price movement is always the expression of energy and that 'miss' was a clue to what was coming. Likewise, if we get an overshoot, it's not an accident. It's there for a reason. Once in a while, I will mention 'crystalline'. A market that is crystalline is banging off the lines like a pool ball off the sides of the table. If price missed by 3 ticks above, it will likely miss by 3 below. And it may be doing with different frequencies at the same time. Often times, when price is going some place fast, those markets are the most crystalline because there is less influence from the energy of the other swings. When price is horizontal and price is feeling the energy of all the swings - it tends to get sloppy and be less crystalline. Admittedly since we started this, I have used the hagopian more than I normally do. It doesn't do you any good for us to use some 'art' that is difficult to replicate without years of sitting behind a screen. So, I apologize for my overuse of the Hagopian rule but it works, and is simple to understand. Maybe in time, we can start to role out some 'cool' techniques but for now, 'keep it simple stupid' is the plan.
Hi Mike,
I'm new to your site. Thanks for putting all this information online. I saw your recent work on Live Hogs on 3/20/23. I'm hoping you can answer a question of mine. How do we know when we are dealing with a shifted pitchfork where the median line is not quite achieved (I believe Tim used to call those occurrences, 'undershoots,' versus applying the Hagopian rule?. I hope you can understand my question.
Thank you,
Bob
Hi Bob.
Thanks for the question. Technically, the Hagopian Rule isn't triggered until price trades back through the upper or lower parallels. For example, if price found a low and comes out of a pivot hot, and fails to reach the ML, then pulls backs but stays inside the lower parallel, then the Hagopian Rule was never triggered. It takes price zooming the lower parallel to trigger it. Tim always said the rule was over utilized. He would say if it got close - within 80% - he would not call it a hagopian no matter if price left the lower parallel or not. He did all the stat work on 'Hagopians', so I have no doubt that he knew what he was talking about. Myself, I am more of a purist I guess. If price misses the ML by 'X' amount, it means something. I may not understand what it means, but it didn't happen by accident. Price may crawl inside the upper and lower parallels for a year - never leaving it, but that miss means something. If we miss something by even a tick that we should have done, that tick (or more) will show up someplace else opposite - because price movement is always the expression of energy and that 'miss' was a clue to what was coming. Likewise, if we get an overshoot, it's not an accident. It's there for a reason. Once in a while, I will mention 'crystalline'. A market that is crystalline is banging off the lines like a pool ball off the sides of the table. If price missed by 3 ticks above, it will likely miss by 3 below. And it may be doing with different frequencies at the same time. Often times, when price is going some place fast, those markets are the most crystalline because there is less influence from the energy of the other swings. When price is horizontal and price is feeling the energy of all the swings - it tends to get sloppy and be less crystalline. Admittedly since we started this, I have used the hagopian more than I normally do. It doesn't do you any good for us to use some 'art' that is difficult to replicate without years of sitting behind a screen. So, I apologize for my overuse of the Hagopian rule but it works, and is simple to understand. Maybe in time, we can start to role out some 'cool' techniques but for now, 'keep it simple stupid' is the plan.
Thanks again and take care.