Well, good luck. Just remember that the better prepared you are, the less reason you'll have to be afraid of the trading process.
I will put my stop give or take 1 point below or above the sup/res if it takes me out it keeps my loss low, I can always reenter. I take profits before what I perceive the next sup/ res level is as I have only been live this week as time goes on I will relax a little more, just dont want to push it in the begining and no my trend line hadnt been broken but better safe than sorry. I use a 30min, 5 min and 400 tic for entries, I find the 30m works better for me now then the 60m but i will get there, rome wasnt built in a day. I need to learn to post charts then it will make more sense, [ dont laugh im not a tech junkie ]
I understand what you're saying. I suggest, though, that you do detailed chart reviews of both winners and losers. This will keep you on track and enable you to think more clearly when your session begins. There's nothing wrong with exiting your contract, or one of your contracts, at a predetermined target as long as it is predetermined and not taken out of fear. The idea of beginning with two contracts and exiting one at a predetermined target and letting the other one ride at breakeven has been around for years. However, this requires a certain comfort level and considerable data-gathering with regard to MAEs and MFEs as one is after all doubling his risk at the entry. The SLA, however, was written for the beginner and the damaged trader. For them, I suggest what I wrote in the pdf, to exit at the break of the line without any hesitations in order to control and eventually rid oneself of hope and fear. Even if the trader makes only one trade and it lasts only ten minutes, that's substantial progress for a great many people. Tiny steps. Once one has that behind him, though, there are many modifications that can be made in terms of tactical sets, particularly when adding contracts, even though the three strategies are the same. None of this is in the pdf, of course, other than the repeated caution that the SLA/AMT is directed toward, again, the beginner and the damaged trader. To get into all that would result in an encyclopedia, given the near-infinite variety of risk tolerances, goals, objectives, personal constraints, and so on.
I will start a W/L chart review, next week I will hold till sla is broken, part of the exits were price came to a halt so i got out, only to consolidate and keep going but that is part of the learning process. [ observation ] Your advice is well taken I will take the tiny steps and over time turn them into larger steps. Thanx.
I suggest a journal to keep your records in one place for easier analysis. Threads have a tendency to get submerged under seasonal avalanches if they're not under one's control.
Yes, it is part of the learning process, something which those who ridicule the journalists who are going the process clearly do not understand. But as to these consolidations, determining when a break is meaningful and when it's no more than a rest stop is relatively simple to do: just keep a record -- a private one -- of how much price can break the line and still resume the move. If, for example, it can break the line by no more than three points before consolidating or resuming the move, then you have a good idea of how much leeway to give it rather than go to the trouble of exiting and then trying to re-enter. Or it may be four points. Or even five. As you're in profit by that time, giving it room does not mean giving everything away. And all of this varies according to the instrument. But two or three points is not a big deal. What happens to those who dislike testing and record-keeping, however, is that they repeatedly exit only to see price move on without them and they decide that next time they're just going to hang on instead of being tossed and that is of course the time when price stages a major reversal and wipes out everything they've gained. Donna was saying something the other day about not having to think about what she's doing, that the testing had been so thorough that the necessary decisions had already been made; all she had to do was implement them. That's the goal: not having to think about what you're doing. Once one begins thinking about what he's doing, he's inviting back in all those emotions he's worked so hard to neuter.
I'm consolidating the "oil" charts I've posted since February here as they serve to illustrate the proposition that the SLA applies to any instrument in an auction market, i.e., subject to the Law of Supply and Demand. This applies to stocks, commodities, bonds, and consequently anything based on them: ETFs, futures, options, etc. These charts also serve to illustrate what is meant by "foresight" and "foresight trading". Those who view them as hindsight are reminded that they were not hindsight at the time. First, from February 1: And from a month later, trend broken but not reversed, and until price exceeded the arrowed bar, it still wasn't reversed. If it hadn't fallen, then the only other alternative was to go sideways, which it had been doing ever since (all this was addressed at the time). And a more detailed explanation for those to whom this sort of thing was new: And from April (the shaded part is what was posted in February). Note that price broke out of this range and had retraced. Whether or not this breakout succeeded or failed was unknowable at the time as was the eventual success or failure of the retracement. Nonetheless, price broke out of the range, which is significant in and of itself given that the last time this happened, seven years ago, the bottoming process took three months, as I pointed out at the time. And the day after I posted that chart, the retracement was confirmed by a higher swing high. The following is yesterday's chart: Can price reverse here and return to the range? Of course. But that's not the point. Those who bought the breakout of the range have four points to play with. And if it doesn't reverse, those who bought the breakout are well ahead of those who have less appetite for risk but will now and in the future enter into a trade/investment that they "missed", thereby propelling the price upward. That is the essence of "foresight trading". Those who require a "real-time call" are well behind the curve. In the meantime . . . I take the making of these charcoal layouts very seriously. Too many novices wait until they are on the canvas before trying to solve many of their problems. --Norman Rockwell
Db, I have been working with bonds using sla as you mentioned above. Posting just as an example of sla working. Waiting to hit demand line to decide to exit or not. Thanks for all you post.
This is a good example of the choices that are available to the trader depending on his objectives and goals. If, for example, the primary demand line is the line in the sand, there's no particularly good reason to fool with any of the rest, which is the chief reason why I encourage those who "get lost" to trade a larger interval. Different goals, on the other hand, might prompt the trader to track the S/D balance and exit at the beginning of February. These charts look "busy" to the uninitiated because they show what is done in real time. If the chart were annotated in hindsight, only four of these lines would be necessary. But then the neophyte would think that they were all there was to it and would be in the weeds very quickly after the first entry.