Back from vacation. Thanks everyone for the comments and of course DonKee. On the MACD, I'm using the LBR310 NinjaTrader indicator posted on a previous page. I really like NinjaTrader's charts but had some data issues with it today as can be seen in the attachment. Still, +2.25 points, admittedly a small portion of the day's range, but with only minor errors on my part that I can see.
Looks like you're reading the market very nicely. Notice how you are always getting into a trade that at least started in the correct direction? One point to make, that low after 10am was a direct hit on the 62% retracement. There was really no other signal for me at that retracement other than the 3/10 hist rolling back towards the zero line. Just something to keep an eye on. Nothing wrong with 2.25 points. It sure beats a losing day
Thanks DonKee. When it hits that fib level and bounces off of it would you pass on the first cross pullback and wait for that price level to get taken out? And then take the next retracement on the same trend?
There are several things that generally happen: Best scenario is that you got a 1st Cross signal as the retracement level is rejecting the price. Or, the 1st Cross signal happens after the retracement level has rejected price for a few bars and starts to roll back over. Nothing wrong with taking these, as you never know which signals are going to give you a big trade. Just make sure the trade on these starts to work right away. Remember, if a market has trended for 30 minutes to an hour and has moved a relatively long way, it is generally going to take some "time" to correct. A correction of that type of move usually doesn't take 5 minutes and only encompass two 1000 tick bars. The longer you watch these patterns, the more you'll get a "feel" for when a pattern has been in force a long time and you need to start looking for a correction (or a new swing) and not more continuation.
Quite an awful day for me today. I wasn't able to filter my trades properly plus made a couple of mistakes. So this day will be filed under the "ugly" category of -7 points. Main take-aways for me: 1. I probably need to look at the big picture more. 2. I need to filter my trades in some way, hopefully using something that isn't completely discretionary. 3. Drawdowns are part of trading, tomorrow is another day.
Today was a tough day taking only 1st Cross signals. 9:40am-loser and very quickly. 10:29am-loser and very quickly 12:33pm-scratch 13:12-scratch I was able to squeak out a few winners by taking some long stabs at the retracement levels (14:09pm and 14:34pm). For those, I was watching my 500 tick chart for signals. The 14:34pm was a 62% pull-back with a 1st Sig Cross on the 500 tick chart. I think I have mentioned this before, but it is very important. Wide range days are very often followed with narrow range days. Especially during the slow summer months. Yesterday's range was 32 handles. My expectations going into today were for a narrow, range bound trade. More of a day looking to take a few shots with no expectations of any kind of big move. Nothing wrong with the trades you took. I have losing days, just need to wait for another day and more trades. We can't take more from the market than it gives us.
I've been meaning to check out this strategy and today I finally sat down with at after the market closed to see how it did. It's looks like today would have been tough. I get the following trades: 9:30 short at 899 cover at 897 net +2 9:39 long at 899 stopped at 897 net -2 9:53 short at 896 stopped at 898 net -2 10:59 short at 894.75 stopped at 896.75 net -2 12:17 long at 901 stopped at 899 net -2 13:05 short at 899 cover at 897 net +2 15:03 long at 901 sell at 903 net +2 Total net -2. With commisions would have lost $132.90 trading 1 contract. How did you guys do? Are there any of the above trades you wouldn't have taken, and why? I've read through this thread once but I need to study more. So far I don't fully grasp how to filter these trades or when to scratch them before getting stopped out. Thanks!
I hope some of you had success reading the 3/10/16 oscillator today. Here are 3 trades that were pretty low stress. I am watching both the 500 tick and 1000tick. The chart attached is the 500 tick chart. Remember, when we have these big trend days, you're not going to get the 16 line to cross zero more than once, if at all. Your price pullbacks will mostly be defined by divergences in the 3/10.