bmw, I could not agree more. How about this simple rule ? Unless the indicator measures price action and by price action I mean highs lows support resistance allow yourself a maximum of one, your choice. That way your concentration stays on what matters, price. Remember you look at price first then you get confirmation from your tools. Not the other way around. Many traders concentrate on indicators and forget about Gran Daddy, PRICE! Letting the winners run is not only crucial but could determine the difference between a poor, good and a great day. Lots of market time should be devoted to this area. I've said multiple times in this journal it is possibly the hardest aspect to master too. In my humble opinion, momentum is the key here. Is is rallying, is it stopping, is it hesitating, in the tape, where is the pressure ? There should be some extra info about momentum in the journal as well. As far as location for security reasons I wish to keep all personal details private. Anek
Anekdoten... Why don't you give everybody a thrill and post your trade results each day. Just post a pic of your PnL... I bet they would get a kick out of that... Plus they could see right where you entered and exited. They could really learn a lot from that don't you think?
I don't see how posting personal details about car size and PnL can help people trade better. If you think I do this for the thrill you got the wrong person. Plenty of people have seen me trade live in the past if its genuinenesse evidence what you seek. To conclude next week would be my last of trade presentation, from then on, I am willing to comment but I cannot possibly continue with the same dedication as private matters get left behind. The purpose of the journal is to help not amuse. Anek
The last short is still open. Why ? Because there is still no reason to cover. Live chart attached. Hope it helps. Anek
Since next week will be the end of your journal, I suspect you will get a barage of questions. So, I'll start now just to break the ice. I notice you do not re-enter a trade after a loss and have stated so I believe in this journal. It is a falt that I have. Anything else you may offer on this subject? It may be just a judgement call, but on the attached chart from today there is a high label HH and a low labeled LL. It seems they could be viewed as the beginning of a congestion, but you took a sell off of the pullback of the next LL. Are you guided by the previous High and Previous Low rather than the secondary ones that I labeled? Kind of an obtuse question, but I think it is an area with which some of us are struggling. On a pullback, say on a downtrend do you look at the distance in points to the previous low as a gauge whether or not to take a sell. Since you may exit at or near that low, do you look for some room for price to move around in? More to come...........Thanks
B, The journal, hopefully will keep growing as you guys help each other out. I can always chip in with ideas or comments. Just hard to keep this rate going when you have family. Yes if I get stopped out I suspect change of a trend aka some consolidation before a new trends develops. I also need to see, and this is very important, IF it develops one. I definitely saw that in real time but took a chance and called it "noise" due to the volatility at hand, valid question though. When something like that presents itself close stop is always good insurance. Hope it helps. Anek
My screwup was moving my stop up too soon which took me out of a trade at a small loss that would have gone profitable fairly quickly. My initial stop would have been untouched. My badly timed short was almost identical to your 4th short that you got stopped out on, except the pattern occurred earlier in the day , I shorted the last lower high as the trend was changing to "up" Market was moving sideways from 10:30 to 12:30 eastern time with some LH and HL mixed in with HH and LLs. I just went through the exercise of walking through the daily bar chart (555 volume YM and 222 volume YM bars) and taking trades based on HH/ HL, LH/LL with entry determined by stoch cross, using as little discretion as possible. I presume close of bar price as my entry. I still am having trouble showing net profit! I get stopped out of a lot of trades, (I use an 8 tic mm stop for YM) and not many of those would have been huge winners anyway. Seems my biggest problem is the sharp moves where there is very little retracement. I have a hard time finding a reasonable entry.
Jaxon, Stop needs to be strategic for whatever reason but strategic, not some fixed number. Losses are inevitable but winners very viable so it evens out. If you don't see an optimal entry then there is no play. Don't force trades, odds in your favor or back to crossing your arms. Anek
"Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting." Jesse Livermore