The markets are so lame it's not even funny! It's like nobody is trading today. Good to take this week off for sure! I'm trying some new fib addons right now, they look kinda interesting. Happy Holidays!
Decided to call it an early day today and go out and enjoy the rain. Volume on CL has been really light. Up overall, but not much. Trade #1 After a big rise and pullback, CL made a double top. Went short after the 06:05 bar and entered on a limit order. Since the trend was up, I considered this a counter-trend trade and put in a fixed target of 15 ticks which I easily got on that 70 tick drop. +15 CL oscillated for awhile, forming an ascending channel. One day I'll be able to trade a channel. Trade #2 I was waiting for a test of the 06:55 pivot high and tried to get in early. When the 07:20 bar closed above the EMA, placed a buy limit at 89.53 and was filled on the next bar. I liked the way the 15 min chart was forming a right triangle and was expecting a breakout to the upside. However, after sitting in the trade a few minutes, I didn't like the decreasing volume and the double top my entry bar formed, so I tightened up the stop and was taken out. My initial stop was below the 07:20 bar. The next lesson for me is to let the trade play out. -7 ticks. Trade #3 After failing to make a HH on the 07:50 bar, I went short after the close below the EMA on a limit order. I had a tight stop, but was taken out. -4 ticks. Trade #4 The market blasted through the resistance area around 89.80 and started a pullback. I bought the pullback at 89.76 on the 09:05 bar with a tight stop, still respecting that area of resistance. When price hit the high of my entry bar and started to move back, I moved my stop up tight and was taken out. -1 Tick. Up 8 ticks on 6E on 3 trades.
Things moved a little fast for me today. There were several signals on CL that I took but wasn't filled on. At 06:40 I had signals on both CL and 6E. I chose to trade only 1 market and picked CL. My order wasn't filled, but the 6E trade would have been very nice. I'm quite happy about that. Don't care about missing a trade - I'm happy the signal was a winner. Someday when my attention span increases, I'll trade 2 markets simultaneously. I started re-reading the Trading Coach book and one item mentioned for change was there needed to be some pain involved, that just thinking about making a change is not sustainable. I'm planting the mental seed now of being a 1 tick scalper instead of a successful trader. Mentally, I'm watching my account grow a tick at a time while my trades leave me in the dust (not too far from the truth). Feeling a little uncomfortable about it. Trade #1 After a enormous drop, CL started to calm down and formed a double bottom at 08:10. Went long on the next bar break of that spinner. I was only looking to target 15 ticks since this was counter trend. After 7 ticks (couldn't even wait for 8 ticks - I'm such a pussy) I moved my stop to BE+1 and was stopped out before I got the move I was expecting. +1 Got another +1 tick on 6E
Could you elaborate on this a little bit? Are you reading the Steenbarger book? I remember reading something like this.
If you enter trades by way of stop orders you'll always get a fill. The 6:25am PST bar in CL was a setup bar (pullback to the 20 EMA following a huge range breakout to the downside. The 6:30am PST bar was the trigger bar. Using a limit order to enter means you had to guess where the pivot would occur (the break up through the 20 could've continued right on up to the range breakout level or higher), or you had to hope that you'd get a fill if you waited for price to reverse and reach the price trigger level. Price can just run away from you if the move's strong and I've had to chase entries 15 or more ticks at times when limit orders fail to fill as I throw them on at what I believe is the marketable bid/ask price. Sometimes price runs 40 or more ticks without you and you miss the whole move. So I almost always use stops placed in advance to enter trades now. Placing a buy or sell stop order in advance at the price trigger level guarantees a fill. Maybe a little slippage if the move is violent, but that's usually a sign you're on the right side of things
I'm trying to pay attention to those plays, but CL tends to retrace a lot and stop me out. 'spose it's my placement of the stop order - still trying to learn. I've noticed that 6E doesn't have the retrace problem that CL does. Might start there.
There are reoccurring patterns in all markets we trade and reoccurring patterns of all newbies, just incredible. I am very experienced and it took me several years of very hard work in being able to be consistently good at taking counter trend trades in "running" markets like Crude oil and Currencies, and yet more times, you are drawn to trading countertrend trades. The first trade to the 20ema was perfect and the 2nd pullback should have alerted you to the fact that this market was so weak, it couldn't even pull back to 20ema and it would really drop like a rock. And if you are doing 5 minute 6E, 6:10 short and 6:30. In the crude, there was no increase in volume at the lows to show accumulation, but there was in the 6E for a cheap buy next time to that support at 9:35 and 12:25. As far as a countertrend trade, there is no way I would even consider buying where you did the risk is horrible, the range of the five minute bars is too great. Make it easier on yourself, learn how to go with the trend and identify patterns of price and volume. Successful countertrend trading involves so much more comparisons of swings, ranges, volume changes and price patterns, better to do easy in my opinion.
Thanks for this. I did make two attempts to short those first 2 pullbacks, but I did so on limit orders and missed them. As NoDoji points out, there's a little bit of luck involved in getting filled trading that way. I didn't want to step in front of the green bars because I was worried about getting filled then stopped out on the retrace. NoDoji is quite skilled in this style, and I would love to be able to trade this way at some point. The counter trend trade I took was risky, but the double bottom after a 250 tick drop, plus the previous bars made me think this was a good trade. I only took 3 ticks of heat, and if I wasn't such a pussy, I would have had my target. I really am trying to do more trend following.