Keep in mind that everything in this journal is based on intraday trading. Any comments I might make about buying dips etc are intraday, unless I clearly state otherwise. Getting so close to 115 00 and turning around is bearish for me. While buying dips over the last few days has worked really well, I no longer count on my prediction / observation made last week as in my mind the target was made. In any event, I've been buying and selling intraday since then. In answer to your question, while buying the dips over the course of days (different from intraday) seems to have worked since my post, I personally would stop while ahead and re-evaluate everything. Yesterday is an excellent example, the trade of the day was short at 0912 CST at 114 14 or so and out at 0945 at 114 06 or so. It is the only trade I took. Study that trade, it follows 100% of the rules that I've detailed in this journal. Good trading!
Friday 08 December 2006 Market analysis 0730 - 0930 CST I was reluctant to trade the 0730 report for obvious reasons. I sat out and elected to not take any "seconds after the release" trades. At approximately 0738 on the 2 min bar I shorted ZB's at 113 25. Shorting there has very important significance if you do some minimal observations of S/R over the last 2 weeks. Based on my method published here, that was the trade of the day (so far). Price ticked up to 113 27 on that bar and then went down to kiss 113 21 within 2 more bars. Upon taking the trade you know that you are playing the odds that a return to test the low of the day is in order. As soon as prices stalled at 113 21 you should have exited this trade with a minimum of 2 ticks profit, i.e. exit at 113 23 or better. At 0746 prices came back to your entry. Do you short again or do you stand aside or do you go long anticipating a "V" day? The smart thing to do is to stand aside. The buy volume on the 0748 3 min ZB bar is significant. That tells you to hold off on a short. I was thinking of shorting at 0754 when we reached 114 00 but my rule on the double 00's and the buy activity leading up to the attack kept me out of shorting. It was at this point I decided that some type of "V" day was possible, and I went long at 114 01. My target was 114 06. The sell volume at 0815 led me to exit at 114 04. I bring the above up as an example of how to capture some of the ticks available to you today.
While typing the above, I neglected to mention that the trade I'm currently in is a short at 114 01 based on price activity between 0914 and 0916 on the 2 min bar. Bottom line, we had a re-test of the 114 04 - 114 06 area at 0904 which failed.
I realize I was very bullish when I made that post, but let me re-emphasize I'm not very good at long-term calls and I'm really good at intra-day small 4 - 6 tick gains in the ZB's. So far, this year, I think I'm 2 out of 4 for a call that lasted a few days. By the way, per my humourous earlier post about 3 ticks off my call being OK, getting 3 ticks within my number is good enough for me and from then on the call is null and void and I re-evaluate everything. It is pretty obvious in hindsight that we've been down ever since. I've traded long and short since then.
I put in an exit order to buy at 113 12 when we kissed 113 13 at 1102 CST on the 2 min ZB. Prices started drifting back up and I didn't want to wait for further lows so I went to bed. When I got up today, Saturday 09 December 2006 (it is still Friday for anyone on CST), I noticed that I had been filled. What a great day! Initially with the first two trades not amounting to a lot of ticks, I was thinking that we would have a bit of a range bound day, however, it didn't work out that way did it? Any time you have a day that gives you a range of roughly 16 ticks through 0730 followed by roughly 16 ticks through 0815, followed by almost 32 (not quite) ticks through 1500 you've had a remarkable day. It is definitely one to study the chart of.
Great trade, congrats. Do you still have the sell volume at 0815 when you exited the trade at 114-04? Would like to compare it to my Platform ( had some technical data feed interruptions) If you could post the attachment with the volume?, thanks