Post a chart each day with your entries, stops, and profit targets, and also why you put on the trade. Once you get some constructive feedback, you'll find out where to make corrections. Think about it. Every day every stock and every futures contract offers long and short opportunities to day traders. Most of the low-risk high-reward opportunities are signaled very clearly on a 5-min chart. Here is a helpful hint to find one high probability trade on a single stock or futures contract each day. If it's trending up (making a new high and pulling back to a higher low before making an even higher high) and at some point fails to make a higher high, it is likely to reverse. If it's trending down (making a new low and pulling back to a lower high before making an even lower low) and at some point fails to make a lower low, it is likely to reverse. Using POT as an example, Friday POT fell from the open and made a low @ 108.10. It then made a new high @ 109.72. It pulled back, pivoted off a higher low (108.65) meaning an intraday uptrend is now confirmed. It moved to test the previous high. It failed to make a new high, so you short it around 109.50 with a stop at 109.73. Your initial target is 108.65 where you can take off part of the position or wait for further action to unfold. Technically the failure to make a new high means it should try to break down the previous low. If you took profits at the conservative target of 108.65 on 500 shares, you make $425. That's a decent day's pay. When the retest of the day's low holds up and forms a double bottom, watch for a higher low. You get a higher low @ 108.42, go long around 108.50-108.60 and target either a retest of the day's high or a higher high. Conservative target of the day's high nets you $560 on 500 shares. Think of a double bottom or double top as a reset zone, a trend reversal and watch the for the higher low/lower high entry signal. This is how I make pretty consistent profits.
Madam, I always appreciate your reply. I will start posting my entries and exits along with my stops from now on. Obviously, I need to slow down the bleeding so I am also going to start trading lots of 100 shares until i can consistently make money for a week.
How do you know it failed to make a new high in real time? If you wait for a break of the low of the swing high then your short entry is 109.23...or if you wait until the close of the bar then your entry is 109.12. How did you get an entry of 109.50? Is there something I'm missing? P.S. I appreciate your posts as I seem to run into them a lot as I lurk through this forum.
I have secret recipe for precise entries I always wait for price to come very close to testing a previous resistance level, I no longer jump in early with a wider stop. When price tried to do that Friday and pulled back from a lower level, I would short 1 tick below the close of the previous bar. Higher risk in terms of less confirmation, but lower risk in terms of I can place a very tight stop. The other thing I do is cross-reference a 1-min chart and if price is in the overbought extreme, that's my confirmation that it's likely to pull back enough that the trade will cover my commission cost at the very least. I do sometimes get stopped out of POT trades for small losses before catching the real move, but it's worth it for all the times I catch a whole lot more of a move.