Thank you all for your contributions. I spent some time this weekend going over my trading plan. I figured out my problem. I want to catch the large intraday moves like the one we saw this past Friday. But on the other hand, I don't want to give back 15-20 pips profits. If I take the 15-20 pips profits then I can't ride the whole trend. Lately, this forces me to trade in and out constantly and I usually end up overtrading. I used to be able catch the large trends but I can't lately. I went over my trading plan and simplified it further. I am limiting my entries to two specific setups. This should limit my entries to 5-6 a day at most. There's only one discretionary element left in the plan. Once I'm in a trade, I have to make a decision to trail my stop loosely or trail it tighter. If I think that the market will move against me , I'll tighten the stop but not close the position. If I get stopped out then again there is only one specific way I can re-enter in the original direction. This has been the weakest link in my earlier plans. #1 rule is to stop trading for the day after 24 ticks loss. I'm going to brainwash myself to start measuring my success not in terms of daily $ P/L but by sticking to the plan. I'll start writing down each trade again with entry and exit conditions. I used to write down each trade but haven't done it for a while. I went back and read my old logs. Everyday I put comments about the daily activity. I can clearly see all the simple mistakes I repeated over and over again. My mistakes were: 1) Not stopping trading after a certain daily loss. 2) Trading against the main intraday trend (many trades with tight stops--kind of kidding myself saying that this is the last one). This happens after taking a 20-25 pips profit but then the move continues in my original direction and I start trading against the trend. Happy Trading
How do you determine your entry/exit regions, I am interested? Also, what do you guys do when you have a non-active period of several hours (outlined in red on Fridays chart below)? The reason I say 'non-active' is because there are no real changes in price, and when factoring in the spread that many brokers add on, it would be very hard to make anything. EDIT: I changed the image to a link, since it was too big for the forum... http://www.waveformpc.com/noaction.JPG
My 2 cents is to learn to sit on your hands when the market doesn't present any trade setups that fit your trading plan. Read ET threads, listen to Bloomberg, review charts, do fundamental research, play video games, play with your pets, surf the net, or get a BJ from your girlfriend/wife.
Regarding the entry, I try to see if a trend is developing. I look at higher/highs, lower/lows and volume. I also follow the bonds. Exits are much more trickier and drive me nuts. I don't have targets since most of the large moves happen but popping stops at res/sup levels. I prefer trailing stops.
Let's be politically correct. Your last sentence should read ...surf the net, or get a BJ from your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/domestic partner.
I look at real-time data, specifically CME eurodollar futures (the interest rate product). I don't have real-time CBOT subscription in TS otherwise, I would be looking at ZN. But I think both are OK in terms tracking intraday trends.
Well worth $35 CBOT Exchange Fee for Bond data. The mini data is free anyway. Just don't trade the minis!