Look at the chart of the premarket hours (say, a 1 min chart covering 4 hours). Whether it's random chop or well-defined trends, you're most likely going to get the same going into the rest of the day.
another tip for those having a hard time with wiggly price action, watch a 2 minute chart of the $ADD (advande / declines line), the market wont be going your way unless the ADD is. also put on that chart a 50sma, this 50sma will prove to be a very very efficient support and resistance level at all times. on this same chart, add a 10 period bollinger band with a .618 std dev (and remove the middle line), this is the momo (momemtum) bands, useful to see if the mkt is actually going somewhere by the way, this is intended for futures day trading only.
BSAM, aren't you the guy who believes the market is largely random? If you are the same guy I'm remembering you don't need mentoring. A random market is more tradable, not less. Just look for areas that are statistically extreme. PM me and I'll show you how.
No. Some traders try to use ADX but that is such a lagging indicator it's useless. Think about using a strategy that buys very oversold areas and sells overbought areas. Don't put your whole wad on with 1 trigger. Since you are paper trading you can afford to lose lots of money finding your way. Just keep buying a move down and see what happens. You'll get wacked but you'll be able to find where you eventually won. Once you can isolate those areas you can work on eliminating the triggers you got beat on. EXTREME patience is the key. None of us are born with it but EVERYONE can learn it. Stop looking for trends. By the time you find one it's too late. You're better off fading it once it turns but like anything, this takes time to learn.
It was a a tough trading day. i got hit in my longs and shorts, however I shorted into the close, the last 5 minuets I put shorts on across the board. Carrying into tomorrow. Expecting volatility. Keep in mind these are not Futures shorts, mainly equity shorts in certain sectors with some of the equities heged by Calls. and short puts. nothing huge in monetary means, went into the close underwater.
Alright guys, I'm posting my fills for the day with a lot of stuff removed. I don't want to give everything away Where on this chart did I try to "catch a move?" Nowhere. If you stop trading patterns, stop looking for trends, and just trade on hard facts you'll do much better. Most traders try to "catch a move." Doing that converts you from a trader to a forecaster, or a predictor. It means you become a bull or a bear. You "think" or "want" the market to do something. If you wait until the actual move does occur, and ENDS, you are now trading on hard, cold facts. You know the move has occurred. There is no guessing, no hoping, no nothing. You just fade it. Buy what everyone else is selling and sell what everyone else is buying. There are times you won't have perfect timing. Don't put your entire line on the trade with 1 trigger. You can scale into a trade if the first trigger doesn't work. Take a partial when the market offers it to you. I nailed every trade today except the last 2. The one circled....I had to leave so I just had to get out, +.25. It hit my target. The last one...I just got back and scalped a quick 3 ticks. The rest of 'em were pretty good. I ain't the perfect trader -- that guy ain't out there. But if you can remove the guesswork from your job you will be light years ahead of the crowd. No guessing or "catching" anything here and it netted me 17.25. Fade what everyone else is doing when the price gets to extreme levels. Take profits like a fool and forget the rest. You don't have to catch any kind of a move to make money. Leave that guesswork to the rest of the crowd. Just fade what they do. And yes, the market is dead F'n random. I win based on that assumption every single day.
(I was responding to Balda's post where he said he made a whopping $16.60. In this country, we call that "sarcasm".)
LOL, good trading PTF. May we all continue to make our money. It's pretty amazing actually ... the markets are like a rosharch test, and also, life. You can pretty much see anything you want in it, and take what you want out of it. I saw pretty clear trends which allowed me to take a little, even though I only did 1/2 day. Just think where we will be if we can manage to do this pretty consistently, in about six months!