There's no way to know exactly where price will bottom at and I may very well be wrong, or get shaken out before price heads higher. But I do know how much I'm willing to risk, and this a bet no different than the ones I take with NQ (with the exception of time frame). I'm looking at 400 as the level buyers need to defend or else I will look to exit. To tell you the truth I kinda wish the market will take me out sooner than later because this apple postion is distracting for me. It takes away my focus on trading the NQ, something about myself I just learned this morning. With regards to the macro events you refer to, I see that as the "wall of worry", and the broader market is clearly climbing it. How far it will go who knows, but you can do 1 of 3 things: 1)go with it 2) watch it on the sidelines 3) fight it. I say 1 is better than 2, and 2 is better than 3.
I am out of town right now and posting this on my laptop. If you still want it then shoot me an email and I will try to send it to you when I get back. Basically I got caught buying the tops of the opening range thinking the buyers were stepping up at previous LOD as support. I normally don't buy at prev LOD area, because to me when price has to trade around prev LOD it implies that there is weakness. The market gave you a clue of this weakness when it traded below prev LOD in pre market. So I was not thinking clearly that morning and mistakes were made. The problem is once you are on the wrong side of the morning action, you usually miss out on the real move which in this case was down because you were not focused and prepared for it. Once I missed the downside move I made the mistake of chasing it and got stopped out, not surprisingly. Friday's action has prompted me to revisit my rules and revise them accordingly which I plan to do tonight. Some day I plan to discuss more about my methods on reading price. Right now there is more tweaking and refining going on, although I would say that it is about 85 to 90% completed so far. I will go out on a limb and say that it is very much possible to extract profits almost everyday, but you have to be really in tune with the market you trade.
I tend to think it is correct and I have seen people do it. But it is nevertheless an incredibly hard thing to do and a great accomplishment. May power be with you!
+275 on a scaled out 2 lot trade. The objectives today for me were as follows, w/ 1 being most important: 1. Finish the day up (check) 2. Preserve capital and stay cautious (check) 3. If price breaks out into trend day, ride it out for as long as possible (check) Going into today, shorting did not enter my mind and we knew which side was in control. Buyers bidded up the market this morning in a very controlled fashion. Resistance lines were : 2854.5, 2858.5, 2862... and each time price approached those levels, it paused, consolidated, broke it, then pulled back to it for some support before lifting higher. It would be very hard to enter if you missed the intitial breakout, but if you caught the initial move then trailing your stop is pretty straight forward.
On what time frame(s) do you use to determine the ORB? Whats your personal criteria for entering into an ORB?
I'm gonna go against the grain on this and say that ORB is not a valid set up on it's own. For example, lets say hypothetically that today's opening range has a high 2839 and a low of 2834. And lets assume that 15 mins after the open price breaks above 2839. At this point I would not buy the break because price is approaching resistance at prev HOD of 2842.75 and I would need to see price trade above this level for a long entry. If, instead, price broke below 2834, I would not sell this break either because price is approaching support at daily pivot of 2831.75 and I would need to see price trade below this level to even consider a short entry. So for me, I would never use ORB by itself as a trade setup. Today's long set up was brought to you by price structure and price levels (a recurring theme in this journal). Price Structure: If you look at the continuous multi day price structure from 4/18/13 low to this morning's open, there is absolutely nothing bearish about it. The market continues to make HH's and HL. So coming into today's open I maintained that the market still has an upward bias, but the question is where or when do I enter long? Price Levels: Prev HOD/LOD should have significance to any daytrader because it is outside of these levels that trigger the large institutional players. This morning we broke above the prev HOD right around the opening bell. So when price broke above this level and pulled back to it for support around 6:36 am pacific, I knew I needed to position my buy orders. So to tie it all together, here we have the larger price structure which is bullish, and you have price trading above prev HOD which triggers the long setup. Plus you have ES confirming this up move.