Order was filled in ES, took only .25 heat and got out at a profit and only missed .25 profit. I am up for the day now that I am positive on all accounts. Good trading all. I guess I could have also rode the market down before riding it back up, but I am not at that level of skill yet.
net = +150 trades = 16 Too many BE trades. had caught the nice BO at 85.19 ( 12:10 est ) but moved the stp to BE and the high tick ok 12:12 got me... The BO had gone 16 ticks in my favor so I moved stp to BE. How do you guys/gal handle such situation ( image you took this trade ) or rather if you entered this trade how did you manage it ?
Hi NoEmotions, I almost never move my stop up to BE. Instead sometimes I will take just .10 instead of letting the trade play out. My thought especially on CL, is you have to let the trade have room to run. Also, I sometimes base my stop on the chart, and base my targets on the chart. If I took a standard stop, my last CL trade would have stopped me out. My thought on the trade was that it was a failed break down. It spiked down below .70, but then came right back up. I got in at .79, although maybe I should have just waited for the .80 to be breached to the upside. Well, the market came back down to test the spike down, and if I left standard stop on, I would have been stopped out right there. As noted my mistake on this trade was I could have gotten more points. Finally, you can also watch the candles to help manage the trade. Basically my best trades are ones where I leave stops and targets alone, and just walk away from the computer. Also, unless you are revenge trading or over trading, you should have got in the trade for valid reason or setup, so if you are right why are giving the market a chance to get you out of the trade at BE before going to its target. This I think is worse then making less money on some of these trades like I have been doing.
On a trade the following things can happen: 1) You enter trade, trade goes down and hits your stop. 2) You enter trade, trade goes in your direction, but before hitting target reverses back. a) You take some profit. b) You get out at BE c) You leave stop alone and target alone, and trade either hits stop or target. 3) You enter trade, trades goes in your favor or you take just a little heat like I did on my last ES trade, trade hits target. Looking over my past trades, my mistakes have been taking too little profit and letting stops get hit. Better strategy would be for my winning trades, to leave them alone, and not to average in my losing trades. For those that take BE trades, you need to look, what would happen if you left stop alone, would you end up with more winning trades or losing trades. Also, not mentioned, is some of this depends if your winners are equal or greater than your losing trades. Personally, I rather have a higher win% and having equal stops and targets, but for those that always go for a higher win amount, this also needs to be calculated.
It seems like it kinda depends on what you expect to make but looking at the chart it seems like you were still golden as long as it stayed below .25. What's the difference if you lose 5 or 10 ticks if you still think your original idea will work. All that is easy to say in hindsight especially on a day like this just don't be afraid to get back in even if it's a worse level than the original trade. It seems like you are making some good strides it is so hard recognizing what the day is going to be like while its happening.
You take a very quick fixed profit, or you move stop to b/e (or maybe a couple ticks outside of it in case there's a retest of the breakout level which is VERY common), or you leave your breakout max stop in place and see if there's further action in your favor coming. How did I manage this trade? First I carefully prepared myself for this trade by performing a warmup: At 12:01pm ET, I positioned myself in advance for the breakout, by shorting @ 85.30 off the 1-min chart and exiting break even when price found support at the LOD to the tick. Next, I took a moment to whine about how I missed the best short setup of the day (10:15am ET signal bar) because I was pissing around with a 6E trade that looked absolutely beautiful then reversed to stop me out b/e out of nowhere. This led my "mentee" to mention briefly how he would've handled that particular CL short trade, which led me to get quite edgy and actually raise my voice at him about letting winners run properly and not moving a stop to lock in 10 weenie-ass ticks when price is strongly in your favor right out of the gate. I then saw price coming in yet again for the kill and I positioned myself short @ 85.23 based on serious downward momentum toward the 85.20 LOD, and it broke out beautifully and paused at 85.03. My stop was at b/e and my rule is I either take a fixed profit on a breakout, or I move my stop to b/e and see what happens. It didn't appear to be going down any further, so I moved my stop just above the little 1-min bar and got 11 ticks profit, watched it test the breakout price to the tick and then come back down and I was just about to throw in a sell stop for a re-entry and price was gone, just like that. At which point my "mentee" was probably spitting his beer (it is Friday, after all) all over his screens and laughing his ass off at me
Picture for everyone, link for Nodoji's eyes only http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/08/health/20101108_thanksgiving.html?src=me&ref=homepage Have a nice weekend everyone!