that late morning ones' stop is 10cents. averaging trading with no stops, not now, already history. try to learn doing averaging up, found it is hard, particularly in day trading (the trend is short lived), in a big trend, like from 87 to 67, that will be a good one. but it is still hard, for example, if you short it at 87, then it drop to 85, you shorted more, but it comes back to 87, now red and I will feel punished, so I forget about averaging trading totally. I like to do accurate entry with "all in, then gradually out", but feel that is damn dumbest thing to do too. gradually out, sounds good, but get lots of distractions (my brain will divide my trade into this part, that part...), so I forget about that too. the most pleasing way to me is all in and all out with tight stop. I was late to the party today for that late morning trade. when I was back to my desk (lots of personal chores morning), it was already at 78+, I quickly put my EMA there and drew my TL, I figure it possibly goes to 78.6+ based on the morning move (toke off roughly from 77.4), waited several bars, found it was hard to dip through 77.98under, so I wrote a limit order at 78 with 10cents stop 77.9. then waited there, saw it jumped to 78.4+, that confirmed my guess, but back a little bit, then waited there again, until it went through morning high, I moved my stop to the recent low, then saw it went through 78.5+, my target is almost touched, so quickly move my stop to there and out. I have two targets in my mind, conservative one: 0.6 *0.8=0.48 (78.45~78.6), greedy one is 0.6*1.2=0.72 (78.65~78.85).
Yes, work on "all in, all out" for now. Pay special attention to your entries. Exits are secondary. As long as your entries are sound, exits should not matter much. Notice how Nodoji takes only the entries that she knows (read: ANTICIPATE) will move her way. With these entries, reward definitely outweighs the risk. Once you become comfortable with the above strategy, you will want to consider trading more proactively. This is where leverage comes into play and you'll want to scale in and out of your trades. For instance, you enter short 10 lots at 80, take profit on 5 lots at 78 (nearest support), and as prices retrace back up to 79 you recharge your existing short, etc.
Very nice, nod. This aligns with my emphasis on anticipation. You must anticipate every contingencies in advance and use it to your advantage.
I finally have a good idea on how to trade CL, and my charts are frozen and I can no longer trade it. So sad. :-( Thankfully, can trade other futures with NinjaTrader. Still in contact with Ninjatrader support on this issue, maybe its because I was looking at AUG expiration instead of July not sure.
I was reviewing my trade. also nodoji's. her trade is fine in scalping, but not good strategy to extract a little bit bigger move. if I were her, I would wait until it bounces toward morning high (78.54, I do not sell the first new high, in the case of long exit, I take pro-active measures), if that does not go through HOD (a typical double top also defines a down trend), I will sell there, then wait when it retraces to the most recent low (78.03? the support), I will move my stop to there, if stopped, that means there is no major trend reversal, I will buy and put a stop loss at 77.85 (should be 77.9 with little room for volaitity, morning thrust support). the sell idea is like double top sell. if not stopped out, then it confirmed my trend reversal guess , I will expect it to drop back to 77.4~77.3, that would be a big move. based on my strategy, at least I can extract 20ticks if no major trend reversal, if trend reversal does happen, I will get at least 60ticks to 80ticks. in a bullish move, short "suspected reversal" is not a good strategy to catch big major move, but great for quick bucks. actually it closes near the HOD!very bullish, so her trade is very risky, if she bought it at 78.03, she made more than that!
when I look at my three month chart, OMG, next week we will be around 81~83? schizo, are you with me?
The particular trade setup in my description normally results in a lower low, so my conservative $500 target off 77.77 (77.67 was actually the pivot low of next S level) was not only far more than a scalp, it was a highly likely result. Anyone trading futures Friday afternoon can tell you opex caused "highly likely results" to be thrown out the window. What a chop fest that was! 198, check out the perfect long setup Friday that both I and my CL trader friend missed completely until after the fact: NYMEX opens at 9am and price moves up, gets toppy, pulls back and test all levels, first the 20 EMA, then the lower Keltner, leaves a potential long off the 9:40am bar, fails, leaves a lower high at 77.42 off the 9:50am bar. Looking great for the shorts here and the price action likely lured in shorts starting with the close of the 9:50am bar, then more shorts on the break through the 20 EMA. Where have all these shorts placed their stops? At, or just outside of, 77.42 or 77.54, depending on their risk tolerance. The 9:55am and 10:00am bars leave an internal double bottom above the previous pivot low. Once the 10:05am bar closes, the shorts are now nervous. The lower high did not result in a lower low. Had I been short I would've been stopped out somewhere between 77.24 and break even depending on how I managed my trade. But those who are still in their positions are now at risk that the higher lows will result in a break through 77.42 and their stops will be triggered. The 9::55am bar is now a potential bear trap, once 77.20 becomes support. Now any break through 77.42 will trigger a quick move straight to 77.54 and possibly higher. I was completely unaware of the power of this setup at the time because the price action was so minimal for CL I was lulled to sleep and was watching stocks and ES, etc. I was waiting for stronger CL price action and missed the power of that setup. When I saw CL break out hard on the 10:10am bar I had no idea why at first. But later I saw that bear trap setup and realized that buying CL at 77.41 just as it approached that level was as low risk high reward as it gets. Once in that trade to the long side there was no intraday technical reason to take anything off this trade until the 11:05 bar's low of 78.27 was breached, 85 ticks later.