Another Pattern I found- Alright, first off this is based on 24-hour charts (12am-11:59pm). If the Daily (12am-11:59pm) close was less than the previous Daily low, enter long at 12:30AM CME with a 3 point target and 4 point stop. Obviously, the gains will not be as much, but the setup has occurred 738 times since 1998. Basically 70% success rate with a 1.721 profit factor. Please note that the performance in the snapshot is based off of ONE e-mini contract at a time. I have attached a snapshot of the performance run through Quantum Charts. I do not have any knowledge of programming, but thanks to this software I am able to find high-probability strategies that have greatly improved my trading. I'll post more patterns as I find them.
I`m not sure if I posted this, but I found it on my hard drive as I was reviewing some stuff from Al Brooks. This chart shows what Al calls a "failed failure" or a "breakout pullback". Al says that most breakouts fail and that you should rather look to fade them or enter in the direction of the breakout on a pullback. New traders usually chase price and it is very easy to enter as soon as price SEEM to be breaking out of a range. Just observe all the tails both above and below the range. Plenty of early and trapped traders there. Then observe how the market gave you a great opportunity to enter AFTER price broke out and with much better confirmation and low risk. This is a basic price action pattern that I`ve observed over and over again. Every time price seems to be breaking out, it`s very tempting to want to get in out of fear of missing a move. Your real fear should however be of becoming one of those early and trapped traders. In the ES market, you usually always get a chance to join the move, so don`t chase. PS: Comments on the chart were made way back, but it`s pretty much saying the same with different words.
A failed breakout occurs when the breakout retraces its support (not the breakout price). Thus, your chart does not represent a "failed breakout". In contrast, it represents a normal pullback after a breakout. My point is that a price pullback all by itself does not imply the breakout has failed. The failure comes into play when the support is lost when a pullback continues pulling back too much. Also, there are many different types of breakouts. Some would argue that your chart does not represent a breakout. In my opinion, it's just a volatility spike (on your chart it's 2020 hr) stuck within the range of the prior long upper shadow of an inverted hammer line (1805 hr). Thus, had that volatility spike interval closed above that range of the inverted hammer...that's a breakout because the range of that inverted hammer line identified clearly the pressure on the price action between the inverted hammer interval to the volatility spike interval. Mark
I`m not sure if you read my post correctly. Either that or I`m very tired and phrased myself poorly. Perhaps I`ve read too much Brooks Al Brooks calls the breakout pullback a failed failure, because he says that most breakouts fail. So, when it fails, it is a failed failure. Strange term, so I prefer breakout pullback for my own use. The only thing I might have referred to as failed breakouts on that chart where the tails on the candles that materialized before the actual breakout which indeed was successful. I never stated that the real breakout on that chart was a failure.
Yeah...I understood your point. I agree...most breakouts do fail but I'm not sure what he meant by "failed failure". Also, my commentary that it wasn't a breakout was via my own personal definition of a breakout price action. Simply, it may be a valid breakout to someone else that has a completely different definition considering there are many different types of breakout price actions. By the way, I don't remember where I saw it at (a forex forum) but someone defined and showed very good chart examples of commonly known types of breakouts. If you Google it you may be able to find it if interested. I tried already and couldn't find it is worth looking for the info if breakout trading or failed breakout trading is a key part of your trading methods. Mark
I have been backtesting a lot lately and learning a lot. I kind of forgot about this thread, but I`ve been archiving a lot of stuff on my hard drive, so I may start posting again. The same basic patterns repeat themselves time and again, so that is also part of the reason I have not been wanting to post them over and over again. Today, I`m sharing a triangle breakout and a gap fill as the target. Actually, I was short before the triangle was apparent to me because of lower highs and breaking below the OR mid again. As the triangle became apparent, I was prepared to stop and reverse for a long entry if needed, but I did not have to do that. The next trade could have been a long from the reversal bar at the lows when we got the gap fill, but it`s not always easy to reverse immediately after exiting a trade, so I did not take it. We did however get a second entry long with a higher low, but I did not take that one either. I did however enter a trade as we tagged and close above the 50% level, but failed to hold it. That gave me a short signal one tick below the signal bar, targeting the daily lows.
To simply say "most breakouts fail" is an incomplete statement... especially for the ES in particular. It is very clear measured breakout or breakout = pullback continued symbol, probably best of all with CL being a close second Just a matter of knowing how to measure which pending breakouts are what, and how to anticipate the pre-breakout entries by price action alone.
One other pattern I just observed is the island reversal. I`m not sure if I`ve seen too many of those, but I suspect it might have been because I`ve not been looking. The pattern is bearish and suggests selling. When opening with big gaps in either direction, we don`t always get the complete gap fill. In those instances, it`s wise to plot the 50% gap fill as that is a likely target. We got that short of one point before selling off as the pattern suggested.