Excellent journal Corallus. A good description of your entry criteria and of your actual trades. I hope you keep this journal going and the detractors stay away from this thread.
On your first trade, you had a target of the daily pivot. IMO, especially with the good entry you got, this target may have been a bit unrealistic and I think the gap fill at around 899.00 may have been a more realistic goal. With a target of 903.00 area, ES would have to have broken through 3 areas of resistance (yesterday low, yesterday close and 900 round number). I know this is easy to point out in retrospect, but I was wondering if you take these factors into account when setting a target.
Thanks for mentioning that. Actually, the gap fill was something that was on my mind. I forgot to mention that as one of my reasons for exiting. ES got up to 898 while I was holding it this morning and just could not get above it. When the price started to retreat from there, combined with the other factors I mentioned in the previous posts, that's when I decided that I should get out. I often will set a preliminary target that is stretching it a bit and if the market shows that it can't be reached, I will bail early. What setting a big target does for me, I find, is that it helps me fight my urge to scalp for just a few ticks. When I first started trading ES, I was a scalper exclusively and I found through many painful weeks that it just didn't work for me. Two months ago, if I had bought at 893, I would have sold at 894, making just one point instead of the 3 I made this morning.
I just wanted to say a few more things about scalping. I'm sure there are a select few who have figured out how to make consistent profits from scalping ES, but for me, I just couldn't make it work. I only started making money from ES when I switched to trading the intraday swings about a month ago. When I was scalping, I found that I could do 7 or 8 successful scalps for profits ranging from .25 to 1.5, but then 2 or 3 stop-outs would erase most or all of the profits from the winning scalps. Plus, the commissions added up quickly...even at IB where it is only $2.40 per side per contract. p.s., I don't mean to sound like an expert, because I'm not. I've been involved in the markets since 1997, but I've only been trading the futures for 2 months. However, I feel I'm pretty well in touch with my own trading psyche (which took years to accomplish, believe me), and above all else, I am extremely disciplined.
'Know Thyself!' ~Oracles advice in the Ancient Delphi~ Great journal so far Corallus! Peace and good-trading, Te'
Argh!! For the second consecutive day I've gotten into great positions that went all the way to my original profit targets...just I wasn't along for the ride. Today's second trade: 2:29 EST SLD @ 899.75 2:40 EST BOT @ 899.50 +.25 using price movement relative to the 1:30 pivot price and the rising TRIN as a guide, I shorted just below 900. I was hoping to ride a selloff back down to the S1 level of 893. However, after about 11 minutes in the trade, the price movement seemed to be returning to a state of trendlessness. At that point, I scratched the trade. Well, if I had been more patient I could have hit my profit target yet again and picked up a 7 point gain. I'm thinking I need to develop some trade re-entry criteria. So 2 trades today and two missed opportunities. Still, I'm up for the day so I have no right bitch and complain. Daily Summary: 2 RTs +3.25 pts
A better, more agressive entry was around 2:10-2:15, with a clear bearish TICK divergence and TRIN rebounding from the oversold position after hitting lower BB (5 min charts for both indicators), also you had a clear 1:00-1:55 bearish stochastics divergence on 5 min chart. But you would have to be more agressive, with the entry around 903 and a 3 pt stop-loss. That would give you 7-10 pts if you resisted the temptation to bail out sooner. Well, anyway, it's good that you are making money, it's not so easy these days because the ES range is smaller than in the recent past.
The market is choppy because the range has been smaller for the last few days. I believe that tomorrow we will have a breakout, I guess to the upside, but don't quote me on this. Or we may get one more day of choppinnes. But, you were right taking money off the table, it never hurts to take profits in a choppy market.