Hi Zen Student, While reading my response keep in mind that my trading style is based off ACD method- which is highly discretionary. That was the only way for me to get away from indicators. What work have you done to quantify the times when MP/POC does work? R) None. I have friends who have done more work with MP than i can ever imagine and they stay away from CL. An example would be futurestrader71. His knowledge of MP is amazing and he focuses on E-mini like most of MP traders. Disclaimer: FT71 is not a friend but i have followed his work for 2 years now and spoke to him couple of times about MP, CL etc.. I use MP when market breaks out after 3 or more days of consolidation or couple of days of POC line up- that's it. What is the tfpXRay indicator on your charts - it seems to be some calculation on the volume? R) It is a Volume based tool that I am testing. Like all tools it is helpful some time and some time of no use. Time is more important than Price for me. 15 minutes is not enough time to confirm that my set up is wrong the way i trade. I do however reduce position size in situation like these. the move needs to have potential 60 ticks or more" then how do you know how far? You say you cannot "know" for sure if your entry price will hold - how do you "know" how far it will move the other way? R) look at end of day chart for 01-17-2012. It's based off screen time. you start to refer to DXY and "risk on". R) 30 days number line is my KEY for bias. DXY is a tool. What caused that 100.40 level and what is its significance? R) As a day trader, I am only interested in knowing that 100.40 was held for more than 2 hours. When it broke on VOLUME, target is next level. There are no accidents in trading. Moves come when deliberate FORCE is applied by BIG MONEY. CL has moved about 2,000 ticks in the month of January. Trying to look at these moves more than a day or two makes my HEAD HURT (lol). I only want to see levels where VOLUME was applied and act accordingly. Your three points are interesting: I will recommend watching all of Jim Dalton webinars and reading his book. I was loosing MONEY with just ACD till i got some of his concepts cleared in my head. and here is a chart of MP courtesy of a friend. She focuses on E-mini. I look at her work from time to time to confirm my bias. http://screencast.com/t/thVchh4T We can have all the levels we want, but have to trade what market gives.
short after A down. Cl hit low of the day by 11.04 am ahead of euro close. Covered most with some left to see if 98 gets broken. Lets put FEAR OF GOD in traders who are trying to COUNTER TREND TRADE (llol). Just kidding, i have done it enough time and still do it from time to time but only for scalps when counter trading.
Long of euro close. If it does not go down, it must come up is ONE SIMPLE MARKET RULE I TRY TO FOLLOW.
01-20-2012 Final Chart of the day. DISCLAIMER; On my charts and commentary everything looks so EASY that it seems like a COMEDY. Maybe it is a COMEDY to some of the readers? At least one can look at their own trading log and see if they learned anything? My home town hero - Tom Brady- 3 times SUPER BOWL champion looks like a loser when he makes decisions in a HURRY for whatever reason. He has defense men to protect him for a second so that he can EXECUTE his plan. When he is not in a RUSH- he can be very good. Who are our defense men? I can think few; 1) Stop Loss. 2) Patience. 3) Trading Capital and no Leverage. For Crude trade only maximum of 4 cars if your EQUITY is 100k. Futures are loaded to begin with. Do not use leverage. 4) Pick a method and stick with it. I struggle every day to trade according to my PLAN. I am a developing trader and probably will always be. I only focus on crude Oil. Once i get to a level where I need to be, i will look at other instruments. I am reading Joe Terranova book ( not a particularly good book) but since he was head of trading at Mark Fisher firm, he knows a thing or two about trading. All I got from the book that he is 100% sure that he would have failed if he did not had fellow traders to learn from and talk to- meaning if he was trading from home like us. When mark firm pulled all of their pit traders ( except the ones who trades option) from pit and transition them to computer trading- the ones who decided to trade from remote locations were gone within a year or two. These are traders who been trained by one of the best futures trading firm on the street and they could not cope with demands of remote location trading. I do not think Joe is saying that was the only reason for remote traders failure but ONE OF THE MAIN REASON. I am posting these charts etc.. to find like minded traders who i can talk from time to time. I do not talk during trading hours nor looking to trade along with someone during trading hours. End of day conversation once a while is good for all of us. Only full time traders , please. CORRECTION: Time on the chart should read 11.34 am not pm. All times always eastern time.