How are you acquiring the 10pts? Are you setting targets or trading the trend with a particular stop?
I'm not sure how to answer this,but I enter on a 3 min bar w/5pt stop.If price moves at least 5 pts in my direction with in 2 bars I leave the stop alone,If not I move my stop under the most recent bar and get ready to exit.I give price no more than 4 bars to close +2 from my entry or I exit. If I'm still in after 4 bars, I make an exit order for +10 from my entry and watch,if price reaches that target, I click transmit. If target is not reached and price reverses I generally exit at +2 sulong
I'd call that a scalp, though 10pts is a hell of a scalp. What I've found over the last month, using 1m and 5m charts and my particular take on the setup, is that a one-tick stop under the entry bar (if long) is sufficient. Only once in a month has the price ever dropped below that point without making a more substantial drop thereafter. In other words, if it doesn't move right away, it probably isn't going to. As for moving 5 points, most of the movements that have fallen back to the entry point have moved less than that, so the choice of whether to take the 5 points or not has been pretty much moot. Moves of 5 points or more have generally been much greater than 5 points, so taking the 5 points, or even 10, would have been counter-productive. About how many trades do you make in a week?
"About how many trades do you make in a week?" 3-4. When I do more than that I find that I'm chasing,miss reading the market and basicly screwing up.I think that when I'm not paying proper attention and miss my B.O.I try my hand at retracement enteries and more often than not get wacked. At my current devlopement stage its diffacult for me to stay foccused and disciplined. What I'm trying to say is I'm in the 2 steps forward 1 1/2 steps back mode. sulong
I'm glad to hear you say that as I'm not making very many either. More than you, but not by much. And you're correct about trying to enter on retracements. Doesn't work. Fortunately or unfortunately (don't know which yet), what I'm doing bears little resemblance to JR's original strategy. But combining elements of it with Mike's ORB strategy has been a winner so far. And considering how tight the ranges have been, that's a plus.
If you stay focused, you will notice how your stop effort is flowing. Do this: Keep a log on the stops that may be possible in between the ones you actually use. Note for yourself how frequently you already C&R. If you can use your available monitoring time this way, then you are ready to "double down". In using a method like you are, you rightly constrain your playing time during high volume periods only. High volume periods are rich with opportunity if you are disciplined. As you both notice, you have chosen profit targets that net you 3 to 4 trades a week at a 10 point level. This is NAS points. 30 to 40 points a week can be divided into your capital and you sen in the near term multiplesof capital occurring. This grants you the right to do more than 1 contract. It also grants you something else. Ifyou looked for other signals, you would see them. Once you see them, then you have the right tocontinue to add to your skill base and make your money velocity higher. At this stage of performance no matter what you do, you usually double your take. These are easy stages of learning to be more efficient. What you may see is that the trades you didn't get 10 points on are trades that you CAN get 10 points on. Two 5's is there and you are earning the right to take the two 5's. The signal you need to decide to go into a Two 5's mode is not being observed as yet. Itis actually the signal you are getting saying you won't make the 10 points. You need to consider my comments for the simple reason that you can know ahead of not making the 10 points thatyou are not going to. In the 4 weeks you are devoting to getting theright to do two contracts, also consider giving yourself a sereis of rights which each time you do, you "double down" on profits. Obviously the rules of the first post are not the only set of this kind. anyone using a set that gets similar results, can do"doubling down". The thread reapidly shiftedawayfrom the inital rules to theconsideration of 30 to 40 points a week. Look closely if you will. You see that your stop process is working one way or another usually. The 10 point reward way or not the 10 point reward way. As yyou get the signal (I will give it to you in detail later) that thee is no 10 point profit ahead, you need to do something to always be on the "right" side of the trade. By making the first 5 of the "Two 5's" and seeing that there isno 10 point run going to happen, you need to reverse your 1 contract and ride back down to your initial entry. All of this takes the same amount of time as the10point run. If you develop the discipline to log and C&R stops, you will find that you experience the fact that you can't log nor C&R about half the time. You do the reversal when you can't log. This will run your weekly take up to 60 to 80 points a week. The next "double down" is to recognize that you can usually do TWO "Two 5's" in sequence. lets focus on the signal. you say how you get stops. It is afair way but not an excellent way. Stay with what you do. Notice you have gaps usually in the use of your time. that is okay too but it does trap you once in a while because of attention span difficulties. You pull stop C&R values according to time passing more than micro formations occurring. When you drawablank at the moment you expect a value for processing, you are experiencing the signal. It is a failure to get data in a timely manner. I humorously refer to it as a fog horn not going off when it is foggy. naturally the light house keeper awakens and says: "What wasn't that?" you are looking for whatdoesn't happen to keep you on the path to 10 points. when it doesn't happen is when you reverse and then take the 5 points and do the stop process down to the intial entry value. As guts would have it, you can repeat this usually if the volume range of values continues AND DOES NOT DROP OFF ANY. Have fun.
Confidence "Confidence, in short, means knowing youâre going to win. It isnât a magic quality which once possessed can never be lost. To be sure, regular winners will have an inner conviction that they must win over time, if they play to the rules. This is partly an inherent state of mind and partly the result of long experience of seeing the rules working. But no one but a fool is convinced they can win just by playing. You win by doing your homework better, following the rules more closely, and acting more consistently then the other players. Winning gives you confidence and confidence helps you win . . . The closer you get to only trading when youâre confident youâll win, the higher your win rate and your confidence will be." -The Way of the Dollar, by John Percival, p.85
Or you could keep it simple in the spirit of the original thread and make consistent money. Jack, you're a genius at taking what's simple and making it unnecessarily complicated.