Right - sometimes you'll just lose money. Ain't nothing more to it than that. What people need to do is recognise how to limit losses and manage trades better. If you can "average" a loss of 2 pts while making 4pt winners ...you don't have to be a Maths wizard to fugure out that you'll make money if you stay disciplined. Everyone gets very excited at the trade entry points, but I've not seen a lot of discussion about stop-loss movement. I'm all for people coming onto the thread with ideas for improvement, but I just don't think that more indicators are the answer. There will ALWAYS be some indicator that would have "kept you out of that trade" or "kept you in that trade". It's a futile exercise going down that route. You'll end up becoming a dog chasing his tail looking for the "answer" all the time. It's better to simply stay disciplined, focused and patient. Trading well isn't 'easy' but it should be SIMPLE.
The name of the thread is Daytrading Breakouts. I just didn't recognize any breakouts today in the way Rotten Johnny described.
Hi JR: As you may remember from our previous communication, I am always more concerned about how to exit than how to enter a position. I notice that your first comments about the system included profit targets, and general comments about how to exit. I like your system, but I hope to improve it a little bit, by using a mechanical stop that takes me out if there is no improvement in price after a specific time period (lets say four or five bars). At this point, I am writing code (C++ because I intend not to use tradestation again) and will publish the raw material for all to look at in the next evening. Those of you who are looking at more indicators and filters should probably look first at exits in my opinion. Just one man's opinion. Regards, Steve46
I have always been under the belief that any significant pullback in the ES would occur after the ES makes a marginal new high. For example, the slight pullback at the end of the session today came after a mild new high, and double top around 102.10. My question is: if this turns out to be true, that is, that the ES will fall after making a marginal new high, how can one protect themselves from this false break out? Is it just a discretionary decision? Thanks, Jim ps Jesse J stood for Jesse James, not Jackson.
I'm pretty comfortable with my trade selection abilities & my stop-loss method (knowing which bars to trail behind). I'm like a "hawk" with the stop-loss during the first 4-5 bars. But I know there's definitely room for improvement on the profit objective part of this method, particularly when using multiple contracts I suspect. Anyone with thoughts on this should of course share with me For those grappling with basics of this method, taking $200 in the ES is perfectly acceptable as a confidence booster in the short-term. The most important thing remains trade selection and stop-loss movement. Master that first and then think about how to be even cleverer with the profits.
It makes me laugh when I see a "spin-off" thread from this one, which talks utter jibberish such as this. "Daytrading rangebound days" ...my arse! Anyone with half a brain should be able to look at Tuesday's action and say to themselves: a great day to have NOT traded! If you have a method that kept you out of the market on Tuesday then you did a great job. It's as simple as that. But if you insist on trying to "master" such shit days and make money from them, then you are trading for ego not for money. You just become a fool with no discipline or patience. His statistics are fucked up too. The implication is that breakouts are good only 30% of the time and therefore you need other things for the remaining 70%. And his solution? MORE indicators and Market Profile. What a load of bullshit! Actually, even when the market goes nowhere overall, it's been my experience that about 90% of the time, you will see a good pivot trade in at least one of the four symbols. You will still make money with what I'm doing. I guarantee this guy doesn't track DAX or ESTX50. Since I put up this method, yesterday was the only day when no profitable signal was given in any of the symbols. And I think we're on about Day 10 now aren't we? So this guy's full of shit. Days like Tuesday are not 70% occurrences they are more like 10%. What I mean by "days like Tuesday" is not just that it went nowhere overall: I mean, when it's sooooo sideways all day long without so much as one profitable pivot breakout. This is an extreme situation. And the best thing to do is NOTHING. As for his Market Profile "value" numbers, they are meaningless crap until after the fact. There's no way of knowing if we're going to have a shitty day like Tuesday in advance. Oh I'm sorry, he waits about an hour and then decides. Well guess what, after about an hour of no trades/no winners, I'm thinking about giving it just another 45 mins before packing up shop until the next time period. Whereas this guy is getting ready to trade among the lunchtime shit, scrapping with other fools in the middle of the day. That's a game for mugs. If you want to trade everyday, all day long, by all means add this nonsense to your charts. I guarantee that there's always an indicator that will be right for that day. But I won't spend my life looking for that elusive set of indicators. I just exercise patience and discipline to wait for my pivot breakout signals. There's plenty enough of them to make plenty of money. I said at the beginning, you only need to trade once (or max) twice a day to make very good money. But, if you're the type of person who's already "looking" for the next, new-and-improved technique just because of one sideways day ...then please go over to the other thread and learn which indicators you REALLY need! But then when those indicators fail, come back here and try these again, and when that doesn't work, go to another thread and get another set of indicators. After all, success will come to you if you just persevere long enough to get enough sets of indicators so you can trade and make money all the time, no mater what!! Jeez, I do laugh at some of the shite being espoused on this web site. Definite Guru/Groupie makings on the other thread.
Oh fuck, I see they've just made me a 'Senior Member'. Magna baby, I love you really. Pleeeeease, pretty polly pleeeeease can you knock me back down to Junior status? I promise I'll be nice to you from now on
pretty soon you'll be able to call yourself one of the "elite" I took a short this am.. wasn't to be. dax actually was the setup that triggered my entry but I told myself I was gonna stick with estx50 for a week or two until I'm more accustomed to the moves of dax. didn't get a lower lo on estx but did on dax so I went ahead. edit: cancel the gibberish, meant to say higher confirmation on dax not lower.