Using mainly measured moves based on chart patterns & price ranges. This is an example - it's not always this pretty but in general this works for me. Leaving a partial position on winners since there is no way of knowing how far they can run. Every projected price target is different, I may use numerous other factors that come with having a lot of experience. The general idea is you can make a killing getting a dozen or two out of a hundred trades right when you have a large R:R. NQ breaks down from an 8 day range. A smaller 3 day range forms in the lower portion of the larger channel which implies the potential for an equal sized move down which was outside of the larger channel.
Let's see what is out there... Previous Day's HL Average daily range Daily Pivots Gap Fills and retests Fib retracements Waves Round numbers Daily MAs Risk to Reward ratios None, but with trailing stops, or Step Stops. Pure P/L So check all of them out and become familiar with them. The key is to have a criteria for "it works" or "it does not work", for your system. Once you have gone through those, then you will have done basic research. Looking for the method that works for someone else is a fools errand in so many ways. These are the most obvious and basic ways to pick a target. Best of luck. PS: Any competent Day Trader, can look at a chart and tell you all of those within 10 seconds, and which ones overlap-coincide, and which one are in play.
That is excellent advice. The best piece of trading advice I have encountered on this forum and probably anywhere in social media. Every word of it: from "take 30 days" and "study one market" and "write down you observations" to "give names for repeated patterns." And most especially "sit on your hands and trade nothing." "Sit on your hands and trade nothing." Best trading advice on the internet. Almost no one will do it. And on any given day you would be hard pressed to find any takers whatsoever. A great old timer once said that "There are those who think they are studying the market, when all they are doing is studying what someone has said about the market, not what the market has said about itself." And it is here that the fate of most hopeful profiteers is sealed to remain forever failures. As you so well concluded your post: Infinitely easier to melt fear and develop confidence your way than that of the common initiate. Another great old timer said that "it is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade than hundreds did in his day of his ignorance." Your way, Mr. Riley, is the way one learns how to trade. Most people never study the market. Instead of taking 30 days to observe and learn what the market will tell anyone willing to learn its language, the aspiring trader goes to twitter or to an internet trading forum and asks "how do I set profit targets?" Or, "Do you think I can make $200 a day trading the NQ?" If only more novices would seek to replace what others say and have said with their own knowledge derived from their own observed experience of what the market is saying about itself. @mikeriley your excellent post is far fewer words and far, far better than mine praising it. A breath of fresh air to have read it. Thank you.
There are about 20 days in a month of trading ES. So 30 days is a month and a half, barely half a quarter. What is sitting and watching for 30 days supposed to do exactly? Maybe prevent losses? You can’t lose money if you just watch and preoccupy yourself with giving names to pattens you see. What do you do after the 30 days are up? Start taking trades on those things you named? LOL Watching ES on a chart for a newbie is a Rorschach test. You should ask anyone who recommends observing 30 days as being meaningful what exactly to look for during the 30 days. If you want to learn how to learn, it helps to get down to brass tacks.
QED *** You could not have done a better job of demonstrating the truth of what was posted had you set out to have done so purposefully. Asking what to look for is simply carrying the same error into the proposed solution, thus preserving the error. The purpose is to learn to see what you will learn to see, not to focus on what someone else says you should see. QED *** 30 days of focused and intentional observation will make trading the ES or any chosen instrument a relatively pedestrian affair . One market, one bar setting, no trading, just observing. Or, you can continue to ask others what they think. And those others? None of them have any idea as to what the market is saying about itself either. The former is road less taken, but leads to success. The latter leads to trolling (in the manner of a fishing technique) twitter and trading forums for a (the) holy grail and culminates in blown accounts. *** 30 days is a good start. It really shouldn't take more than 6 months to go from complete novice to journeyman making a living. As years go by, the trader will earn raises as he develops to master status. I know they didn't give new trader 30 months to make it in the pits. You shouldn't need take 30 months on a screen. Many pursue this far longer without ever becoming profitable. That is because they are approaching it the wrong way. Failure is unnecessary, yet most choose failure. Perhaps it is a bastardization, or a to literal interpretation of Browning's exhortation that a man's reach must exceed his grasp.
Failure for the majority is an absolute necessity. Only way markets can function. As well as way more than 30 days of watching a market. We can quibble, rather you can, about the actual length. 25 years of doing this tells me all I need to know.
Who knows, if you ask the right questions you may stumble upon an expert who can answer you in a way to further your progress. Or maybe not. The best way to learn, of course, is to sit with an expert and have him explain to you what he’s seeing and what he’s looking for next. For sure he will tell you to shut up and pay attention to what he’s seeing and not think up your own ideas. I know experts are hard to find in real life. Lots of them posting on message boards, though. So it seems. Good luck!
Thirty days of watching the market. I've heard this method suggested before. Market Wizard LBR suggested that a new trader watch the market for a week and write down the price at the end of each 5 minute bar. By the end of a week you'll have pretty good idea of how the market moves.