I admire you for being able to stay in a trade for so long. Your system would drive me absolutely batshit.
This trade is driving me nuts. Don't think I haven't thought about bailing out many times. Much easier to find these trades in the past and papertrade them than to sit on your hands in realtime. One way or the other it'll be over in an hour and 5 min.
I've found that with most of the methods I've tried, a timestop is nearly always appropriate. A certain amount of energy is required to move the price in a certain direction, and sideways movements beyond a certain length tend to bleed off that energy, making the outcome more and more a matter of chance rather than what the setup intended. This, incidentally, is the same dynamic as that in, for example, a coil that goes on too long, or a flag that goes on too long, or an "opening range" breakout that occurs hours after the opening range was established.
How do you go about figuring out how much time to give a trade? I've had quite a few of these long trades this year. When people say trading doesn't require any effort, they can't see my gut while waiting for the trade to end. One minute I think it's going to work out and the next I think it's headed for the rocks.
That's the hard part. This morning, for example, I had a trade on for twenty minutes. That, for my method, is WAY too long, i.e., if price doesn't go within six or eight minutes, then I'm more likely to be stopped out or stuck in a lengthy sideways movement (which I have to babysit). So I just bailed at BE and went to the store. But the way you've set up your system, I don't know that it would work. OTOH, since you've been using it for so long and have been so successful with it, I'd just leave it the hell alone. A note: is there any way at all that you can determine what your exit is going to be, more or less, so that you don't have to babysit the trade? If you could leave, then the length of time wouldn't bug you.
Moved buy limit order down to 985.50 (just in case I get lucky). The pickup in volatility has the Keltner bands expanding.
If you used Bolinger bands on the 5m chart it would have gotten you out around 1:45 central at 986.75. I use BBands to show me volitility. I don't see Keltner bands squeezing much as I look back at your 5m setup that I've been following with the thread. What does Keltner do for you that is different from BBands? thanks, jd
Canceled the limit order. Keltner bands are growing on each bar. I can hang there for another half hour and use a market order to exit it if its a winner. If the trade isn't done by 314, then I'll exit the trade within the last minute of the day (I don't do overnites).
I guess it's just what you're used to. I've looked at BBands and they jump around too much for my tastes. I'm sure someone else would do just fine with them.
Thanks no pm. Maybe that's a good thing....that the Keltner channels don't change much during the usual timeframe of your trades. Could you somehow use that as your way of projecting your target price in advance and just walk away? If I look back over your trades with us here on the thread, it looks like you could have been within a few ticks of the actual price that hit the channel on each exit. Have you investigated this idea? Not that it would have gotten you out of today's trade any sooner, but you could have entered the limit price and not had to worry over it. Just a thought. jd