I think most traders go through this, I'm totally engrossed in the markets, and in constant mental inflow of data price feeds, news events, eventually once you do it for extended periods of time when the volatility is good, you tend to sleep less and eat less. I just got a cold, this past few days, and its my body telling me to take a break. If you alter your trading style from second to second to swing trading, you really don't need to follow the markets as closely. But knowing myself even with this, if I start letting in, I will be engrossed in second to second or hourly fluctuations. With proper position sizing and stop management, and taking your trading approach to a longer term basis, there is really no loss in profitability, some would argue that your swing trading/trend surpass the hourly position trading methods. Yes, I truely enjoy posting here at ET, and this is more so, a journal or ideas and personal thought processes that ensue as they crystalize during the day. So I have to take care of my health better, I've been neglecting the gym and rowing which I normally do. The things people say to me whether it be on the internet or in real life, don't bother me as much. I've achieved a state of nirvana mentally. And I'm ready for most anything. Life is truely wonderful and amazing, the markets are a representation of the instantaneous processes around the globe. Its the biggest chess game with a great deal of human psychology. I've just started reading Livermore that BB gave me, his ideas and thought processes when I come upon them in the book reiterate some of the same conclusions I've come to. This book is a goldmine of psychological aspects of trading. For him to give back to the world of what he went through, his gift to the rest of us is beyond measure. Anyways, I will try to post weekly or monthly summations, in ES. As a journal for me. But right now I have to take care of my health better. Chris
I wanted to give you my plan and how I will approach the next two days of trading for the coming week. From past memory and historical bias, in time of emergency or crisis in the financial markets. Usually a FED meeting is extremely positive for the market. I can forsee 50 point up move in the Spooz, if the language of that day is appeasing to the market. So how do I approach a volatile day? when the FED announcement nears, the ES activity or tic volatility will pick up. And I generally use this method on expected volatile or trending days such as nonfarm payrolls or FED annoucements. The risk/reward for me out weighs most other methods on volatile days. I use the MA's and crossovers as a bias filter and leave positions alone. The predictability factor intimated by each cross increases as the day progresses. Meaning the last cross is the most worthwhile. As the FED annoucement nears, I will look for the cross, and take a postion using position sizing and stop loss as represented as cross of the MA, so basically I just robotically follow the MA's. Since the orderflow implications can't be hidden from the MA's. I didn't want to post this since, trading houses will eventually arb this and it may loose its value over time. Price is a representation of momentary stability/instability in psychology. Around FED meeting the price should be around 1442.. or the initial reaction low. Since many are banking on continued downward momentum, there will be large positions short in the market, the FED annoucement poses significant risk for these shorts. If the FED annoucement is not mitigating of the fear, then momentum should continue to below the 250 MA on the daily chart. Given these implications. Trading houses will use a reaction low on Monday to cover some shorts secondary to the risk posed by the FED announcement. Again from past historical perspective and experience. Fed annoncements are usually positive in terms of crisis. And the emotions can't be hidden from the intraday MA's, since it should be a trending close similar to Friday, but direction is still not set in stone. Chris
At some point you should have reversed short if you were long. I tried a couple of long entries at the end of the day without much luck; in other words the tape and p & l were telling me I was on the wrong side of market. The market ended up a little but that may have been some short covering. You are right though.
The bottom line is that no one really knows when the market activity will pick up amd thus, one who daytrades should always be in a trade. Using the Romik(tm) flipping back and forth system , one will always be in the market and can walk away and do other things. I have been using one contract on this system, and it had me short most of the day with a couple of fake out longs. The system also calls for increasing size. This entails only entry and exits using stops . I will not burden you with the entries and exits since they are not realtime, which daytrades need to be to be honestly claimed. If I do post hindsight daytrades, I would suggest that you view them as paper trades as that is all the credit that hindsight daytrades should be given. Suffice it to say however that unless price blows previous reaction lows/highs, that it cannot move too far against you ever.
Now--aside from the Romik flip flop system, it is my belief that the rest of daytraders should only be looking for shorts until the 60 minute chart signals reversal. At that point, longs can be looked at again. Reminder of course here, but for daytrading, the 60 minute and 240 rule the day. JSSMPK is trading countertrend, but most likely is taking trades WITH the longer term trend in my view, by taking short trades on retracements in longer time frame downtrends and vice versa. Correct me if I am wrong here of course. If that is what you are doing, then you are doing it right! Remember, always use a stop--Preferably outside of the noise. By using correct position sizing, you will be able to keep your stops largely untouched. If using the Romik flip flop, then stops would need to be closer in my estimation. PS I am still looking long on the daily chart for my reentry into a positon trade. Longer term trend still remains up. If I miss a huge short, which of course, I've already missed quite a bit, then so be it.
weekly chart.... for all the *****s ... like me.... who did not ride this thing down from the top...... i am posting RSI EMA 14 charts of spx weekly and monthly .... ..... as you can see.... big divergence signal at THE TOP is given not only on weekly chart but also on monthly..... i guess most of you already knew this.... if you had gone short at the high of the bar of the monthly sell signal... you would have had to endure 20 points of heat.... to the high of the reversal bar which began the ride down. respect ... to all
monthly chart.... for all the ***** ... like me.... who did not ride this thing down from the top...... i am posting RSI EMA 14 charts of spx weekly and monthly .... ..... as you can see.... big divergence signal at THE TOP is given not only on weekly chart but also on monthly..... i guess most of you already knew this.... if you had gone short at the high of the bar of the monthly sell signal... you would have had to endure 20 points of heat.... to the high of the reversal bar which began the ride down. respect... to all
Buy1Sell2, you are right by saying that a daytrade/scalp benefit from longer term charts, nobody can dispute that. But what I have experienced is that for every short term chart there is a longer one that can determine the outcome of a trade based on the holding period. And because I predominantly use just histogram it enables me to see times when p/a is about to change from bearish to bullish. As an example consider this please, 60 minute chart is bearish (hypothetically speaking), though I know this I have no idea when this might start creating momentum, so I would narrow it down to say 10 minutes, which might be bullish at that time, then I would have a look at 5 minute chart which is also bullish, 2 minute is starting to look neutral to overbought. So I would wait for the 2 minute chart to show me a pattern that I consider to be a favourable one. When it is almost there my eyes are on 1 minute chart's histogram, looking for entry that would create MINIMUM heat to my capital, once histogram lines up I am in a trade. Basically, because I trade DAX that "has legs" and offers average daily range much greater than ES I need to capture a relatively small proportion of the total daily oscillations and do so consistently to create benefit. To sum it up, on most occasions I would disregard 60 minute and 240 minute charts and trade countertrend to them, BUT! if a trade happens to be in the same direction as a longer term chart I obviously profit more by trading a lot less that day and also on some occasions managed to hold last lot from position till MOC as price has never returned to my entry level. There is just 1 major problem with 60/240 minute charts ImO and that is I need to use high leverage, so my stops HAVE to be smaller than the other trader might use who dedicates a lot more capital than me per 1 lot, hence I do see the point of reviewing these charts, but it is not to say that I actually trade those charts, I trade off much shorter ones.
JSSPMK, you are stating exactly what I am getting at, You see the 60 minute turning and so you drop down to the smaller frames for entry and exit, thus you are trading with the longer frame 60. Good work!! Everyone should define what longer term means to them. High leverage uses 2 minute and 10 minute charts, so 60 and 240 become the long term, not daily and weekly.