Excellent points. Especially with regard to ES. Many people feel that since it does generally return to the mean or oscillate that there will be a bottom that can be bought. The problem is that on the days when it is a true trend day, there is no bottom to trade and the averaging will give up most, if not all, the profits from the back and forth days. It's better to trade and take small losses even in an oscillating market like ES every day. Also, to your first point: Yes, the shorter time that a trader is emotionally attached to a trade going against them, the better chances they will have to think clearly and make a good re-entry.
Sorry about your second stop out. It does appear there might be a very short term bottom here, however, I will stay with my longer term short with the prevailing trend.
You mean bottoms as well as tops too. However, you are assuming that the oscillating trader has to put the entire position on in the same day trending or not. That would be foolish, don't you think? You are also assuming how much the market will move that day,and how it behaves while moving. No one knows that in advance. A trader placing small stops would be putting themselves at a disadvantage with a lot of non-trending oscillations that hit those stops. Not to mention the frustration that comes with that kind of trading. Today turned out to be a downtrend day so far, yet I only have 20% of my position on. I doubt I will be increasing it to more than 40%, knowing that I'm being proven wrong (so far). Also increasing it to 40% at the right price (in hindsight), could result in a favorable outcome, even with just a modest pullback. It is also no different for another trader who gets their stop loss hit several times, and then re enters again in the same direction just to get back to BE.
I believe that the initial stop here should have been 1279.25 instead of 1274.75 and no second long trade. Going short at around 1281.50 with stop at 1284.50 would have worked and allowed you ride it down. This is all hindsight, but looking back at the charts, I don't believe there was a long signal when you got in--only some continuation price action of the short term trend.
It has kind of slowed near the 200sma and the bottom end of the coiling flag. I am trying to transition from very short term scalps to longer term intra-day moves. But, the problem with that is I am not use to the way the market moves and how long these setups take to mature. So I get in too early and get burned. This also comes back to my previous statement that I like to be in the market and that helps to create bad decisions. 08-01-11 01:45 PM Quote from Buy1Sell2: Sorry about your second stop out. It does appear there might be a very short term bottom here, however, I will stay with my longer term short with the prevailing trend. of course you are right