Chop chop. Not seeing any good signals this afternoon. Placed a limit sell @ 1281 (waiting for a retracement), but I pulled it just before getting filled as I got a bad feeling. Might end the day with no trades.
"There is no such thing as the trend; there are countless trends, depending on the method we use to determine a trend. People typically pick a method for determining trend that fits with their current positions and/or view of the market. All methods of defining trends compare various combinations of historical price points. All trends are historical, none are in the present. There is no way to determine the current trend, or even define what current trend might mean; we can only determine historical trends. The only way to measure a now-trend (one entirely in the moment of now) would be to take two points, both in the now and compute their difference. Motion, velocity and trend do not exist in the now. They do not appear in snapshots. Trend does not exist in the now and the phrase, "the trend" has no inherent meaning. When we speak of trends, we are speaking, necessarily, from some or another view of history. There is no such thing as a current trend. When we speak of trends we are necessarily projecting our own definitions. " http://www.seykota.com/tribe/tsp/trends/index.htm
Sometimes it is easy to get too caught up in individual bars and forget thinking on a macro level. When price moved towards 1278, I identified that as a crucial pivot point. When price formed a double bottom there, it was a nice long signal at least for a scalp. Analyzing individual bars, I found the market choppy and thought we might be selling off after the down trend bar @ 0325 EST. Being slightly bearish and receiving mixed signals from the TICK and my sectors, I missed the long signal. The best trade this afternoon would have been a long around 1278. My thought process should have been this: "When price made a double bottom and seemed to find solid support @ 1278, a test of the daily highs should be very likely." That trade would have had a very nice R/R as well. Sometimes it helps to read bar by bar and other times they make you confused. No trades today, but new patterns internalized hopefully