i realize this looks very messy but in the heat of battle all that really matters is that it makes sense to moi. just posting what it's looking like going into the close and then plan to post more on some setups and missed opportunities later.
missed opportunities and setups aka armchair quarterback time. screen-shot of last Friday 1/31, same chart setup on 60m. yes, hindsight always 20/20 but the higher time-frames can often (not always) paint a much clearer picture of price action and formation of patterns and setups. using same concepts as posted today would've yielded a decent paycheck no doubt. unfortunately i was not able to participate but was watching and barfing from afar on my TOS phone app while doing other really meaningful things in preparation for Super Bowel Sunday. VIX and $TICK were pegged the whole way... Al Bundy super-swoosh!
next up is passed setup on MES which was already documented earlier in this thread so really just a link to why I missed out on ~ $800 to save $110. Grow $10k account to...
this one is not too far removed from the botched MES trade. the setup was on MNQ based on the daily chart. the idea here is that the sell-off on Friday did not make a new low (yet) and happened to close on top of the 50% fib retrace and also near the ema(20). the plan was to buy a contract at the open yesterday (Sunday) @ 5pm, 1 contract with a stop loss just below the low of 8926 on 1/27. a very low risk to reward trade. problem? super bowel sunday and i'm grilling 8 lbs. of chicken wings. no problem (and i knew this) because i've got alarms and such things that can literally SAVE MY LIFE! what i wasn't planning on was our daughter calling me at just before that moment. 5 pm-ish with "daddy, my check engine light is on...". actually i'm impressed that she called me with the news BEFORE the thing caught on fire or something. never did get a pullback to my entry point and i don't chase trades. next best option was what i did today and i guess i could still be in the trade but i will take my beer money and wait for another setup and lock myself in bomb shelter with do-not-disturb sign and door handle wired to grenade pin.
mind you, the aforementioned missed & botched opportunities are the cry in beer category as the setups don't come along every day and also i genuinely like to trade higher time-frames. i.e., as close to or in daily time frame as possible. beyond that, i'm actually looking forward to a major sell-off so i can get something on much closer to the 200 MA daily zone than up here in the nose-bleed section.
as it turns out R1 on RTH (regular trading hours) and confluent with my original target zone turned out to be the line in the sand today. the good news is that it wasn't a losing day and i took only one trade.
took a long during Asia session before dinner last night and exited early @ R1 for $53 on 1 contract. it ended up going to my desired target of 9236.25 and is continuing.
so.... looking at the Daily I entered 1 contract @ 9249.25. risk is about $250 and should it continue north I will look at intraday opportunities to add contracts along the way. with news being what it is, the market could just chop in a range here for awhile but won't know 'til it happens. gotta get past 9287.50 and then... and yes, this is the one i wanted to enter on Super Bowl Sunday... woud have been much lower risk than what i'm looking at here. watching round numbers overhead around the fib extensions should price approach them.