this pic is just to show some of the same hot-spots i was watching in case the FOMO crowd showed up and exuberance caused old faithful pop. namely the same 2 R3 pivots (RTH, ETH) and fib extensions. i knew it was a long-shot but the fact that the ETH R3, a 38.2 and 61.8 fib were all clustered up around 9450 was pretty lady sitting at the end of the bar.
this shot shows the aforementioned duct-tape trailing stop in action. yes, this time working FOR me instead of against. it is doing it's job to lock in profits in case everybody packs it in and goes to happy hour without telling me first. price is hovering around the RTH R3 pivot anyway. nobody's going to fire me for taking profits in this area.
ok, i lied. i just remembered one other thing about this trade worth mentioning. this trade was sort of a 2nd chance to the one that i missed on super bowel sunday. Grow $10k account to... the reason i'm bringing this up AGAIN is that the entry for this trade had a much larger stop loss and thus higher risk to reward than the original setup described in link above. and that's why i only put one contract on with this trade. additionally i thought there might be a chance for a pullback and reload but as you can see there wasn't anything significant all day. i guess if you were in kamikaze mode on fast charts you could do so but that's not what i was doing last couple daze. the overnight session might take this on up to the upper ascending channel boundary but they'll have to do it without moi. this brings to mind another point. the slower pace of longer time-frames (30m, 60m, etc.) is more suited to my temperament and style. the other things i was doing early in this thread can lead to developing nasty rashes, emptying the liquor cabinet, and terrible things like that. then there's the unplanned sneeze while your hand is quivering on the mouse button. not good.
hi wrbtrader and thanks for stopping by and thank you for your comments! re: market depth, i have studied it for a LONG time and always got some sort of edge from the information but have to say i lean on VIX and $TICK heavily with futures day-trading.. they really are somewhat of a windsock if i had to describe them. re: posting here @ ET. gosh i don't really have a good answer other than this is where i landed after seeing sstheo thread about growing $2K. honestly i can't really remember how i came to ET to see his thread other than i may have done a search for something and it just happened to bring me to ET. you know, how that serendipity stuff works. lol re: journal, blog, website, etc., never thought about that but in all honesty that sounds a bit like work which i already have plenty of. not that i wouldn't enjoy the subject matter but my concern might be that it would become too much of a distraction from other things that need my attention. this whole grow 10k to... thing is an experiment or project that will hopefully fund some other things. ideally, i would like to get it to the point that i can take advantage of a deeper pullback/sell-off somewhere down the road and then get it rolling on daily, weekly, monthly, time-frame and rolling contracts. with any luck that will happen and i can get my wife, kids, grandkids to keep it going. or they can just blow it all on my funeral wake. lol as for the journal. i've made a few attempts at times to do it and personally didn't get much from it. that doesn't mean it's a bad idea though. i think journals can and do provide value depending on the person and situation. i know from personal experience that writing things down has helped me work through some issues when things are emotionally charged and it's hard to see the trees for the forest, yes. having said that, it's like my wife urging me to drop a few lbs. and go to this exercise program or diet. i remind her that i was a wrestler in high school, a triathlete, for many years. i KNOW what i need to do. (side note, i eventually got my act together on this.) so it is with trading. as for the missed opportunities. the ones that i highlighted in this thread, IIRC were ones that i was aware of and planned on taking but for circumstance (mostly) beyond my control i was not able to take advantage of. it's a frustrating thing knowing you're right on something and especially a long time developing trade that gets away. again, thanks for stopping by. i'm not sure how long this thread will go. i mean, at some point it will get to be like chewing gum possibly but i would like to get the account built up enough to peel some off and start another account that would be focused on longer term swing and trend trading. i know that i have some activities on the horizon that are going to take me away from day-trading due to travel and other obligations but that's one of the benefits of doing this. having the flexibility. cheers!
yes and thank you, it was a good trade and pretty much a textbook example. i guess if anything the posts document my attempts at managing a trade. btw, i just went back and looked at the "missed opportunities" trade on 2/3 and based on $300 risk i would have edged on caution and rounded down to 2 contracts in @ about 8984ish and would still be holding.
i trade breakouts on 1-2-3 (some call it abc) patterns). those seem to be the most frequent but occasionally there will be a consolidation pattern that will break out of a range. other times there can be range trades but I don't usually go looking for those and prefer the 1-2-3 type but that's just me.
Breakout trades usually have a win rate of around 35-40%. How do you pull it up to 70%? (if I'm not mistaken)