I have had few journals here in the past. I traded live and did good for a while and lost it all as time went by. Sometimes I feel that this is just a pipe dream and it is going nowhere. I am not willing to give up right now but I am getting to the point where if I cannot make it soon, I may have to find another field where I'm good at. I am going to be paper trading for the next month and if I don't do good, this is it for me. I was out of the country for the last few weeks and I had a lot of time to think. I read a lot of books and went over my past trades. There were times where I screwed up myself by relying too much on indicators. I am trying to read price action and I think I might have found someting (although this is not the first time I felt that way). For the month of December I'll be posting all my SIM trades, and if I am profitable at the end of the month, I'll go live in 2011. I am going to be trading off the 5 min chart with 10 EMA/MA (similar to Al Brooks, although he uses 20 MA). I have ATR 4 and 1 and KC (10, 1.5). Entry Long: After a down move Price closes above 10 MA and ATR 1 > ATR 4. Then the second 5 min bar makes a LH-LL. Buy at the high of the 2nd bar as long as the last 3 bars touched previous 30 min high. Once price closes above KC, trail the stop with 10MA. Wish me Luck!!!
Here is an example from yesterday. At 10.50 price closed above 10MA (1) and the 2nd bar(2) after that made a LH-LL. Usually it is okay to go long here, but the 10.50-11 bar never touched the previous resistance which was at 26.75. At (3) price touched 26.75, so you'll buy at the high of (2) which is (4) in the chart. Once price closed above the KC (10,1.5) (6), you'll trail the stop and exit at (5). This trade was good for 19 points.
I was able to read the PA correctly but still didnot pull the trigger. The market was up huge before open and still held up in the first 30 mins. I was looking for a pull-back and got that at 7.30. As the market was pulling-back the down bars were getting smaller and smaller. I felt that there was atleast one more move up. At (1) would have been an ideal entry point and (2) would have been an exit. I did not take the trade but I will know what to do next time someting similar unfolds.
Today's action was similar to yesterday's. At (1) price went up the channel and ATR 1 > ATR 4. At (2) we had a down candle with a LL-LH, but it's ATR was larger than the previous candle's ATR. This is exactly what happened yesterday too. In this case we wait for the red 5 min charts with a declining ATR 1. This occured at (3). We buy the high of the 5 min bar, and once price closes above the KC, we use the 10 MA to trail the stop. Our entry would have been 73 and exit 78. I am writing all these rules do that as these events unfold, I can take the trade.