At this level of development going long on red is too advanced and will lead to a wipe out. Get the basics down first. There are too many other errors in the OP's trades so a good foundation needs to be laid.
for most of your trades, looks like your stop wasn't patient (big) enough. Take another look if you had held on longer...
Widening stops has more to do with the sad fact that the Day Trader does not know what he/she is doing, rather than being a part of a well conceived tactical ploy. Whilst it is very true that price is our teacher, it is not our tactician. We are. We set the rules of engagement. We decide upon the acceptable casualty rate. And we decide when to disengage in the face of victory. regards f9
IronFist, Practice What You Preach and be consistent with it!!! ....One thing that I learned ....is that price moves in waves. HH/HL, LH/LL... So basically, if you're going long, you probably have a better statistical chance of being profitable if your long entry is in an uptrend following a series of higher highs and higher lows. IMHO, 1st trade long = ??? according to your lines you had a LH and HL ...even you want to forget about this statistical edge and take the long in that S Line at least wait for a green candle or a close above of previus bar close and open or the break of the last bar high !!! 2nd Trade long =???? LH and LL 3rd Trade long = ??? LH and LL 4th trade long = ???? LH and LL And you wonder why you got hammered... jjrvat
Here is my full chart for the day. Iron, watch your trendlines, you have them all over the place. Keep support/resistance and only draw the "strong" trendlines to play. Also, its ok to have a one EMA or something to help you get set straight, I just kinda use it as my compass in case I ever get turned around in the heat of battle. Also, i dont know if you use any other charts as a larger picture. I also have up some 2-3day 10min charts to help identify a more powerful trend and I also have my pivot points marked on them.
I don't use tick charts or TL's any more but just for the heck of it I took a 400 tick YM chart for today and marked it how I think I would have done throughout the day. There were several times I would have had to modify the original TL, which I left on the chart. (One reason I don't use them any more) There were at least 7 false breaks that probably would have led to a loss. And this is with the benefit of hindsight! http://charts.dacharts.com/2008-12-05/YM400tickTL.png For some reason my charts disappear from daCharts after 24 hours or so. I have no idea why.
Here's the same YM 400 tick with how I would normally "view" the PA in terms of simple horizontal S/R levels. Again I don't use tick charts and if I were I probably wouldn't use one of the "micro" time frames. I just don't do as well with them. More power to you if you can make them work though. Also again, this is with the benefit of hindsight. And I don't normally take the time to make notes on my charts during RTH. (I type too freak'n slow) http://charts.dacharts.com/2008-12-05/YM400ticS-R.png
Same day minute YM chart. I marked the levels I watched. But made no notes. Observations and thought process would have been similar to the previous chart. http://charts.dacharts.com/2008-12-06/2008-12-06 YM #F 9.png