Try taking this approach to exit and enter trades. Look at charts 1,5,15 min. Go far back as much as you can with this (start with a week). Look for the pivots in each chart and write that down. Not just any pivot, but at what price did it hit and turn around a few times that day or week whatever time frame your looking at. Sometimes there Fib numbers. Other times there actual pivot points. I trade the es with the help of snp500trader. If you want his key weekly levels go to powercharting.com click on traders resources-> Key weekly levels. Those numbers get respect. You want the holy grail, Price Has Memory. Today I shorted the 727 level, and I also went long at 714. These were just a few of the trades I made today. (you can also go to mypivots.com-> daily notes and click on whatever your trading). I hope this information helps. Chart reading is another form of PA. Watching charts, doesn't matter what time frame as long as its unfolding in front of you real time.
IMO there isnt really any such thing as "trend", its a relative term that doesnt mean much. It's like saying "Lil Wayne is a good rapper"...depends who you ask. Same with trendsL day traders, swing traders, position traders, and everyone in between will point to their 5min chart, 1hr, 4hr, daily, weekly, monthly, tick chart, and show you where price is going. It doesn't really mean shit, because unless you trade the same style as them, those time frames are not important, and neither are their trends. a double top on a 5min chart doesnt mean shit to a non day trader, and so on and so on. Even if you and I looked at the same daily chart, for say http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=RATE&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p71597392114 and i ask you, where is the trend, and you say "up" for example, well I'm going to disagre with you, but guess what?..WERE BOTH RIGHT. Thats the beauty of the markets, are that people see the market in so many different ways. A trend no matter how big or small is just a retracement of a nother larger trend take my chart for example. Some would say RATE is is now in a bull market, as its been going strong the last 3 days, others say its still in a down trend. Id advise that you look over the charts i posted on this thread. in the picture that i posted i show 3 different trends. Trend B is just a retracement of its previous trend (A), and trend C is just a retracement of previous trend B Forget trying to time tops and bottoms, trade the pullbacks like we were doing when you and I were trading YM in the 2nd picture here is my analysis of the trade signals givin, 1 loser and two great winners. I got stopped on the first trade because obviously i was short against the uptrend, but im not worried, I know that its over-bought and I'm shorting based off a longer term down trend. Once you can wrap your mind around this concept, you'll do fine.
I think trading YM isnt the best thing for you. You cant properly control your risk, due to too little capital. Open a stock account. cm
No kidding, that's why I've been studying this for so long. I can't trade how I want to with stocks due to wash sales and tax annoyances. It's futures or *gasp* forex. Actually, forex, with it's super tiny lot sizes, would be perfect for learning if it wasn't so corrupt and unregulated. And I've never met anyone who understands what to do for Forex taxes, either. I get annoyed at tax time listing my 10-20 trades for the year for stocks. There's no way I'm gonna list 5+ per day. btw your first negative divergence failed but I noticed you didn't include that one
keep at it IF, the longer you stare at a chart during active trading hours the sooner you will be where you want to be (preferably the same instrument). I heard it goes even faster if youre having fun.
First one here as it would have appeared in real time. Cheers if you can use MACD and stochs profitably
Trend ends ONLY when there are TWO LL and LH. You say trend is over when a LL forms after a HH. imo, you would then need a LH and another LL minimum to call a trend change. Ideally another LH as well. Here is my anchor chart from a few days ago. I marked these going into the 3/17 session. Notice how we were in an uptrend then did a LH and a LL? Well, trend is still up so I took nothing but longs all day that day on support and made money. There were people screaming downtrend just because of on LH and LL and losing their shirts. http://picsordie.com/images/r8x775dbaofghcq5k492.jpg Entering when a candle goes above previous candle's high is too fast and I can see you would get chopped out all day long. Try entering with the 3 bar pattern instead. If you still find yourself getting chopped to hell then perhaps you are using too fast of a timeframe on your charts. Here's a quick description of the 3br. http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3brentrygl5.jpg Not everybody waits for price to retrace after the magic tick ... you can always enter on magic tick of 4th bar as well. up to you. Tight stops are very possible. If you only place your entries at important Support/Resistance levels it is amazing how well it can work. Watching for major volume surges on a 5 sec chart can really help as well. Entering on 3br's allows for fairly tight stops too. If you are doing a trend following system and entered in an uptrend, take off partial at the next HH, then add again at HL, take some off at next HH, etc. However, the real deal is entering / exiting at pivot S/R only. Price only changes direction at pivots(almost always) anything that happens in between those pivots is just noise. I wouldn't worry about countertrend trading. Pull up 2 charts: 10,000 volume NQ 1,000 volume NQ Only trade in the direction of the trend on the 10,000 volume chart. If the trend is up, and the intraday trend is down on the 1,000 volume, it is perfectly OK to enter counter trend on the 1000k, which is actually WITH the overall larger trend. Key here is that you want to enter at Support levels. This will return some amazing plays and you will be able to call bottoms on an intraday chart knowing that the actual larger trend is up. IMO if the anchor chart is unclear of the trend, just don't trade until you are more experienced. No sense in taking trades that are low probability.