I attached a 3-min and 1-min chart of a couple of my trades today showing how I used the 1-min chart for sniper entries, and the 3-min (5-min would be fine, too) for exits. I used to assume price would pivot at a certain point, get in too soon, then get stopped out, because I had no confirmation. Then I learned to wait for confirmation, but often ended up getting in at a price where my stop was wider than I was comfortable with, and that caused me to get nervous and move my stop to break even too quickly, getting stopped out of very good trades. Once I started using the 1-min chart for sniper entries, I could get confirmation on a micro scale, enter quickly, have a pretty tight stop, and comfortably let the trade play out on the larger time frame.
yea unfortunately for real..was not ready to commit to long once retrace began..or at least what I thought was a retrace that never happened
I look for price to become overbought or oversold and look for pivot points on the 1-min chart by catching a micro view of the action, and jump in very quickly, knowing if I'm stopped out it's a very minor loss. I'm trading 200 shares and using a 10 to 30 tick stop (max loss of $20-$60 per trade). My average reward is 2 or more times my risk, and I have high win rate. My profit on those two trades I charted were $176 and $156, and you can see from the pivot points how close I could place a survivable stop. This is why I have trouble shifting to CL live trading. I want to trade 2 lots or none at all. And as you know by the time you put on a CL trade, it's already moved $200 one way or the other
Very good trades NoDoji. The only thing is I don't understand how you define pivot points. For me pivot points are either where resistance or support was respected in the past, or floor pivot points pit traders use to trade futures. Also, I still don't understand why you just don't stay focused on stocks, since you seem to have a good edge and are making money. I trade CL based on an edge I think that I have found, so I can hopefully make mechanical decisions based on my win %. Therefore, I no problem if I take 1 to 1 risk vs reward for the CL.
You let one red bar shake you out? Didnt even come close to being a retracement. Quit trading like a maniac.
Thanks, Oracle. I generally see pivot points as price turns from overbought to oversold in a range or a trending range. In a strong trend, overbought and oversold become meaningless. For example, my final POT trade today was a 3rd short @ 120.07, pullback from the next lower high you see on the chart (also very overbought there). It became "oversold" on the 3-min chart close to the round number $119 and I covered @ 119.25, assuming there would be another move up and I'd short the next lower high if indicated. Well, that pivot off "oversold" was a little head fake that trapped a lot of new longs looking to pick a bottom, because down it went nearly another point from where I covered. If you saw my sim profits each day trading 1-2 lots CL, you'd understand why I want to transition to it. I just don't yet have the risk tolerance for it. It's a mental block.
NoDoji, have you thought of starting with QM at first and then moving up to CL after awhile? That is what I did and it helped me gain confidence I don't think I would have had with only paper trading. It took me over a year to make a full transition up to CL but I was able to learn a lot by trading the QM in the meantime. You won't get as good of fills with the 0.025 tick value but the liquidity is still good and it trades just the same as CL. The $500 point value is also nice when you are just getting your sea legs. Good luck. edit: sorry to interrupt Increasenow's journal, yes I still read it and good job yesterday, keep it up
Here you go Inkydinkydoo, a short moment just for you as your beloved 6S is finding trouble at yesterday's 9540 high. Sell it, put a stop above the 9543 high, and fuhgettaboutit .