Just my observation.. but I found the 5 min. bars to be most reliable.. I've found their signals more reliable than those from 10 & 15 min. bars..
Last time I posted it was knocked off. IMHO I think you should just try trade one direction for now. Trying to long then short is difficult when one is unsure.
I think maybe I should just forget about the first hour of trading. It has big moves but I can't tell if it's going to continue or reverse. It seems to have both big one way moves on one-way days and sharp reversals on range days. Looking at the market at this point looks like a one-way up day. Maybe I should just look for long entries on retracements for today. With the range being so wide so far I feel uncomfortable trading long right now. Ah, it's all good....the joy of trading a new market.
Thoughts Trade of day was to go long at open and hold until 4pm. Not much trading action intraday. Tomorrow I'll try using 5 min. bars. Maybe it'll be more of a trading range with some action.
Moneymoneymoney, if you are trading short term intraday, using a software front end with no static market depth window is equivalent to giving money away. Quit using PATS and try a good scalping front end like Xtrader instead, it will easily pay for itself with your size and daily P&L target. You are also paying way too much in commissions - you should be looking for $2-3 per round turn if you do any kind of volume.
Thoughts Yesterday I tried buying strength and exiting and/or shorting on weakness. Each time I got poor entries and exits. The only profitable trades were early in the day when the big move was being made. Last week I tried selling strength and buying weakness. It appears that even when the market is a one-way day like yesterday, the best approach is to buy weakness and exit on strength. I'm trying using 5 min. bars today and I'll be looking to buy on weakness and short on strength. Another thing I noticed was the first two trades each day were profitable. I think I might be losing some focus after a couple of winners. Today I'm going to try and remain focused and avoid lazy trading.