jasinhbca's quest for discipline, knowledge & profits

Great. Thank you RN.

 

-41 today , -25 ticks for the week.

Sometimes I confuse reading price properly to just slapping a name on it and taking it. My first trade I called it a PB set up but it was not a good PB based on my studies & experience. Maybe it's impatience or a mental lapse.

There were little mistakes that just added up to a down day. Passed on a couple trades, held some too long and others stop too tight.

Traded properly there was money to be made today.

Mentally my focus was pretty good. I was staying calm and trying to observe objectively. If nothing else I think a calm state is more conducive to learning in real time. So there was a benefit from today.

I'll review the trades in more detail later. I believe I got off plan with stop placement. Some set ups were not the cleanest so I fudged on the stops to being too tight.

In the past being down this much in one day would be very frustrating. Today I feel PA does make sense and that consistency is possible with further review, practice and DISCIPLINE.

Have a good weekend traders !

oh yeah, man, I think I got slippage on nearly every entry today. That's unusual.

 

I had one of my worst days ever.
Some days are not going to be profitable.
Next week will be better.

 

Yeah, I saw. Hang in there, Gabe.

And thanks, next week will be better.

 

Intraday scalping is very difficult because of the focus involved. Small errors with entry levels and stop placement can make all the difference between profit and loss.

I’ll share my experience as applied to these trades, not in an attempt to change your trading plan, rather to explain how I avoid trouble by using the 5-min chart as my main framework, with the 1-min chart for the entries, and having certain rules around these.

Trade 1: On the 1-min chart alone, this looks like a nice little hook long setup, but on a 5-min chart price pulled back to the falling 20EMA (down trend) following a strong push down, then broke the low of the bar whose high touched the EMA. This PA in and of itself is a signal for me to only consider short trades (sadly my offer never filled and I missed the whole thing). Even if price hadn’t broken a 5-min bar downside at that point, with less than 10 ticks of airspace back to that 20EMA, even a counter-trend scalp is out of the question for me.

Trade 2: This is a case of mixed signal PA (chop) as indicated by the 5-min price bars again. At the time you shorted, the high of the 7:35 5-min bar broke upside. Even though the break was very weak, the fact that a 5-min bar broke both directions during the 7:40 bar creates an outside bar, which is a "no-trade" filter according to my Chop Protection Plan (see the thread, Help I’ve Been Chopped).

Trade 3: Well, at this point it’s a coin toss, with a very slight upward bias due to support at slightly higher lows in the consolidation. Your stop placement was too tight, too close to an inside bar on the 5-min chart. Really, the bigger issue was that the trend was still down and no side was willing to tip its hand yet.

Trade 4: You bought as the market appeared to tip its hand but really all that happened was price hit the upper channel line of a narrow 1-min channel (connect the lows/highs of the narrow range consolidation). The other problem was your stop placement again. As uncomfortable as it would be, the tightest technically reasonable stop would be below .30, IMHO).

Trade 5: Your 8:15 long front ran me by 2 minutes and 3 ticks, but I wanted to be sure price cleared that pesky upper channel off what looked very much like a Volman tease-and-squeeze play. The whole thing fizzled 3 ticks shy of my profit target, but like you I scalped a bit off it.

Trade 6: I was just exiting the previous long a minute before you shorted here, so my head wasn't engaged in reverse short mode. Decent setup, but the subsequent weak LTL break failed to follow through, which set up a nice bear trap long entry (it's a very nice first entry setup on the 5-mn chart which hit target that time).

Trade 7: I’d only be looking for shorts here because of the LTL break and now a range below the 5-min 20EMA. Your entry was rather late for a long. I’d prefer the 1-2-3 early entry off the triple bottom during the 10:02 bar, more airspace to the range high.

Trade 8: Your late entry made stop placement problematic again. Technically feasible stop would be below 94.44. For me, the latest entry I’d be willing to take for that stop placement would’ve been the break of the 10:37 bar high. When scalping and using tight stops, precision entries make all the difference in the world. I mess this up a few times every week despite years of experience!

Trade 9: Seems like a very late short entry here. Look back in time and remember the bulls breakout started with that break above 94.45. Previous breakout Resistance often attempts to become support during a pullback and the 5-min 20EMA was just a few ticks higher at that point.

What's helpful for me is to first determine where a technically reasonable stop loss needs to be and make sure I can get an entry price that then fits my R:R parameters. It only takes a moment of losing focus and chasing price to mess this up!

Have a great long weekend!

 

Thank you ND ! I'll be reviewing again your comments and my trades this weekend. I'm still not making proper use of the 5 minute bars I think. I'll have that focus in mind when I review. And yep proper stop placement was missing today.

Thanks. Have a great weekend.

 

ND if it is not too much to ask, can you post a 5min and a 1min chart to clarify what you wrote above regarding the 9 trades?
Thanks
Gabe

 

I found that if you do this yourself you'll get a lot more out of it.

Do it two ways:

Bring up the charts on screen and draw trend and channel lines as well as horizontal S/R lines and annotate J's trades.

Then print out the charts in OHLC format (not candlesticks) and annotate it by hand.

If you do this regularly, you'll notice gradual improvement in your ability to see key levels in real time; eventually you'll start to see the levels without even drawing the lines.

 

Release the CRACK-en

So what the heck does that mean – fixin to propose something that may or may not apply J

But first; (a message from our sponsors - LOL & j/k)

Volatility & Momentum

Are cut from the same cloth

Are herky jerky

Are spastic / spasmodic / sporadic

Even violent at times

=====================

When trading same..., unless one real cautious about being/ remaining - removed / disassociated – one finds their self mimicking that which they are viewing / engulfed in / surrounded by


And when one is caught up in it – one is predisposed to trade the same

Call it - Chart CRACK

Like I said – may or may not apply – only way to know is go back and review your trades (actions) and see if they mimic the character of what you were trading

If they do..., then extra monitoring.., and a mechanism – to ensure you remain – removed & disassociated are in order


Some food for thought

RN

 

Over the weekend I reviewed my Friday trades bar by bar. Wider stops would have helped but the bigger issue was taking trades I should not have taken. My focus was too much on the 1 minute chart and forgetting about 5 minute. Could have been a little Crack influenced trading too :eek:

I also then reviewed each trade with ND's notes. Picked up a couple things I missed in my review.

I've added a bar timer alert to my 5 minute chart. I get a little audible beep at the completion of each bar. That helped today to remind me to look every 5 minutes (at least) and note important levels & TL's. I think it helped today to keep me out of some chop/range action.

Today was just a fair day for my discipline. Really it shouldn't be an issue. Just follow the plan. Futzing with targets and stops again. Should have been up more today. But I don't want to sound completely negative. I did so some correct things, with holding some trades and patience on waiting for set ups.

+9 ticks today , 4 trades . I'll likely just do an update at end of week unless I have a break through or something