Yes. I can act on what I see. Not completely consistently depending on my mental state, but in general yes.
1. A signal to sell short: a lower high off the top of a range, where the bar breaks higher before reversing down and closing at or near its low. 2. A signal to continue to hold a trade: a powerful bar in my direction with little or no wick on either side.
If you are trading strictly off of candle price action you have to expect a certain amount of shakeouts.
I am not giving advice. repeat I am not giving advice. Did you answer "Yes" to my question? Do you you trust candlestick patterns at support and resistance? next up is to ask you this... Any advice yet? No. You gonna find naysayers and so forth anywhere ya go. Dime a dozen. Did you stop playing metal cause your buddy's mom kicked ya outta the garage? I got no dog in your fight. We can proceed or not. no problemo. if so, then Be your own expert, it is hella lot easier than all the "don't take any advice, but Here's what to do." Bullshit Be your own expert. Here's one way to do it, Step 2, lol Which candlesticks are your goto patterns? I don't even want to bias you by naming any. but lets at least be on the same page with our terminology when we look at your choices and why they ain't getting you where you want to go. You game? Yes or no? From the linked list below, What would you say are a couple of your goto candlestick signals that you trust? Just the "official" names? https://www.ig.com/us/trading-strategies/16-candlestick-patterns-every-trader-should-know-180615 that list aint nothin special, I didn't see just a straight old list of a dozen patterns, all that other crap I did not even look at, they got an assortment of names and so choose a couple and lets get the show on the road? Or no, just let me know, aint no thang but a chicken wang baby, up to you. >
Last, I would be a bit careful about getting advice from anyone. I've been down this road many times and it never works. All that happens is that they take you away from what you are doing because they think they know better. They more than likely are not a trader who is killing it, so all that is going on is your method, which has some holes in it, is being substituted for another method, with equally as many holes. And even if what they know is brilliant, will it really help you if you haven't yet seen it yourself or your brain doesn't even work this way? Unless they are prepared to show you everything they do and explain why what they say is superior to what you are doing, I don't see what value it has. Take this as an example. Some people like myself look for breakouts to fade. If you're trading at an extreme edge for example, you are essentially taking a counter trend trade because even though price is moving up, you short because you think its hit an upper channel line and should now move down (like your shorts today at the end of the session). But then a whole lot of other traders will take the breakout trade, hoping for continuation. So at the exact same moment, you have two traders who view it totally differently. Both will eventually be right over enough trades, but the key is making it work for you. Do you really want to be led too far away from what you are doing? Based on what you write, you already know what you want to do, and you understand that sometimes you are not doing it. The only person who can help with this is you. If you are skipping certain trades, you have to figure out why. If its fear based, you have to overcome this. If you think you need more clues in the price action, you have to find it. You kept your losses small today, and held on to a great winning trade and exited at the bottom of the channel which seems to be according to plan. What more do you want??? If anyone offers to help, ask to see charts of their amazing trading skills before you go listening to what they are saying. I doubt you will find anyone sharing charts of carefully planned out trades with very few losses and large winners, and doing this consistently day after day.
Yep I got you, I have my own style and view of things, so I'm not super vulnerable to system chasing or throwing out my experience, just looking to refine it and contrast it with whatever it comes into contact with through dialogue. And I totally agree with your last paragraph, I had a similar thought today when I was writing that post. "What more can I really ask for, should I even be critiquing myself right now?" I made 3x my drawdown in one trade...if I just look at them as a random sample of trades, that's a couple little wins, a couple little losses, a bunch of tiny losses, and one big win...I feel like a lot of people probably wish they could do that day in and day out. Of course I am chasing efficiency, which is important or I wouldn't even be at this level now where I am capable of holding for a reasonable win. And to be honest I never feel bad or dwell on my losses for long. But as you said, I know what I want to do, I just sometimes don't do it. Some of those totally random entries need to stop, in the moment I'm just taking them out of frustration, it can be hard to mentally zoom out and just remember all I have to do is sit there and wait for the next good opportunity.
If your trading mind doesn't clear up, ask more questions the way you are doing. You will get hella lot of advice. When the advice peters out and if your trading mind is still not clear, feel welcome to post one of your charts over in this linked thread and I'll take that as a nudge to reply to your journal with a response to where we left off. On the other hand, if things go well, if things clear up for you, then you are back on the road and I'll just continue minding my own biz, lol. Break a leg man. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...t-right-here-baby.343012/page-22#post-5662323