I've taken a lot of trades so far today (chart attached). So far I haven't hooked on to a big fish yet. Banker
That was finally a decent one. Now I can't make a case for myself to be bullish or bearish, so it's time to wait again. Banker P.S. QT wouldn't send my chart via email, so I can't attach anything.
I guess I can't have my email program open when I send a chart through QT. I think that last little ramp yesterday threw me off track. Now I think I'm back to focusing on the big picture. I'm sure my account will find out soon enough. Chart attached. Banker
I'm bearish if I can find a down slope, I'm bullish if I can find an up slope. I'm neither if I can't find a slope at all. The little trend lines I drew on my first chart this morning were basically a picture into my mind. Constantly asking myself the questions: Who is in control of prices? If I determine that the buyers are in control, I ask myself what the sellers would have to do to get control? Or vice versa. If neither the buyers or the sellers appear to be in control, I wait until I notice a change in conditions. I decided that ramps aren't a particular situation I am interested in joining. I like it when the big bumps start the move. That's what I'm trying to focus on. The big bumps seem to take around 15 minutes or so to build each side. I don't mind if the move starts with some big bumps and turns into a ramp, but the other way around seems to not work as well with my Caddy. Or at least how my brain interprets the road. Banker
Looking at the chart, it doesn't appear as though someone playing the 30 minute breakout made much money today. Since my last post there was a little upward slope which has since failed. It failed right around the area where long term bears would have to consider running for cover. When that failed I couldn't make a case to sell the current downward slope because the bulls still have their last little area of "support". If that breaks, I might have to jump on board again with the bears. It seems like a lackluster day so far, but it's hard to tell without seeing the price range on the day. So far there doesn't seem to be an overall impulse for the day, as Db would say. Things can change though. Banker
I'm done for the day. The only slope I see is so mild it makes no sense to trade it. Looks like ascending chop to me. Might be good for some to try and swing trade or scalp, but it doesn't appear either side is clearly in dominant control, so that makes trend trading difficult. I think my account balance went down today. Hopefully tomorrow traders will be more decisive. Banker
I won't be able to drive the Caddy for the morning session tomorrow. I have an appointment away from ES. I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday the 13th. Banker
Well I just had to look. I mean how long can you really trade your account without knowing what you have done? I'm a curious person. In theory the Cadillac idea made sense to me. It seemed to back test adequately, and it seemed to forward test adequately. The real test is trading of course. When paper testing, I could never be sure what prices I was really getting. The real money trading tells all. Like everything in trading there is always good and bad. There is no Holy Grail. I added candles to my price charts with the EMA's I have been trading, and looked over the entries and exits. I definitely learned a thing or two. Trading the average price did in fact help to prevent some shakeouts and whipsaws. The good part is that if I were driving the Jeep, I might have taken an early cue to run for the exits, when there was no real problem in the long run. On the other hand, since those things were smoothed away, it's takes away some of the breakouts as well. I found almost all entries were later than what I would have done in the Jeep. The interesting part is that even with the delayed entries, I could still make money on good trends. I mean sometimes it was almost ridiculous how late I was entering. And yet if the move ended up lasting a while, it didn't matter in the end. Another interesting note. I thought for sure my exits would be delayed with the Caddy. That really wasn't the case too often. Sometimes the Caddy would "know" the move was done before I would normally exit with the Jeep. I'm not saying this thing has predictive powers, but it was strange. Other times the exits were delayed. Some of the exits I was fairly certain the driver of the Caddy must have been drunk. I still feel the days I spent with the Caddy were some of the more comfortable days I have ever spent trading in my life. It's really a nice ride. I think that if I stuck with it for a while and really got good at driving it, I could make it profitable in the long run. I would even consider driving it on the daily charts (not with futures). On the other hand, I don't know if I am comfortable looking at my trading records with the Caddy. I mean, can I honestly accept that now I am the type of driver that I used to take advantage of in my Jeep? I used to nail the Cadillac drivers every once in a while. All you have to do is get in before them, and get out before them. That's one of the problems I had with Db's strategy. How could I let myself wait so long to enter or exit? Db has proven his ways can be profitable, and the Caddy has shown it could be as well. Yet like LongShot I have to wonder if it's really worth leaving that money sitting on the table. Sure the road can be bumpy and sometimes you have to flinch in and out, but there is real money to be made off of late comers at times. Early this morning in ES we had what looked to be a few huge price swings according to the Caddy. I never really considered the Caddy to be a swing trading vehicle, so I didn't trade them. When I look at the one minute candle or bar chart, I can't help but imagine that I would have capitalized on those moves in the Jeep. Those are nice things to trade on the one minute chart, in my opinion. Other moves which looked kind of like ramps or very tight trends in the Caddy could have been played nicely with the Jeep I thought. The Caddy really shines on moves which have more larger bumps. It can hang in there and stay on track. The Jeep, or at least when I'm driving it, can get whipsawed a bit in those conditions. Yet some of those big bump trends can go on for quite some time and be very profitable if you stay the course. What to do, what to do.... I have considered adding the EMA to my regular charts. The only problem is deciding which "signal" to trust at any given moment. I can imagine situations with conflicting signals that could cause paralysis or something. I have never ever traded with an indicator on a chart besides volume bars. I don't know if I could do it properly. Or I could have two charts open at once. Maybe the Jeep could be my entry and exit chart, and the Caddy could be my big picture chart. Maybe that's the best of both worlds. It worked out just fine having no exit stop. Nothing to worry about, at least for me. I have contingency plans if the streaming data goes down, or if GLOBEX is unavailable through IB, or even if I lose my internet connection entirely. Strangely it doesn't bother me at all, and I used to be a must have stop kind of person. It's also great not having the price scale on the chart. It really helps to keep fear or greed at a minimum while trading. I don't plan on changing that at all. Enough babbling, Banker