I prefer a minimum of 20 ticks, but if the PA is narrow or there's a lot of congestion between sides, I'll often settle for less. Yes, once a trade has moved favorably by the amount of my stop loss, I move my stop to break even. I'll also move the stop to break even if price attempted to do something twice and appears to be failing to progress any further (for example, I'm short for a test of the low, looking for a new low and price stalls there or breaks by a tick or two and starts back up through the breakout level).
Oh I remember that, that's a standard breakout strategy. That was before the volatility in CL really died down. I wonder how well that works now with that stop/tgt... (ADD: I see it certainly worked this morning). I usually have 10-15 trades a day. P.S., thank you for your kind words
OMG... I'm too embarrassed to say I was overlooking something here. Following your explanation, I had to look it up and I see now that I was going in a different direction. This link explained it in great detail, but its exactly what you are saying (I don't read that website, just found the link through google to explain inside/outside bars). Good to clear this up now! Now I have to go back and read all your comments about inside/outside bars and erase whats in my brain. http://www.smartmoneyforex.com/forex-course/inside-and-outside-bars/ Oh wow.. you're right about the blue.. I don't like it!
Yes, that's how I always defined those bars! I was trying to find an example for you, but you found it first!
I'm an eager beaver! Starting is the hardest part and now the time is finally right so I'm going to be going hopefully full steam ahead. Edit: I would like to ask you NoDoji, you mentioned you were in on trading rooms in the past that were free, following trading methods and just watching the live calls and learning. Are there any out there right now you can recommend? I have no idea how they work or where they are so if you can point me in the right direction, I'm sure you will save me so much time and effort and steer me clear of the scams. Thanks.
ET used to have a chat room and when I was a beginner I called my trades there. When the chat room closed one of the guys, Robert Weinstein, started his own room because we all wanted to stay in touch each day. I believe Bob's room is still active; you can contact him here on ET. I think they're mainly trading stocks and ETFs.
I like the new blue color. As noted in the ES forum, I talked about time frames. To recap. 1) Pre=market open 2) Morning 3) Lunch 4) Afternoon. 5) After market close 6) Night. Each time frame has it's own characteristics. 1) Range or trend 2) Counter trend 3) Continuation. These characteristics should last until the time frame merges into the following one. So one needs to 1st identify the start and end of the time frame. Next the characteristic for example trend or range. Then be able to plan your trade where you have a survivable stop and a target that you can get to where you have at least even risk vs reward. You can trade even risk vs reward if your win% is 65% or higher. Finally, you need to determine the number of trades you will do for the day. For example, if you do normally 1 trade per day that is a winner, you don't want to do another losing trade if the day comes when you finally take a loss.
A musician! I figure that musicians potentially could have a better grasp/understanding/following the price movement, as a music sheet just looks like a stock chart, and the music notes like prices; As the notes ascending, she/he is going to play the keys to the right sides (piano) or hit the right side of the strings, and that is a reaction, an instinct without any further thinking after practice, practice and practice. Furthermore, a musician has a better understanding of ascending and descending concept/phenomenon, as music notes cant' rise or fall all the time, and she/he is expecting for the reversal at the proper time; finally, the transition between the themes is such an essential part of the music and it is interspersed all over the places, so musicians learned/adapted to handle them readily.