Lousy weather, lousy day. I am still struggling with time frames and entry. Trade 1: This used to be my favorite set up but it turned out to be a Scratched trade. Trade 2: An even better set up. Price made ABC retracement. 10109 zone is also 61.80% of the previous swing. Price tested the 10109 supply zone 3 times. All the indicators are lined up for me. The larger time frame and smaller time frame chart are both lined up. The trade turned out to be a winner. Entry: 10108 Exit 1: 10114 Exit: 10148 46 Pts Trade 3-Trade 6. All messy, reckless, brain-damaged trades. Around 11:00am. Price pulled back to 10108. It looks like a long set up. Plus all the indicators are lined up. Price tested the level twice again. I entered the long position with 7 tick stops, it stopped me out. Entered long again. Stopped out again. Then I looked at the smaller time frame- looks like a short set up, but then the longer time frame still signal a long position. So I entered the long the third time with an extremely wide stop. Needless to say, It stopped me one more time. The 6th trade was an error. I mistakenly press the buy instead of sell. I was out with another 7 tick loss. For the messy trades I took around 11 am, if I donât look at the larger time frame, I would have taken a short position after being stopped out, it was a clear signal that the short position needs to be entered. But I was so confused by the conflict message of the larger time frame. So -$263.40 today.... Tomorrow I will try only look at one time frame-300 tick chart.
What a wild ride day today. Market was still very volatile to me. The first trade was stopped out immediately with 2 contracts. So I decided to only trade one contract with a wider stop. In a volatile market, when looking at the choppy 300 tick chart, I just couldnât define where the swing low or swing high should be, I couldnât even see a clear picture on long or short⦠I think there is a Chinese saying that saidâ When the situation is unclear, territory is unknown, STAY AWAY. Only foolish army would jump in and fight.â But somehow I always decided to fight since I thought I knew, I thought that âshouldâ be my set up, turning pointâ¦. Trade 1: 7:58am, took a failed short position at 9839 with 2 contracts, stopped out. This should be where I should have stayed away. Price is making channeling down-Bull flag. This was never my strong suit. Trade 2: A break out trade. I usually take channel break out-pull back trade. But this time, the up trend is so strong, so I decided to go in and fortunately, it worked. Enter: 9847 Exit 1: 9854 Exit 2: 9869 29 Pts After the 2 trades, I decided to take only one trade. The volatility to me is too rich. Trade 3 is a quick scalp I tested on 100 tick and 300 tick chart. Trade 4-Trade 8 were killed by the volatility. They wiped off all the earlier gains. I was so defeated and decided to quit. Around 11:40 am, there was a great set up, but I was still in the early loss mood. I lost the courage to take the trade. Trade 9: Price is making a strong rebound. The trend is very obvious now( Price hasnât touch the 33EMA). Entry: 9929 Exit: 9954 25 pts Trade 10: Stopped once. Enter: 9950 Exit: 9989 Yes, I was out too quickly. I was scared by this volatility. 39Pts Tomorrow, I am going to stick with one contract. My entry, exit , time frame are the biggest challenges to me. I am not sure what I need to work on to get more accurate and precise besides practicing. Any advice? Today, +$221, 45% winning rate.
A little busy this early morning got to get some work done. I only traded the last 2 hours. Itâs probably better than trading the whole session. Trade 1 was a greedy trade. I wanted to be in with the set off, so I sell into the yesterdayâs close. Trade 2, 3 was where I tried to adjust between minute chart and tick chart, so I lost focus. Trade 4 was my favorite set up and it worked well Enter: 10054 Exit: 10003 This time I took measured move into consideration. I should taken profit at 9941(pivot point, also the measurement move point). But then I thought the 10000 was the psychology level, people might want to buy into this level. So I was out too quickly again. Trade 5 was a quick scalp, Price break previous high, took profits at the 33EMA acting as the resistance level. I traded 3 min and 5 min chart and I couldnât find any set up. So I switched back to 1 min, the 1 min chart gives me a lot of set up-including my favorite ones. And the risk is small. I understand that I couldnât have more stop outs, more trades and small profits. But I think itâs OK for me now. I will have a 3min chart on the side if the 1 min gets choppy and trend isnât clear. I like to see those obvious patterns and candles. 5 min chart is a little hard to read at this point. I am either very late to get in or I am often hesitated to put a super wide stop. +$248, 60% win rate Off to Boarders study Al.
Hey, good trading Matcha! I've got big Al's book, too...just gotta get back to reading it...not easy for a beginner like me.
It was a difficult reading for me to. I almost fell asleep in coffee shop today... I am in the Chapter -Trend Reversal, I still only get 10% of what he is talking about. I am going to skip to "best trades" Chapter tomorrow....
Matcha, all the best in your pursuit. I also trade the YM. I've been doing it part-time for a few years. Daytrading is tough but I think you are on the right track studying bar to bar. I also started Al but put it down for some time as its very badly written and I already have some setups that I have been working on that are bar/candle based. I really believe every candle is important. Especially while scalping. I use a 5min chart as I think there is too much noise in the 1min. I also used 42ticks and other tick variations. I think I've tried a zillion different approaches. At the end of the day I believe you need to keep searching until you find something you like and feel comfortable with. Then its all about the money management.
I don't think Al Brook's bar-by-bar approach is good for anything less than 5-minute bars (or even 15-minute bars). The main reason is time. We don't have enough time to analyze each 1-min bar (or sub-minute tick bars). The market just zoom by you when you are measuring this and measuring that on the bar. Oliver Velez advocates the 55% mark on a bar. Imagine doing that on a 1-min bar with your calculator (and the bar is still forming). I trade AAPL on 42-tick charts (not 42-tick alone but it helps me time my entries once I have a bias). It can be 10 bars in 1 minute. a bar will zoom you by in less than 10 seconds. It takes only 1 trader somewhere in the world to invalidate what you think as the "support" and "resistance". LOL.