the title was PO's idea!! I am thinking of a book related trading to Art and Fashion! But I write poorly. Maybe you can be my editor! Just curious, are you also trading in tight range? or you just sit tight
You stated these 3 levels in this thread before Although I am only trading level 1, Level 2 and 3 are equally important too....In order to find and take level 1 trade(buy dip, sell rally within the trend) with high probabilities. I got to be able to identify reversal(leve 2), identify trend or range bound(level 3). Those are challenging to me lately ...
I hope you traded in SIM? I think your last "could have been a good trade" failed due to lots of exhaustion from trading range bound. You weren't thinking clearly when you hold to it untill it turned to a loss. I have same problem too... And when it turned to a loss(from winning), it became more contagious. The emotion and loss were carried to follow up trades. over and over again... I do this all the time... We are all human, it's hard not to repeat this habbit I guess... That;s why we all need a limit loss per day...And we have to do our best abandon this habbit so we can have enough capital to stay play... Even though this kind of bad day happened, remember not to carry the emotion to next trading day... focus on individual trade. You are not alone, dont feel too bad. Besides, we can always remind each other not to take bad trades. It's easier to complete the mission when we have so much support from everyone here.
Borrowing ~~~'s voice: "Oh, sweetie..." This early morning was not good to hope for a big bull move. Take a look at the market (ES/YM) for the past 3 sessions. Remember that we had a big sell off on Tuesday. This early morning's move only pushed prices right up to the "Supply Zones". (3 yellow lines) Thus a pointy reversal triggered another sell off today. (blue circle) Boli's advice: Don't pay attention to the "good" report this, "good" report that. Market Participants have minds of their own. Focus on the charts. Just note that there is a this-and-this report out at what date/time. Don't pay attention to the content of the report. (I have not cared to read any "news" for over 10 years.) Let the charts, price actions guide you to trade. You need to put into consideration the "bigger" picture. To day trade, the one-step bigger picture is obviously price movements in the past 4-5 sessions. Trading the opening is the "Quick and the Dead". It takes lots of experiences. And certainly price movements from prior sessions into considerations.
Oh. Thank you PO. Do I trade in tight range? Well... "Sweetie" ... trading is the only source of my income. I need to trade in all environments. But trading the opening and the chaotic markets are my favorites.
Your market prep and opening observations included two useful price action concepts: "Market overnight made more than 4 pushes up" and "Market only went up for 15 min after opening, and then started to sell off". Everything else you stated is either irrelevant (news), or bias on your part that will keep you from extracting the easy money from the market ("seemed to be bullish", "anticipated the breakout pull back trade to be on the long side", "great double bottom pattern formed", "I continue to think I need to go long"). Let's ignore all the news and simply look at what the price action leading into the open tells us: "The market overnight made more than 4 pushes up." Tells us this trend may be getting tired. Let's watch for a sign of further strength (trend continuation) or a sign of weakness (trend reversal). Market opens and soon leaves a potential reversal signal (a strong 5-min bull bar that has retraced most of its move by the time it closes). At this point, a sign of trend continuation would be a strong bull bar that engulfs this weak bar and closes at a higher price, OR a pullback that establishes support at a higher low than the previous support zone. "Market only went up for 15 min after opening, then started to sell off." Tells us that instead of signs of further strength, price breaks down previous support altogether and tells us quite clearly that a potential trend reversal is in play. As a price action trader, what do you do? You can put on a short position immediately upon the break of previous support, you can put on a short position when price breaks the base of the first or second "double bottom" patterns (the second of which you circled on your chart). Second lower highs generally produce the strongest moves and today was no exception as you can see from the breakout of your circled consolidation range. A break out of consolidation most often goes in the direction of the move that preceded it. You write: "Wanted to go long, pattern failed" That's your bias preventing you from profiting on what's happening before your very eyes. What if instead of wanting to go long, you simply went whatever direction price went - long if it broke out to the upside, and short if it broke out to the down side? This is some of the best advice you can get. Once you reach the point that you can truly do this, you are nearing the highest level of trading. Don't be discouraged if it takes a while to get there. Over 7000 hours later, I'm still very, very far from it. In fact, I handled the open in CL just as you handled YM today, as you can see from this post I made earlier: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2910334#post2910334 So after (like you) watching an amazing move transpire without me, I placed a buy stop in CL at the high of the day after price had already moved up nearly 2.00 from the opening pivot low (seems unthinkable), and also placed a sell stop 1 tick below the consolidation range low (just in case there was a reversal instead of continuation). By doing this, I proved that I no longer had any bias. Instead I had made the decision to allow price itself to go wherever it wanted to go and to TAKE ME ALONG WITH IT IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.