Whatever you trade has to be approached. This is the point of examining context. For example, the NQ from two weeks ago through this morning. If you're trading interday, look at the weekly, daily, and hourly charts: If you had, you would have been in last week as price reversed off the upper limit of the daily/hourly range, and the problems you had with the chart you posted would never have presented themselves. If you're trading intraday, continue to at least the 15m, 5m, and even the 1m. The daily/hourly range is gone, but a more immediate range presents itself: Whichever one you choose is up to you. Same range, same upper limit, same rejections. All you have to do is prepare and then act when appropriate.
Namo Gurudev, Thanks for the detailed reply. (I trade stocks intraday and Index options on 60m/15m timeframe). My main issue is with intraday. A few days back I decided to let go of the 30min OR criteria that I use and follow your approach of finding the range before the session starts (on 15m/5m). I have found this to be much better in terms of entering the trade early. However I am struggling at the time with "when to exit". The same thing happened today as well. I entered all right however I moved down the stop above the recent swing high and what happens - my stop is taken out and the trade moved without me in original direction (I know this happens sometimes and I am ok with it however the issue here is different). I am searching for an exit strategy where I do not give back all of the profit and also do not exit out of the trend before it ends. I am not sure what the SLA/AMT method suggests or are there 2 different ways one each for SLA and AMT. Please help. Regards, K
Doesn't matter if it's intraday or not. Any given day's activity is not independent of what has gone before. That's the point of my having posted all those weekly to 1m charts over the past year or so. Understanding the context is absolutely necessary, even if one reaches a decision not to trade at all that day. As for when to exit, you'll have to collect data on retracements to determine which become continuations and which become reversals and how far price has to go after breaking a line before one becomes the other. If, for example, price breaks a line by ten points, is a continuation still possible? Five? Three? One? This is addressed in a general way in the references to the "dog", but while it can easily be specified as to the extent of the trendline break, determining the "how much" does take time. If your exits are made as the result of fear, it is even more important to do this work. Otherwise you will not likely make any headway except on those occasions when you get lucky.
Namo Gurudev, If only I would have read your post before I did this backtesting... I would have been able to collect the retracement data side by side... anyways....will do it soon enough... I did some backtesting for 30 days on the stock I trade (is it enough or should I do more) The results are impressive (including today's trade which in reality was a loss for me - so much to learn) I understand that backtesting is hindsight and a bit of curve fitting comes into play however I tried to be as objective and strict as possible. One of the lessons that I learned while testing is in line with what Gringo said yesterday that is post the break of SL/DL and without price telling me anything the more I wait the greater the loss become. I believe that if I learn just this one thing i.e. to exit as per my plan without hesitation I will improve my trading a lot. (I know that I can re-enter if wrong but this concept is not yet mine hence I hesitate. My concept as of now is trend is your friend so I tend to give room more than required.) Also I did all this backtesting in line with what happened the day before on all occassions and a few days for some trades. Any feedback and comments are always welcome. Regards, K
I can only suggest, again, that you review what I've posted to lajax' and damnpenguins' journals and to the Foresight thread regarding testing, and of course the SLA/AMT. There is a difference between reading and study, and resolving the conflicts in your own head is pretty much a do-it-yourself job. If you're afraid of this or afraid of that, you're going to have to plan so meticulously and test so thoroughly that fear has no opportunity to intrude. And that's going to take time.