I had some conflicts in my indicators, but obviously should have taken the trade since it would have worked out. Obviously, when trading real money, its harder to pull the trigger than when on simulation and harder to stay in the trade longer. Obviously, having an edge is helpful but does not always solve issues like psychological pressure and money management for me.
JScott said: .................... Tip: if you miss out on big runs because price never pulled back sufficiently, then study price behavior in a near-runaway market. Look close enough and you'll find setups that allow you to enter with confidence, without chasing, if you're quick enough (won't give you my approach, sorry). They are high probability, but you better be at the ready. >>>>>>>>>>>......END of JScotts reply.................. let me take a guess about your approach which you feel you must keep close to yourself. Work the retraces. Am i correct? You did say to study price on big runs in a near runaway mkt and you will find setups that allow you to enter with confidence without chasing. In a situation like that what else could possibly be used to enter except to work the narrow retraces? It drives me nuts when some guys come in to help others and have to inject the words..........it is a secret, it is propritory, i will never tell, why should i tell you and have you destroy my holy grail. Are you trying to help or hoping we just imagine you as an intellectual giant? PS: in fact retraces even on not TREND days are still considered "continuation" in my book. ( all the way to a 50% retrace of the last leg) On fast "runs" and trend days, especially early in the day when all the big dogs are off the porch and running with the pack you get smaller retraces relative to the last length of the leg. This becomes second nature as time goes on. Nothing beats screen time. Nod will catch on soon enough when she sees more missed opportunities. A suggestion: pay no attention to the pre-open in ES, wait until the big dogs come in to the desks and relieve the second stringers on the overnight desks. Wait for the first string "A" team to get seated.
Choppy morning . . . taking a break. Well I don't want to be accused of being a nut driver . . . Nothing based on price action is a secret, so I'm an open book. I will enter on a breakout of an inside bar. Neither proprietary nor hoping you will think me a genius. Just thought I'd stay away from the "here's how I do it" stuff. Keep trading. JS
ES established long signal @ 971.00 and short signal @ 964.75. I didnât take the long because the price action showed weakness there. It then fell to the short signal and I didnât take the short because it had pulled so far down it would take out my stop upon an expected return to the 20 EMA. ES ended up ranging nicely in its channel with very small âbreakoutsâ, but no real material moves. I did not trade it at all today, though I realized after watching it all day I couldâve scalped 1-2 pts within the channel while it consolidated. Early on tried to short WHR @ 55.10 on breakdown through the 10-period MA and no shares available, very depressing to miss a quick .70 move. Studied breakouts all day. CL set up a bull flag on the daily chart and yesterday broke out. That was a great b/o play. Today it established a high, tested it once and sold off, but not too much, and all on low volume, then it rose back to test the opening high again and I was looking for a failure so I could go short, but didnât think of putting in a buy stop to catch a breakout. The very moment the HOD was reached, price jumped .30 cents in a less than a second! Several breakouts occurred on charts I watched today both off low volume consolidation (NVAX, PCLN), and off tests of highs (CNW, ESRX, MOS, ROST, STEC, TIF). Getting this programmed as a signal because the trades are so high probability and low risk.
Well I don't want to be accused of being a nut driver . . . Nothing based on price action is a secret, so I'm an open book. I will enter on a breakout of an inside bar. Neither proprietary nor hoping you will think me a genius. Just thought I'd stay away from the "here's how I do it" stuff. ...........................hahahahahahaha....................................... That will not fly where i come from, and i will not even comment on taking ID days BO's. No sweat , i see no genius at all. not to worry.
To be clear, I said intra-bar, not intra-day. I'm not an ID/NR type trader. You're correct, it's not genius . . . but thanks for the mocking . . . my skin is plenty thick. It seems to work very well for me - doesn't happen very often. Of course, maybe your definition of "runaway" is different from mine. Best to you and NoDoji.
NoDoji: I am starting to follow your thread and am very impressed with your determination. This is a very strong quality! I am also in the process learning to trade futures. Please excuse me if I'm imposing as I have not read the entire thread but I also am with IB. They have fantasic fills and reasonable rates however I have had problems with my
NoDoji: Sorry for the extended reply I must have touched a nerve with my computer. I was saying that I am also having trouble with IB's platform and charting freezing up. In fact I have lost money due to this. I'm am fed up with them, in fact I contacted Tradestation yesterday. I'm switching my account immediately. If you are not aware however I have read that there are several different platfoms that can be linked to IB. I personally just can't bring myself to trust this as a solution. You are truely blessed to have such a great bunch professional traders assisting you. Hopefully their kindness will be rewarded back to them some day. Expanding on Tradestation a little here. While I have never personally used them I have done extensive research regardng their system and tools. Of course the platform comes with all of the regular things you'd expect and then some more. What really impressed me was that you can also do estensive back testing and add on third party custom indicators. I can think of a couple of indicators that may really be of help to you. For example: Ability to change the color of bars when the trend shows momentum Moving averages that change color reflecting up/down trend And of course there are many more but I highlighted these particularily because these indicators may be able to give you that extra boost of confidence to take brake out trades. As you probably know you can preview tradestation online. I am not affiliated with them in any way, just trying to help as your thread is helping me sort out some of my own trading issues. Good Trading To You! Your Mentors Are Giving You The Keys To The Kingdom!!! Metoo
jscott...........sounds ok on this end. Agree, going for the intraday swings, runs, trends, gravy, meat of the trade, or whatever we prefer to call them are the reason for the season. If you prefer to do intrabar trades i wish you well. FWIW, here is my take on the difference between so called intraday trend following and intraday so called scalping. Scalping (that word itself has different meanings to different folks) is just a tactic to grab small or tiny price moves. The tactic is probably the hardest way to make money in a game of odds. The tactic itself requires a higher number of wins to losses just to break even. The tactic also requires the discipline of a monk in a cat house. I would flunk that test. Another point against scalpers is the reward to risk ratio is way to tight which reaffirms the notion that winning % over losers must be quite wide. Ok, lets take a look at intraday "RUNS" as a tactic. The tactic speaks for itself................. since in a game of odds we will always have some losers it becomes obvious to shoot for a larger win to loss ratio. Less work, less burnout, more profits with less trades. Another advantage in intraday runs is if you (and you will) do have a couple losers at the start of the day they can be quickly reversed with a single "RUN. Just my take on the difference between scalpers and swingers. there are other reasons but this is enough for this thread. Nod is having difficulty with this very problem, I feel she is working on the problem but needs more time and work. She is kind of at a square dance swinging partners between stocks and futures and between dancing with the short stubby guys and the tall timber guys. PS: nod knows futures and stock are both asking this of her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRecliV1l14 I hope i was not responsible to push nod along to play the field to much.
In the beginning deciding what to trade, how to trade it, when to trade it, etc , etc is a contest of each individual. Could trading actually be harder than herding a bunch of alley cats on Chicago's south side? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8&NR=1