you have too many ways to enter a trade! you need a filtering system to pin down on only one. too many means confusion, means unceratin, means you will hesitate most time, you need look fundamentally to figure out what is the right one. compare your chart with the news schedule, you know what happens when /before/after news reached the wire " if the market reaches this number, I will do that, that is technical." "if the market reaches this number, it is oversold or overbouoght" "if the market reaches this number, it is a down trend/up trend" pull out those 52-new highs, you will notice some charts are very classic or some charts are just messy, who knows which one will go the nice way, so your riding is easy, just do not know. but if you know they will rise, in whatever way, you gain. the same applies to ES. all those are just non-sense. did you notice ES rose everyday almost from the start of july? does it fit any entry thorey? you called HURN a manipulation? since it does not fit your theory. look at AIG today or GGC this week/last week, you know market has no logic. that is why trading is hard. traps are most created by the trader's own mind, not the market.
I now have many strong reasons to enter a trade. This gives me more opportunities. My main indicator is the 20-period moving average; everything else simply provides layers of confirmation. Each layer of additional confirmation means a larger position can be taken, because a very tight stop can survive. Yes in fact it fit perfectly. On the daily chart, once price gapped up through the 20-day EMA, the trend was your friend, and still hasn't ended. If swing trading, lean to the long side until the action proves otherwise. HURN was a fraud; HAR was a manipulation. Both fraud and manipulation are much more difficult to pull off in futures, in my opinion. These moves are very logical. A whole lot more people wanted to buy AIG and GGC than wanted to sell them and price rose dramatically. Every test of a previous high broke out on these stocks as they rose and you could hop on the train at any of these "stops". And I totally agree that traps are created by the trader's own mind. Once I learn to ignore the traps my mind sets, I'm sure I'll be earning a nice living. And if I can't break through that...I'm wiring my trading account to Red_Ink
I'd like to add to my comment on this. The price action of GGC recently and AIG today is not at all illogical. Big money drives big price moves. Big money tends to invest for the long term, 3 months to several years. Day traders don't drive price moves like these recent ones. GGC traded as high as $530 in 2007, as high as $225 in 2008 and as high as $50 in 2009. So with $50 as near term resistance and longer term highs in the hundreds, institutional investors will be piling in on any kind of good news. Same with AIG, which traded at split-adjusted highs near $1450 in 2007 and split-adjusted highs near $1180 in 2008, and as high as $43 in 2009. That makes today's high of $23 still a huge bargain for the longer view investor.
The gal down the block that trades with BAR charts and has been reading Brooks book said: I fully understand the difference between a candle and a regular bar on a chart, OK !!! But that guy did NOT have anyone proof read his writings before it was published. I fully agreed with her and agreed it was none the less helpful to many readers. Qualudes in soup reading his book she said. :eek: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=qualudes A quick recap of today. (yes, i know i should do the chart thing) Early entry BUY @ 1002.50, time 0938, Sell 1003.50, time 0943 = +1 (handle) Missed the start of downdraft at the -6 signal, no excuse, just was not focused. at 0948 sell at 998.25 Buy @ 994.50 at 1008 time = + 3 3/4. price retraced a bit back up so i wanted in, fully aware i was close to chasing so was prepared to chuck it. But it was ok. Price went down and made a low at 991.25. The first thing that popped into my head was we just put in a range that jives with the last few days. The time now was 1050 and we were above the low but no reversal signal to get long but i was not ruling out that the low was in because of the range. So, that tells you i was not looking to SELL more unless we tested the low.......easy enough, time to look for a BUY then. @ 1110 i observed a not perfect 1-2-3 reversal from the low and went long at 996.00, i was early and got stopped out at 994.00 at 1140 time = - 2, Rats !!! Watched price go up to 997.25 at 1220 but did not get long again because i try not to take trades during lunch time grab ass time. .. Price dropped down to 992.75 at 1305 and (think the big dogs are back from lunch, i do human touches to trading game because human minds and habits still matter even in age of computers) and price started to reverse back up without a real solid signal so i once again wanted to get long. the thinking there was that there really was no reversal signal to sell so in other words the lunch was over and we still have an up bias to mkt because in my mind now the low was in as stated before. Went BUY again at 1325 time @ 996.00and did not grab a quick profit up to 998.75 and took some heat as price dropped back down to a tick behind entry. This was a frustrating trade but i realized we were again in a shit small range so stayed with the trade. I was actually looking for a COMPLETE reversal of the days range off the low...........small range days seem to do that. BINGO, i was right..........997 was holding as support, 998 was resist, those were the lines to watch.........price popped at 1435 above 998 and i knew i had some bacon. SELL @ 1002.00, 1500 time bar. + 6 and was done for the day. Was a good day considering small range and did not trade the small stuff. 4 trades all day. Saved the day after missing the first run of the day to downside. That goes against my ORB stuff. Will be more disciplined tomorrow morning..............Friday is the big salami report........ NOD, FWIW, be careful thinking AIG will recover to old highs. Their wings have been clipped in that dept that ran up the losses to break the bank in that insurance company. Reverse splits can be horrible. In other words the dept that ran up the losses was a part of the then supposed good trading and thus helped to run up the stock price on bogus nonsense that like a snake turned around and bit.
did you buy them? I bought AIG at 15 today, sold it at 21.8. did not buy GGC (small float effect), I thought that is piece of crap. tried to short it at 45 yesterday, but no share to go short.
AIG wasn't even on my watch list today. I looked at it after the market closed. Tried to short GGC yesterday @ 46.89 and no shares with either broker.
I haven't had a chance to read all the latest posts, but did see some Brooks comments from you and bighog. An excellent, low risk entry @ 92 was provided this morning, as I had been studying the section last night and it just screamed at me. Take a good look at the chart on pg.152 and his associated comments concerning the trading range bottom pattern as shown, and compare w/ today's bottom. Of course, the ensuing action did not rocket as the example in the book, and I did not hold near long enough, but perfect exits are another matter Qualudes soup - haha. Good one, bh! Cheers ...
Havent' gotten that far in the book yet, but 92 was yesterday's support so definitely low risk entry. The problem with the book so far is he talks about all these chart patterns but only includes charts for a small % of them, so IF you have hours and hours of screen time behind you and have a great visual memory (which fortunately I do), then you can "imagine" what the price action he's describing looks like. Which slooooows you down as you read.... If you're a beginner, you may as well just place the book under your pillow at night because you'll get as much out of it that way with less stress
+ $57 Hesitated to take ES opening range short signal @ 1001.25, and didnât want to chase it when it fell quickly. When price pulled far below the 20 EMA on the weekly chart and settled close to yesterdayâs support, I waited for some confirmation of a long. Hammer at bottom of the downtrend on buying volume put me long @ 993.75. I was a very early unconfirmed long on a heavy selling morning, so when price moved up a bit, I moved my stop to cover costs figuring real buyers would move it up further. Stopped out for +$7.70 on the pullback to test the low. Looked to get long again upon confirmation, but when I returned from getting tea, it had moved almost 2 pts beyond my desired entry price, and so I left ES and moved on to stocks. I decided if I donât get the early moves in ES Iâm going to trade stocks. That way, for now, I get the best of both worlds. Scratched a trade on X when I chased it a bit and the price didnât break down much further: +$4 Was watching URBN for a lower high and it never made it, just fell of the HOD in a nice orderly trajectory and because I kept waiting for a lower high, I never got into the trade and it had a huge move down. BNI hitting the high ticker and overbought on the daily, too. I offered 81.75 figuring if the order was lifted on the way to the round number it would likely pull back from just above the round number, easily surviving my stop. Well, it missed by a few pennies, then it fell and I didnât chase it, and it too had a huge move down. I felt jinxed with my chasing/not chasing. It was incredibly frustrating. Later short X @ 43.73 on the breakdown through the LOD, it fell right through and I went to put in a stop @ b/e and left-clicked, taking me out of the trade a market. Itâs like the 3rd time in a couple weeks Iâve done that! I got a measly +$45 on a $250 move. I shouldâve got right back in but it was the old chasing thing again and I didnât expect such a huge further breakdown. Iâd also been watching BNI for short entry at the same time and while managing (mis-managing) X, BNI fell nicely. I felt like I was participating in a whack-mole-game all day today. I contemplated what was happening and I pinpointed what I believe is the issue. I see a strong setup forming, but then I hesitate too long. I'm waiting for some kind of extra confirmation instead of just trusting my initial judgment. Sometimes you get all kinds of confirmation, sometimes just a basic setup. So I hesitate, price takes off in my direction and then donât want to chase the entry, because it seems like the ones I chase, stagnate and I scratch the trade. Looking that hard right edge is facing the unknown, and itâs easy to see how great the setup was once it moves in my favor, but unless I jump in quickly I will keep feeling slow and left behind. The ironic thing is sometimes I DO jump right in! I canât figure out why I donât do that with every setup.