I would suggest sticking with the ES sim for awhile. I might also suggest you do a couple things for practice to help the confidence curve increase. Get well acquainted with actual (sim) order placement and exit based on a liminited # of entrys based on BO's, call it trend following if that sounds better. So you now have the strategy figured out, you will trade for the gravy train runs. Your tactics to carry out the strategy will be well worn and well used basic stuff that have been around forever. Price can only go up or down so thats your battle plan. The beauty of the simple tactics for each daily battle mission is they work and will continue to work forever in a game of chance. Losers are expected in any battle plan. There will be no walking on rose pedels and claiming victory before the battle gets started. War is hell!!!! Your basic tactics will include rather benign and almost automatic beginnings to get your feet wetter. Even if you do not want to trade the +6/-6 ORB in live trading later i still would like you to do it as practice. Why? ORB for the 1st hour is all about discipline. No discipline = NO confidence, no confidence = NO courage. It is that simple. Trading the ORB for an hour will work on puking out losers and getting right back in to catch a possible run. The ORB will teach you to recognize whipsaws rather than just having them slap us traders around with no respect. You will learn how to avoid whipsaws by maybe waiting for the 1st hour BO if you choose, but the deal is you will learn how to avoid getting chopped up. You will learn how to stay in a "run" right off the open also.........thats the goal of the whole deal. Discipline is not only about avoiding losers, discipline is about everything in a game of chance. ORB will FORCE you to take action when it is needed, it forces you to be in the moment, it forces you to take the trade. Thats what you need, you need a SGT there yelling at you, getting on your case. "For christ sake NOD, why in the fricking hell did you hesitate at your number? Do you think the god dam mkt is going to wait for your slow butt? We expect better from you...........tomorrow you best shape up and take every signal or no weekend pass, you GOT THAT? " :eek: You need to toughen up, you need to get serious. This is not a game of marbles in the schoolyard. (i am showing my age) This is a game that every Tom, Dick and Harriet would love to beat. You are close but have not received the cigar yet. You have a trigger problem because you have it in your head this is harder than stocks. Stocks are not the problem, the problem is fear of losing. get over that in the sim to some extent and live trading will be easier AFTER you practice the tactics. Support, resist, retraces, hooks, reversals of the main trend thats what you want to focus on. Forget scalping for small potatoes, you can scalp all you want later after you get the confidence under control. That will come when you nail some runs like this mornings initial drop. That was the "meat" of the day. Practice discipline, practice first in a mechanical manner such as, take EVERY signal, place a rock solid STOP LOSS at 6 ticks as max and allow yourself to get out sooner but NEVER LATER. Take ALL trades, no fear, no thoughts, think it is discipline and conditioning only. It is NOT money. Practice discipline by staying in a winner, work on that , it is important, learn how to ring the register and jump right back in when the trend has not shown a reversal signal. Learn RETRACE action.......thats hugely important, most rookies view all retraces as reversals and get slapped around as soon as the prior trend continues on. After the 1st hour ORB trade, switch to regular TA based on levels, tests etc. You owe it to yourself to make these changes and get more discipline, pulling the trigg on signals is also discipline..............discipline to go for the brass ring, discipline to make a shitload of cash later. Go for it.
Yes Sir! I've learned to see this, I've done it on occasion with stocks, now need to make it second nature. Hog, I modified the +6/-6 as follows: If the overall market sentiment appears to be in a particular direction as a result of news or a natural pullback in the larger trend, I wait for a confirmation before trading the trigger price. I've found in my paper trading this kept me from getting getting shaken out on the first test of that price level.
Thanks Bos. Since I haven't had a rogue trade or major order error in weeks, I'm quite comfortable trading my regular size again. My only order errors lately have been accidentally clicking LMT when going to put in a STP.
Hello again. Not sure if modifying this setup is a good idea. Just IMO. What I mean is that a price above or below each level is THE confirmation. Price is the market sentiment. Worst that can happen is you get stopped out. Just an idea but watch price levels defended by the bulls, and levels defended by the bears. Trade the move out of these levels. Also look for measured moves as targets on continuations. Reading through bighog's posts I find alot of wisdom and IMO others who wish to succeed in this business would greatly benefit from his words.
Yes, I very much agree with you. I wasn't clear on my ORB modification. Occasionally the pre-market sentiment is up or down (futures up or down from the previous day based on overseas action or news), and the opening 5 minute bar fades the pre-market sentiment, leaving behind a large opening range. For example, say pre-market futures are down 6 pts from yesterday's close because overseas markets pulled back. The US market opens and there is a quick retest of yesterday's close, then a sharp drop that retraces the move. Price then moves up, breaks through the high 6 ticks, triggering the long signal. If there's no evidence of follow through on the break, I prefer to wait for price to pull back and pivot from no lower than the 20-period EMA. In this case, I'll take a long position before or at the initial trigger price. Today, the short trigger was valid off the bat IMHO because market sentiment opened to the downside.
+ $36 My sim account was not working correctly at first this morning. It worked for ES, but not for my RIMM experiment. It would not lift any RIMM orders. Later it lifted a RIMM order, but I was too busy to continue to mess with âthe experimentâ, so I closed the position and worked on my ES marching orders. Sim traded ES and also a stock called BEN so I could âget to know itâ, because I noticed it has great moves. I guess I know it well enough to really trade it because I netted $470 on sim! ES sim: Opening range long @ 995.50 with a 6 tick stop (traded 2 contracts because a 6 tick stop is well within my risk parameters). This was a fantastic trade, closed out @ 1002.75 on 50% retracement of the last big green bar up. Technically I couldâve held the position for additional gain, but that was a strong run and I grabbed my 7.25 pts for +$715.40 and stood aside to wait for a re-entry point or a reversal signal. The force and speed with which price climbed at the open made this an especially strong long signal IMHO. Long only 1 contract @ 1006.75 (around 1:20 p.m.) on the break through the HOD, stop @ 1005.75 hit for -54.80. Lost internet connection later in the day after the FOMC, so I saw the initial market drop and by the time I got connection back the market was rallying hard. Around 3:40 p.m., ES double topped and when it broke down through the upper channel, I shorted 2 ES @ 1009.75, added 2 more @ 1007.50 on failure to maintain strength above the 20 EMA, covered @ 1003.00 for +$1110.70. Amazing what a relaxed ES trader I am without real money on the line! Live trades: TIF was consolidated in a very tight range on low volume and I bracketed orders around it, long @ 30.91 and short @ 30.82. After a period of pure stagnation it broke down very suddenly on high selling volume. Triggered my short entry for 30.81, broke down to 30.73 and I quickly moved my stop close to b/e. It immediately bounced right back and took me out for +$9. What a waste! If you look at a 3-min chart @ 12:21 p.m. youâll see the spike. Everyone and their grandmotherâs black boxes mustâve had limit buy orders around previous support line, where it bounced. The market was a total chop-fest mid-day. Tried to trade BNI on what appeared to be nice setups and chop, chop, down $9 on two attempts, mainly due to the spread. Professional scalpers had to be having a field day in this. Decided to wait for FOMC news before giving IB any more commissions. Late in the day attempted a short on X @ 44.90 pullback from a new high, moved stop near b/e hit for +$6. Interestingly, I thought X would be a good long if it tested the new HOD @ 44.70 that was established prior to the FOMC announcement, because it had been rising all day and I assumed there would be a lot shorts to get squeezed. I didnât put in a buy stop order because it dropped so much after the fed, but sure enough it rebounded, broke through and never really looked back until very late in the day. Trust your intuition, is the message of the day. Short TIF @ 30.83 pullback from double top near end of day, covered @ 30.76 trailing a stop too close, +$30
The attached P/L from my demo account is proof that I have a serious crisis of confidence trading real money.
The ORB trade can be played many ways. But unless it is as jim suggests.........an unbiased entry/exit trade based on price only AFTER the open at RTH time.............it will not work as good. Think about the open, at 0930 est all the big dogs are at the desks, they all jump on the mkt with their BUY and or SELL orders after the open because thats when the liquidity is there. There is not enough liquidity on globex overnight to do large numbers. What i am saying is volume itself is meaningless but liquidity does matter. Liquidity is a given for us pikers. (if we are not concerned about getting filled with only a single tick spread then that confirms why we do not waste energy and eyeball precious time watching volume) ORB is not about opinions, it is about making money. The real value of the ORB and the first hour in general is what it produces.........it usually will produce either the day high or the days low print. We traders leave the reasons to the talking heads, there mission is to draw a paycheck and ours is to fill in our own amount of pay. http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/336.html
I have to agree with trader_david on this. With no skin in the game your focus and attitude are just not the same. Your mental state is different. IMO with no skin on the line it is like comparing apples to oranges. It's not even entertainment it's really detrimental. Because your thoughts and emotions are totally different trading real $. IMO it can take you backwards. Also, when you mix paper and real trading the line between the 2 gets blurred and can cause confusion. Why make it more difficult then it already is? IMO the only reason to paper trade is to learn the mechanics of a new platform. It has no correlation whatsoever to your success as a trader.