You guys said a while back that you are referring to the 5 minute chart for that 6/6 bias but do you then move to a 15 minute chart to manage the trade or is that like move in and out of time frames? Im struggling with the time frames of charts and i think i would be much better served using a 30 minute regurlary but i would defintly miss that 6/6 bias at the opening (8:30)
I always ONLY have a 5 minute chart for signals. There is a 30 minute chart up on another screen used to show the support/resist levels of the last 8 days. That is for reference only. Keep this in mind: Rules are necessary to work a plan, but as traders we at times adjust to conditions as we perceive them. This is a bias but when you wake up and the ES is down 9 or so handles usually you ignore that and do as usual...............today, the feel was right for a SHORT. I had to believe the claims report at 0830est was a trend changer for the folks that follow the claims trend. Reports matter, the number is what the industry follows and adjusts after release................todays report was a game changer. The unanswered question now on players mind is just what will happen when the stimulus is removed? Piss and moan all they want about our new President, but the fact remains, the stimulus and intervention has worked up to now but has yet failed to revive the economy where it can stand on own feet without falling over into another slide down. JOBS have NOT been produced. Combine that all with some small euro countries in trouble and you had a day where the down move was the real deal. + carry trade etc, etc unwinding. But the hell with reasons, reasons are for debating, trading is for what you see. Traders are allowed the luxury to change their minds, even if most are not female. :eek: PS: as far as chart time frames go, use what the industry uses to take their signals from. Run with the herd in a game of chance. The 5minute chart (bar type) is the industry standard for daytrading. Candles are for birthday cakes, not for trading. Nothing beats a simple bar chart..............open tick, length, high, low close.........thats all you need.
I only use a 5-min chart for ES (which I haven't traded in a while anyhow) and as far as I know Hog only uses the 5-min chart to for entry, management, and exit. I very recently started using a smaller time frame to get me into trades more quickly. I like to take advantage of moves within my time frame. So today after I took profits on my first AMZN short when support held up at the LOD, I then watched to see if I got either a re-shortable bounce, or a failed bounce. It was a failed bounce, with the 1-min candles establishing a textbook consolidation continuation setup. Sure enough, it made a measured move (a move about equal to the first leg) down from there. Many traders would've simply held the initial position as long as it didn't retrace the previous down bar, or would've taken partial profits. I prefer to get in and out, though. I attached a chart of my AMZN trades today so you can see how I used the 1-min chart to provide a little extra "inside information" on the price action. I learned this from Al Brooks' book, as well as the measured move concept. It's important not to get too caught up in the shorter time frame. I very recently left quite a bit of profit on the table on a trade because I used the 1-min chart for entry, then forgot to focus on the 5-min chart for the exit! I do reference a 3-month daily ES chart so I can see when the market's very oversold and very overbought. (At those extremes, I'm supposed to be putting on reversion-to-mean option trades. That's been on my radar, anyway, but I've only been trading options in the sim account though, except for a small X trade last month which was stopped out b/e the next day.) The 3-day 15 min chart I switched to from the 5-day 30-min chart is for stocks. If I highlight a stock on my watch list I now automatically get a view of the 1-min, 5-min, 3-day/15-min, and 120-day daily charts. It's been very helpful in establishing the most probable price direction in the absence of specific news.
How do you think you get to the next level in your trading? By that I mean how do you go from catching a small move to catching the big moves? How do you get to be the type of trader who can short a market like this one in the morning and just stick with it the entire day maybe adding contracts on confirmations and making a huge profit? You seem to have the small loss category covered with good discipline, and you seem to have small to medium winners covered. But how do you get those huge winners? By the way I think you're doing really well. I'm just asking because I struggle with catching the big moves, so maybe somebody has some insight. The only time I catch them is when I leave the computer for a couple hours and come back to find a big profit.
You catch a small move with a ridicoulously large number of contracts. You need not go anywhere else. Leave the "catch the big move" to the liars and dreamers.
Yes, this is how you catch the big moves, as demonstrated in my experience on 1/11: Thing is, those trend days don't happen all the time. We've had many days of chop and range, so as Hog likes to say, ringing the cash register several times works very well, too. The important thing is to keep ringing it...
I have a vision of new traders placing a trade and taking a nap and waking up with a big win. :eek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex3rFlSr33I&feature=related Took no trades on the jobs report.
+$212 Day +$336 Week Short AMZN @ avg price 115.81 because the price action felt really weak right off the open, covered @ 114.74 pivot off oversold for +$212. Out for the day. Have a great weekend!
Is that such a bad idea? Enter a trade. Place a stop. Place a target. Take a nap. Wake up with a small loss from being stopped out, or wake up to a big target being filled with a limit order. The entry chart will drive a you nuts and fake you out otherwise.
macattack, So many with this "problem". If you are doing more than one unit no reason not to keep a bit for the day with a Break-even stop.. I trade 1 NQ at this point and it complicates this system.. Take a look at NQ daily here.. How often does it show wicks?? Not often so fine a market that tends not to "wick" often and even with one unit one could accept that lizzard days (full reversals) will be scratch days and full profit the others. You must however read the day as early as possible. It is a system I am trying to use BUT hard to do. Yesterday I had NQ short at 1769.75, about 5 from the HOD. It was the first day (the most reliable day to hold all day), I had an excellent entry and thought "this is a keeper all day". I left, came back and boom" profit taken! Hopefully with multiple units I can satisfy this thing and keep the rest.. So the answer is you just have to control yourself and on't overwatch every tick. There is no other solution. Nodoji could start with keeping s near meaningless position all day and slowly work her way up from there to half position. The trick is to avoid charts that wick a lot on the dailies.. Good luck..