AB, This market has definitely changed during the last 6 months or so. I recall last summer, when it was a snap to catch 4 to 5 pts within a couple of minutes. Right now it can take more than an hour for the NQ to move that much. Most of the time it's just going nowhere. One has to wait for the occasional reaction on a news release. I used to trade retracements, but for that you need trends. I'm afraid this environment will persist till the election.
My frustration knows no bounds. I hate the market. I'm trying to figure out what it means to hate the market. I guess I mostly hate the market for making everything so difficult all the time. This week I missed this rally even though I was positioned for it, by closing my long at a small gain last night. Last week I ended up closing my long at a loss on Thursday night even though Friday was a big up day. The week before I ended up closing my short on Monday night for a big loss, even though Tuesday and Wednesday were huge down days. I've got all the right ideas, but I am continually being punished for them. It's driving me absolutely insane. It really drives a stake deep into my heart to be able to see all of these things but never be able to capitalize on any of them.
Hi AFterburner, It's been many years since I've seen the market like this. This is what I would call a patience market. What I mean is this...it will be mostly the patient traders or the traders that handle boredom very well that will excel in this market. Why? There's not much conviction, it drifts around, it chops around... waiting for a spark (to produce a strong trend up or down) from someones speech, key economic report release or world breaking news... If we're lucky...we catch a good trade signal prior to the big move and ride it... such doesn't happen often as of lately. Patience is key in this market...waiting around for trade signals to appear... not getting too aggressive in trying to make something happen... if/when we do get aggressive...we need good trade management or a contingency plan to minimize our losses when the trade is not going our way... even that requires patience and something else I'll mention later. It's a patience market. Are there guys out there pulling points per contract on a consistent basis? Yes and I see them do it several days per week... between 3 to 10 points per contract on most trading days. Note: I didn't say every day...I said most trading days What's the common trait among these traders? They wait for their bread-n-butter trade setup... they have tons of patience. That patience is the common trait and their way of adapting to the current market environment... Something else...someone told me the other day that not only do you need patience... you need to have the energy level to be alert at all times to take advantage of something that you've been waiting for long periods to appear... prepared to trade. I strongly agree because the past month or so due to illness and an old back injury that appears a few times per year... I've taken numerous rest periods during the trading day to only come back to see the train has left the depot at high speed in one of those parabolic trends... with me standing there in disbelief holding an unused boarding ticket. Occurring so many times in the past 2 months...I've lost count. Now that's another common trait...prepared to trade. Patience and prepared to trade because there's momentum there...just not where or the way it use to be. P.S. Get your thesaurus and look up the word PATIENCE. Read the synonyms and the antonynms. NihabaAshi
You'll be surprise how many traders forget something when its only said once or performed once. Say it many times a day...every trading day... makes it very difficult to forget or under estimate. Trading via it once or saying it once...isn't good enough in the trading business. It needs to be repetitive to encourage trade decisions to be less reactive and more proactive especially in the current market environment. P.S. Maybe I should also make the font for the word PATIENCE extra large. NihabaAshi
Thanks for your insights, they have been useful. I totally agree with you. One problem I have is that I have been trying to wait for confirmation on a lot of my trades (what I thought was patience), and by the time I get in, the move is over. The long trade at 1516 this afternoon was a perfect example (even though there were other issues with that trade). The other problem I have is that if I just watch the price for a long enough time period without doing any trading, I fall into a trance like state. I've been under a phenomenal amount of pressure lately, which is obviously just making things worse. I think that stress is amplifying all of my weaknesses to a great degree. I'm really not this bad of a trader otherwise.
BOT 1512 CLOSE 09:59:54 The market is not as weak as I would like (or does not appear that way). There seems to be underlying strength, and at this point I'm happy to get 4.5 points out of it.
I'm going to take a break for awhile. Also, I would like to be completely done trading by 2:00 this afternoon. That way I can avoid any incidents.