I have wanted to look at day trading the emini futures contracts. Last week I decided to purchase the Brooks Trading Course. I haven't watched the whole course and I've bounced around it based on what I already had picked up from watching the free videos on youtube and @volpri's journal here on Elitetrader. I intend to give it an honest and full study. I will journal my trades here. I will keep a running journal each day as I watch and trade the market. I will post the entire entry for each day when I am done trading for the day. My schedule will mostly allow me to trade until about 12 noon (I'm on the East coast). Please note I am SIM trading at this time for day trades. I am using Ninjatrader. I am watching the ES and RTY. I am SIM trading the M2k which is the RTY micro contact. I will also SIM trade MES. One thing at a time.
Day One: The first day is in the books and below is a screen shot of the chart with the notes I made during the day based on my limited understanding of the Brooks course at this point. I set the SIM account to $1000 starting balance as that is all I plan on starting with if I ever start placing live trades. I just exited a long, the second of two trades. Both are shown on the Ninjatrader chart below. As I said in the initial post, I will have to be done by noon eastern time most days, so as I plan my approach to this, one rule I have is that if I get an exit or entry signal after 11:00 AM I must take the exit and skip the entry. Here are some notes I made during the last few hours: Using Brooks Market Cycle terms I see Friday around the NFP news as "spike" and the rest of the day as a "bear channel" that transitioned to a trading range overnight and breakout attempt this morning. Trade 1: I shorted the low of the first five minute candle (filled 2227.7) after "wedge" top on the breakout attempt (Brooks says "Most breakout attempts fail" and "wedges are fairly reliable patterns"). Price did drop to the top of the range and it looked immediately like a test of that range as support. I hit the "reverse" and was covered for the short (filled 2226.80) and filled long (filled 2226.40) and my stop loss is 2225.40 (below the low of the day per Brooks). My profit target is 2253.7. Brooks says that price will often test the high or low close on a five minute candle chart and I believe he means the high close on the day session chart (I might be wrong on this). 2253.7 is the high five minute candle close from Friday. He also suggests using "measured moves" of "opening ranges." The measured move of today's opening range (I assume that is the first two candles today and Brooks says is different from day to day). Price is currently slightly above the 2246.4 measured move target. A bear bar closing on its low below the "measured move" level would be I believe a "warning" and if price breaks the low of a bear bar closing on its low and below the measured move level will be an "exit" for me. Market went sideways and did make an H1 and H2 attempt to reverse back up. The H2 failed, and 11:20 bear bar closed on its low, and I closed the trade as 11:25 started to show bear follow through. I exited before the candle close which looks like an error in hindsight as what looked like a wedge bottom is acting like a wedge bottom. Will have to work on waiting for candle closes. Brooks warns repeatedly that the look of a five minute candle can change dramatically in the closing seconds. I let the time of day rattle me out. Time to go to work on my real job.
Wrapping up the work day and this is what my chart looks like with the last few notes I made before I had to shut the Ninjatrader down and really get to work. I am going to make additional notes on the chart for what came after. I am not marking potential trades. I am only marking price action using what I know of Brooks's stuff at the moment. That will be the next and last post of the day. This is what my chart looks like now withut any additional notes. I just reconnected the Ninjatrader.
Following. You got on the right track early (if you so choose to continue with this venture longer term.) Out of curiosity - what made you decide to try the price action approach via Brooks as opposed to other methods out there?
I really don't what you are asking. Maybe add a few more words for clarity. I'm not trying to be rude to you. I don't understand what you would like me to answer. I have been swing trading SPY. So far longs only but I'd like to add shorts also. I "use" what I take to be "price action" for those trades and my idea of what "price action" is seems to fit with what I see from Brooks. Also, I saw some of the free videos on youtube and also read a few positive reviews here at ET. Guys like @volpri and @speedo speak of it so highly of it and also say that it is a lot of work. That sounds like it should be - work. The price seemed reasonable given the number of videos and hundreds of hours of instruction. If I can cut the learning curve from the decade or more I have read about here to something more efficient then it will have been worth it, in my opinion.
Here is my completed chart for today. All the notes up to and including the H3 trading up to its minimum target were made as I watched the market live. Everything after the 11:50 candle was made on the chart after the close.
Russell 2000 chart. purple line - US session opens 1. don't analyse the chart to the left of the purple line. That was the European session. 2. enter at the arrow indicated after the end of the retracement. you can see the V / U shape. during that time, NQ has already gone up decisively. As price moves in your favor, start to take some profit, adjust your stop and target profit.
It looks about 5 points higher than the Brooks entry I used. My fills, albeit SIM, are printed bt Ninjatrader on the charts for you to compare. But doing just that gave me an entry with what appears to be a significant advantage over what you advise as an entry, doesn't it? Brooks says to use either day session or 24 hour so long as you are consistent and stick to one or the other.