All of these screen captures and notes were made today, January 13, 2015. I have a friend visiting me from out of state who is interested in possibly learning to do what I do. This was the day - nothing "hand picked" or hindsight. Just observing the market as the market unfolds on this particular day. The commentary was written "on the fly." Imo, it would be impossible to learn to make these observations and try to enter and manage trades at the same time. Once you learn to make these observations and you are able to judge when a likely move with acceptable risk is present, then you trade. Learn first, then do, imo.
Nice job. Given the simplicity and ease of the past few days, I was thinking this morning, again, that if one doesn't know what to look for, he won't be taking the trade unless by accident. And the only way to know what to look for is to observe. Those who observe without concerning themselves about "long" and "short" can get this in a matter of weeks. Those who cannot observe without constantly obsessing over potential trades will take years, and even then will likely never get it. I do encourage those who want to trade futures, though, that they plot the entire 24hrs. One of the chief advantages of trading futures is that they trade 24/5. This morning, for example, the first trade was set up by 0928. If one ignored that, he missed 20pts unnecessarily. Suggestion: limit this journal to observations only. If you want to discuss trades, start a private thread (since the trolls have so little interest in the material they won't even look at it).
No fair fortydraws. You said you'd be away for the rest of the week and since I didn't receive any email updates for the regular threads of Db's that I follow, I just assumed that the forum was quiet today. But out of nowhere comes this gem! Shame I wasn't following along in real time... but what a wonderful contribution this has been so thank-you. (I'm delighted that as we were making our way through that range, my thoughts matched fairly well with what you wrote, and hence reading about your thought process is I think extremely beneficial to orient oneself in the proper direction)
Concerning the 24 hour chart, I agree. I could not trade the open/pre-open as I do most days without the information form the overnight session. Once the market opens, however, I do frequently find that a RTH 5 minute bar interval suits me well. I think it is a holdover form when all I traded was stocks and all I knew to use was the 5 minute bar interval, and as was looking to trade gaps, I did not necessarily want to see the premarket data. As for this journal, I thought the one useful thing I may be able to share with ithers here is how I understood the journaling process and the observation phase of learning to trade by price. Many, if not all of the journals I read seem to be pursued from the perspective of "where would/should I trade." I have even seen journal entries such as "that would have been a nice short," or worse, "I was even going to take that long but I couldn't pull the trigger." They are looking for "set ups," not supply/demand imbalances, balances, shifts. Not the same thing. I know I talk in terms of "set ups," also. But the truth is, I really do not know if I have "set-ups" the way most people seem to think of them. I trade off support and resistance, I track whether supply is looking for buyers and willing to offer lower to get them (lower lows), or whether demand is tracking higher and willing to pay higher and higher prices (higher highs). Once I recognize who has the stronger hand, it is simply a matter of picking a low risk level (one from where both a favorable to my trade move is likely to commence) and near enough that I do not have to risk an inordinate amount relative to what I can expect to gain. I think it fortunate that today was the day I did this: Here is a day where due to the strong premarket rally and the continued buying after the open, many (including me) expected the most likely course of the day to be, shallow pullbacks and a close at the high of the day. But once the initial rally paused, it became quite clear, with no reference whatsoever to volume, that the market was in a distribution phase were strong hands were the ones offering supply. IMO, the signs started soon after 9:46 or so. It was very easy to track, if, as you say, DbPhoenix, you know what you are looking for.
I understand what you're going for, and I agree. In fact, I tried a similar thread last March but it never really went anywhere. I bring up the 24/5 business largely because the information is there, and it can be decisive. This morning, for example, the "tell" was served on a platter, as I've explored with gears in his journal today, though no mention was made of long, short, in, out, trade, no trade. Few people are able to sit on their hands and just study (which is why people are so often trading in the wrong direction).
Quick question... do you mean 9:46 ET? I hope you don't mind me throwing in my chart here, but at 946 ET (Its 846 on my chart since I use the exchange time which is of course Chicago time), the trend up is still looking good. An hour later of course once we worked our way through the range and eventually couldn't get past the 50% level then down certainly started to look good. What shocked me today was how many levels were taken out on the way down. But my gosh... when you look at what was happening around those levels (by displaying the buying and selling waves), it certainly looked like a no brainer to keep shorting.