Check out this guy. I think this is living proof of your above statement in action. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24252&perpage=6&pagenumber=6 good luck dude.
Well, I won't bother showing my short entries today. Everyone who had a reason to go short was a genius today. Instead I have to mention that I had some losses at the beginning of the day because I got emotional when I had two opposing signals: a short on the 2000 - tick, and a long-- that triple bottom at 1395.00 around 10:05 EST on the shorter time frames. Funny thing was, either choice could have made money, provided the entry was proactive and not reactive. But I got emotional, undecided, and lost money on both sides instead. Just goes to show once again, it's not the method, it's the trader that matters! Fortunately I was able to pull it out piece by piece after that big fat L. Still don't see anything wrong with the entry methods. Continue to press them this week. We'll see how it goes when we get one of those 10 pt range days.
Two different traders given the same entries every day... one could be a big winner, the other a big loser. It all depends on the exits. For NQ -- i'm favoring taking whatever the market gives with the first thrust in favor, then the rest at the counter line. Anyway here's a list of everything i've seen work sometimes. Listed from conservative to aggressive. Singles Point - close contract at +2. Thrust - close contract after first market thrust. Counter Line - close contract at opposing trendline or S/R Bar Behind - close when price breaks hi (shorts) or low (longs) of previous bar. Home Runs End 'o the Line - close when price moves beyond trendline. End 'o the Line 2 - close when bar closes beyond trendline. Tired - stops to +0.5 and take a nap.
Entrys and exits are separate issues, but the exits should be related to each individual trade scenario in some way. I think it would be best to save the "home run" exits for home run scenarios. For example, a reversal on a longer term chart (for me, the 2000 tick). Otherwise, use the "singles" exits. Pick which exit to use while planning the trade, not while the trade is on.
All of the entries this week were one of the three methods: Trend Touch, S/R Reversal, or S/R continuation. I compared the distribution of MFE's for each method to that of 24 random entries. Histograms attached! Both Trend Touch and S/R Continuation showed no appreciable difference from random entry! Actually, they were a little worse. I also looked at win probabilities and some other numerical metrics. Same results: not much different than random, maybe a little worse. In contrast S/R Reversal looks really good compared to random. However, there were only six trades on the week, so i'll need to trade it for a while longer to get enough statistics.
Here's my spreadsheet if you want to play with the numbers and give a 2nd opinion. Note there are 4 different sheets, by method, you have to hit the tabs on the bottom.