You need to try and look at this via a hierarchy. Supply Demand Analysis at the top with price action only traders and traders that use indicators below. Under the umbrella of Price Action Only Trading (no indicators) are a hand full of different trading approaches and I'll name a few only. * Price Only Analysis * Price & Volume Analysis * Support Resistance Analysis My point is that there are traders that only use one of the above as price action only traders or use them in combo... Any of the above 3 types out of many can be broken down into traders that trade retracements (continuations), reversals and breakouts. I also want to point out that there are dozens of different approaches under the umbrella of Support Resistance Analysis. Further, new traders to price action only trader need to keep in mind of the above framework and decide where they want to start and stick to it until they master it regardless if it takes months or years. It's also very important to know that some traders do not care about what caused the key change in supply/demand of their trading instrument... They prefer to put all their efforts in Pattern Recognition. In contrast, there's another group of traders that want to know what caused the key change in supply/demand to better understand the price action when/if pattern signals do appear. S/R levels or S/R zones are areas where a key change in supply/demand has occurred in the past. Then when price returns to that area of the past... There's no guarantee that another change in supply/demand will occur. This is where our understanding of the price action (supply demand analysis), pattern recognition skills and market experience (intuition) comes into play... To determine if we are Long, Short or staying on the sidelines (no trade). Mark
Hi Anek, Thanks for posting. I had a question as to some entries. I posted them on your chart. Thanks Max
Here are my AM session trades in the NQ. I had a >10 pt winner for a while but ended up with a small loss overall, -1.5pts. Any comments on what I could have done better here are most welcome. Probably should not have tried to average up there. Anyway, thanks all for posting. Have a good trading afternoon. Cheers, eD
I don't think that was a bad trade. It just didn't follow through with a second leg. You kept your loss small. This is part of winning...
<i>"Any comments on what I could have done better here are most welcome.</i> Strongly consider switching from 5min setting to price-action bars like 500 tick, 600(ish) tick or x-volume setting. NQ is jerky thru its swings up and down... you'll see the picture much clearer by breaking up those bars.
Hi Ed, My take on the day. Being OEX you should expect much less ito of followthrough (if at all) - it is generally a choppy day. http://i35.tinypic.com/b5fb7r.jpg Basic AHG trading.
I had a losing day on Thursday as well, but I think I made progress still. I lost on my first trade out of the gate. I took the long on the last pull back after the high, and of course, that was the only one that failed that morning. I was late getting to my seat, so I didn't get to take the prevoius ones that worked out well. I didnt' take the trade too hard though, because I took my signal and it simply failed. I did take a big hit out of the gate though, so I knew I had to do some work to break even or make money for the day. Unfortunately, most of you know what the rest of the day looked like. Chop City, with nothing good happening. That's where the good news comes in for me though. As bad as the chop was, I stayed disciplined, entering close to the turns, scalping 6 ticks, then moving to BE immediately. I got my 6 ticks almost every time, but I also got stopped out every time as well, as nothing broke out for me. At the end of the afternoon, I actually made money, just not enough to recover from my first loss. I am getting better with my discipline, and that was evident by the fact that I made money during the worst chop of the day. It's been all the same today as well. Chop, chop.... but I'm up $100.00 or so using my scalp of 6 ticks and then to BE on 2 cars. I have only take 2 trades this morning, as I'm not falling for the chop today. I only took the two trades that we have had on the far side of the high and lows. I'm just waiting on the next break out day now and hopefully I can make up for the 2 losing days I had this week. So, even though it has not been a good week for me, there are some positives to take away from this and I'm feeling better about how to handle the days where the market goes nowhere. On days like this, just concentrate on not losing money and move to BE quick as possible. If you do it correctly and stay disciplined, you might even make money in the end. Good trades all!
Notice the low was 1955, the LH 1975 Always pay attention to 00's, price action at 0's and 5's and in chop and pullbacks 5's Also note how the ES made a HH in that move and then a double top and the nq lagged on Low volume with the 11:36 high stopping at yesterdays HOD (Im sure Susana would have this line marked with "only longs above here" )
Mark most people associate the words "pattern recognition" with chart patterns or formations. Is that what you're talking about or something else?
One thing I noticed when I opened your chart is that the area where you got stopped out was the value area of the trading day. Price is bouncing on both sides of that price level (1965) and always pulling back to it. You had a good entry and a good profit, so overall you had a very good start to the trade. You might have exited at that 1965 level, knowing there might be a high probablity that it would repel prices on the way up, and then it would attract them back again, even if it managed to break through, which it did. I don't know where prices went after you got stopped out, but since you chose to take a chance and trade the bounce off that 1965 level, I would have moved my stop back a few ticks further so that you were below the 1965 level, since it would act as support for you. Prices did indeed only move down one tick and stop you out before recovering, so keeping your stop below the 1965 area would have at least given you a chance to get out at BE maybe, if not allow you to actually ride that wave even further? Anway, I'm no pro at this yet, but that's just something I saw that might have helped you better manage the trade. Good luck and good trades!