nwbprop: seems you are using a breakout approach. ES is too choppy to use breakout apporach. You need to enter early to keep being stopped out.
Bonds can chop you to pieces as well. The biggest difference between bonds and ES is that when a directional move occurs bonds just like to take off and not look back, while the Es keeps backing and filling. This can also be used to your advantage, you just have to adapt to it. In fact the Es gives you much more opportunities to enter during a trend than the bonds. Personally i find NQ/ES easier to trade than bonds.
nwbprop: There have been some good points made here by others. Seems to me you're trying to trend trade a contract (ES) in a time frame it's not known for trending in to start with, in other words you may want to consider a longer time frame. Another possibility might be to only take trades during the first and last 60 - 90 mins of the day. Or another possibility might be to use the second longer time frame you mentioned as a "trend filter", taking trades in the shorter time frame only in the direction of the trend in the longer time frame.
this may be off-topic.. but imagine if you sold short one ES or NQ a couple months ago, and held until yesterday... maybe adding on along the way?! Think of how low commissions would be and how much profit you could now book! But I'm used to holding overnights, and can't see how many can successfully day-trade futures for a longer period of time without being ground up. I do some futures from time to time, and my observation is that holding O/N would work best in many cases. bonne chance.... Ic E
Thanks for all the replies. You are absolutely right that I should post some charts. In the attached chart, i reversed and sidelined at the red circle after bar 2 did not close above bar 1. Bar 1 was the first bar to close above the previous 5 min bar. This is a perfect example of missing the biggest move of the day cause the trend resumed back down. I did reshort at the pullback where I circled the green part and where it touched the left side of the TL. JC
Here is another chart where in the red circle I didnt get bar 2 closing above bar 1 so it was a sidleine and the trend resumed down. The green circle shows a successful one that I took where we did get bar2 closing above bar 1 and confirming the reversal.
I don't know what you mean by bar 1 and bar 2, but why would you reverse anything? The trend never resumed because the trend was never reversed in the first place. Each swing point is lower than the previous swing point. I'm going to assume that you have all this written down and that you tested it before putting down real money. Your definitions of "trend" and "reversal" aren't profiting you.
In your very first chart the area you circled in red had a very good short signal based on two things. First you had a very nice reversal candlestick from the four previous up candlesticks, and secondly you had an INCREASE in volume on that down candlestick from the volume on the four previous up candlesticks. You have to learn about volume and study it to trade the es with any success IMO. Volume trends and sudden changes will give you some of the best complimentary trade signals while trading the es.
You may find this helpful. It's NQ for the same day as your chart, but there's little difference. At least it will tell you what to look for. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=452478
...I recently backtested on NQ in 5 min bars the classical definition of a trend which you use. It was marginally profitable with my transaction costs, but not good enough to trade IMO. Since my testing has shown that NQ is a better vehicle than ES, I would doubt that it is profitable in ES. Also I think it's way too obvious a system to rely on. IMO money is made on subtle systems which take a free ride on market manipulations.