You boys are running a very good ES thread here ..congratulations to you. Any newbie to ES could learn to trade from following your advice and thoughtful comments. I normally just scan ES threads when the price is flat but on this occassion I am prompted to speak out. I remember another good thread run by a guy trading out of Singapore. Bolter, I think was his call sign and he was putting Market Profile to good use.
Thank you from all of us. We do have a great group in here that I am proud to call friends. Tell us about you and your style of trading.
Well Jimmy if you haven't given up yet then you made your 2 points on that trade. Way to go. I watched a ER re-run in between emails.
Given up on this (see attachment) oh heck no! (I'm keep'in clean ). Discipline - and just leaving the trade alone and letting it work is how we're gonna make it in "this game". Later, JJ
Nothing clever I am afraid. I trade the open most days and trade in couples ie I take half my position of the table after 4 or 5 points and let the other half roll along and usually exit on a spike. My target is 10 handles per session per couple or 11.30 am exit. Entry is simple, I just watch the bid/ask volume and the average lot size when the price is meandering sideways for a few minutes. When I see a position building, I set my stop on the opposite side of the range and enter very close to the opposite obvious breakout point.This gives me a 2 or 3 point risk rather than the traditional risk across the range. When my stop is struck, the big boys with their volume will take me across the range to where the breakout boys have their entry stops. Here is where I take half my postion off the table because there are plenty of takers on the other side. The balance of my position runs on if the breakout is good or I bail on an exhaustion tick if it is a fake. I set a 5 point hard stop at the time of entry and cut it 50% and bring it up to B/E +1 as required. The hard stop is for system failure only, it has never been used I always bail or reverse at 2 points depending on volume and average strike size. The open I trade on pure momentum plus a couple of other tricks and I dont really consider s&r until the IB period pivot points have established itself. ES has a rhythm which you can see if you watch the impact of volume on price very carefully. I keep my third eye on L2, mainly to see fake orders as I watch a position being built. Mainly, I am always thinking about covering my ass......how can I turn my entry into my advantage and take some points. The days of taking losses like a true man are long gone. And that is about it really, apart from some of the finer points that I have spent every waking moment considering for the past nine years.
I placed a quick order when price broke out above 1286.25 and exited for a point. Looking at it now, I should have held out for 2. I'm a complete beginner myself and I have to say this is a great journal. I've been reading through it for the past several days and so far I've learned quite a bit. Previously I was trading the E-mini S&P with a 15-minute chart using Stochastics 7,1,7 to decide if it would be a buy day or sell day. I would place a trade in the morning and the afternoon depending on price action, always trying to get filled on a retracement. My stops were set at 5 points and my morning target was 7 points, but I normally exited much sooner. Given my small account size I want to forget that method for awhile and concentrate on a 2-1 profit / risk target. So I'm now learning to use moving averages and S/R to decide entries and exits. Basically my goal right now, as I've read elsewhere on ET, is to "stay in the game long enough to learn it."
You should check-out the thread written by 5Pillars, he uses a similar breakout/reversal strategy, only he "pyramids" his contracts so that he makes a lot more money (actually he probably makes the same amount of money, just in a shorter amount of time). Truth to tell, I don't really know, because I don't trade like'm, but if you search his handle you'll even find a thread were he shows his setup. Best, Jimmy