Guys/girls, I really don't think NoDoji cares about what gender she is, as long as business is good. It really isn't a big deal. If we can get back to trading, I'd really appreciate it. Double DD and Double EE, nice posts earlier, so pls feel free to contribute some more. Thanks, SM
I took the below trade on 02/04 (02/05 on post). I have made amendments to it, to see where and how I could have made it a cleaner trade. It's amazing how the lack of experience can have such a detrimental effect on your trading. The difference in the way the trade was taken now and before shows how much money was left laying there. Do let me know how your eyes see this. Maybe you can improve on this. <img src="http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=3083654.png">
Found NoDoji's journal..I love reading it and seeing her progression. Found some other good threads to follow here: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=204669 Thanks to you sir. If I hadn't done a search for NoDoji's journal, I wouldn't have come across all those great threads which provided a great opportunity to find some incredibly successful ET guys that have had some great educational threads/posts. If you get a chance Sam, checkout my journal to tell me how I could provide better content for those that follow. I'm not keen on posting charts because I trade a lot of stocks. I don't want to post my P&L blotter because I don't want anyone at my firm, or formerly at my firm, to recognize the format and know who I am or which firm I'm with. Any other suggestions I'm open to. Thanks in advance.
The entry you noted at the break of the white line is my favorite price action setup. The hammer is a clear signal to add to the long or re-enter if you took profits on the push. A green hammer in that environment is a pure signal not needing additional confirmation, IMO, but I generally enter with a stop order anyhow mainly because I've conditioned myself to trade that way.
Sam, Putting this up for your consideration- No concept of actually trading in that fast a time frame that you and the others here employ. But as I compare your charts, 5 min and 1 min, I noticed you have ma's but You are watching price action on a fast time frame and reacting. On the last chart, you had pulled a long trend line through and mentioned exiting on break of the trend- You may want to try some faster ema's..closer to price action. In the chart those first bars that "weakened" on the 1 minute are but allowable noise I would think on a 5 minute. You have also mentioned taking profits too quickly, and missing some of the trade. Maybe some version of this would be useful. Consider, once the trade is in profitable territory, and you have perhaps locked in some profit, step back with a portion of the trade using a higher time frame chart- 5 min, and follow price action on it. The price swings will be much larger and the stops will be necessarily so as well. I annotated a 5 min chart with a 5 ma and a 5 ema- The 5 ma follows price action closely. What looks like weakness and says "EXIT-Lock in Profit" on a 1 minute chart looks like allowable noise on a 5 minute chart. The premise is USE the ma's to your advantage, and if price momentum slows and price hits the ma or closes below it, raise the stop- but wait until the bar closes. I guess you could look over some of your past trades and easily determine whether this would have proved beneficial or not, and the opportunity to have a larger win. I'm thinking 1/3. Just some thoughts- SD
Sam, Not sure if you mentioned this, but I might have missed it. How do you go about selecting your stocks? Are you using setups on a daily chart, then waiting for a trade? Are you using some sort of filter or scanner? And how many are you usually watching each day?
Double DD, after I looked over the chart (see amended version), that is where my entry would have been too. However, sometimes my thought process is all over the place and I seem to miss good entries. I'm really hoping that with more practice and time all shall fall into place.