Howdy Sempai, Looks like you understand this at least as well as I do. The only suggestion I have is to watch a 5 min and even a 15 minute chart to help filter your trades. IE if you see divergence from the trend on the 5 minute chart, rather than trading a pullback you might start to look for a reversal trade(range trade). If the 15 minute chart is strongly bullish then you might give some of your winners with the trend a little more leeway before stopping out. I think if you only have one hour a day to trade this is a pretty ideal method. As far as slippage, 1 pt is reasonable, maybe more, maybe less. I switched to the ES(again) because you get a lot of noise on the YM, because each tic doesn't mean a great deal. Plus, I am a big thinker, so I want to be used to the ES for the days when I start scaling up my trades.(long time from now). Keep up the good work.
Hi Baggerlord, Thanks - I agree. In my updated rules that I posted a day or two ago, I added the use of the 5 minute chart to locate key support and resistance levels for purposes of the range trades, as well as the requirement that the range should be at least 15 - 20 points to give some room for profit. Also, for now I'm going to stick with the basic stop loss rules for trailing stops on profitable trend trades. Perhaps if the market really takes off and there's plenty of room in the trade I could give it more room. However, with a multiple contract strategy I'll be able to give the additional contracts more room for purposes of trying to catch a bigger portion of some of the longer trends. I'm planning on adding this to the method in the future once I get the entries and exits ironed out with single contract trading.
I don't like to use divergences (if you're talking about looking for divergences between price and an indicator, such as RSI, stochastics, etc.). I've never been very good with them. However, I am using the support and resistance levels as a filter as I described earlier - the price has to hit or trade through the level prior to taking an entry signal. So far, this seems to be working well, but I still have to go back and look at some charts to confirm it.
These are based on the 5-min. chart and they are also the daily high and low for 8/19. Resistance at 9433 Support at 9336
I'll start posting trades as they occur - little late getting this one out, but I'll try to improve as I go along. Retracement: 9:32 am -1 @ 9368 initial stop at 9373
New support level formed for range trades at 9360. Missed retracement entry (long) at 9373 at 9:42 am. I'll follow it anyway. Initial stop at 9369, now moving to 3 bars back per 10 pt. rule. Stop at 9371.
stopped out at 9383 (+10) I wasn't quite on the ball with the 3 bar trailing stop. I should have exited at the break of the low of the 9:54 am bar at 9387. I won't take any more retracement trades in this direction (only take the first retracement in a series. Now watching for a test of 9360 support to set up for a range trade. Also watching for a short retracement setup - currently 2 bars completely below LMA, so I can short the next retracement setup.