Interesting comment I've been concentrating on reversal patterns entry signals include key bearish and bullish reversal reversals on pivots Just out of curiosity- based on todays price action starting at 9:57AM EDT ---- what did you use to determine that it would be an uptrend in the morning?
maybe I should clarify - because I'm trading YM not ES --- Here is what I would have considered a long entry for YM --- but there were several exit signal that turned out to be head fakes --- (at least thats what I call them) So Im kinda curious how you decided this particular trend would run as long as it did
I trade with trend also. The challenge is when do you realize a trend and how do you determine it's not going to end? In general, the ES can oscillate quite a bit making stop placement tough even within a trend. And speaking of stops, I narrowed mine today by a mere tick and it was a disaster--I was constantly getting stopped at exactly -5 ticks, only to see the trade reverse without me. It was a costly change of my rules. (Rule no.1, never break the rules.) Fortunately, I stuck to another rule of not taking a loss greater than 5% in a day.
Allenhobbs, I am no pro., but I think I can help you place better stops. All stops should be placed at strategic locations with flexibility to encounter whipsaws. If you can't explain why you set stops at certain prices, then, you need to re-evaluate. Why don't you pull today's chart and mark a couple of your entries and your stops. PM the chart to me. I'll help you with your stops.
the first half an hour of trading was a down trend, i made one trade on this trend which failed becuase the market reversed. this, and the fact that the market passed the last high was a conformation for me for an uptrend (was about 10:30-10:50) if I remember correct. In this uptrend you could easly make at least very HP 4 points in about one hour of trading.
hi, realizing the trend is quite easy I'll refrence you to two excelent threads just about this subject (and apologizing in advance if you already saw them) : The AHG thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=99283 and the JJvrat PBP thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=113456 I don't know when the trend is going to end and i know the market is oscilating quite a bit so i have fixed targets and fixed stops. Try using range bars of one point and a fixed targets and stops of 1.75 points. this seems like a big stop but from my experience if the market moved so much against you it's a good sign of big or mini reversal, make your stop lower and you'll get whipsawed. and for the target this is a bit more flexible (you can change it to 2 pts or 1.5 pts according to market momentum) but this fixed target you'll have a 1:1 r/r ratio and with about 75% of success you cen do pretty well (although it seems you're already doing very well so far).
Allen, Maybe this question had been asked somewhere in this thread. I didn't read all of them, sorry for that. Why you put only a small amount of money in this experiment? The amount of $5000 for you is just like paper trading, right. Meaning that the real emotional pressure is not or very light on this trading. If large amount of money were put then this experiment will reflect truly the reality of the majority of traders where emotion is the biggest obstacle that derail trader's strategy.
The experiment is primarily for the benefit of new traders who usually start with small bankrolls. Its not about psychology, but math first and discipline second. I hope to show new traders that success can be achieved without a large account. Even with such a small account, I have had a lapse or two in executing my plan and it was costly, relatively speaking.
My apologies if it's been posted, but I can't find your futures run from yesterday's trading. Thanks and good luck next week.
Interesting post. The plan calls for keeping individual losses per trade to approximately 2%, hence the need for tight stops. The r:r is now 1:1 with 1.5 point stops.