Anything is possible But no matter the method or style I trade, I always over-manage the trade. That's what I am trying to overcome. I have selected the "short skirt" because I believe in it, and it fits my requirements.
Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? This journal thing seemed like such a good idea last Saturday night. A little wine, some cheese, some salami, a little more wine, and the next thing I know Iâm posting up a storm promising to keep a journal for all the assembled masses to see. So now itâs Monday, and time to come to Jesus...(gulp). I do as I said, or face public ridicule and humiliation. Just a brief review of the ârulesâ: Entry will be in established in one-minute trends on a pullback to the 20EMA. Upon entry, I will immediately place a 3 point profit target order, and a 3 point stop loss order. I will trail the stop-loss in half point increments. The trade will stay open until the market price action takes me out. May the trading gods smile upon me...here we go!
i also mentioned this setup and was trying to trade it, cause it looks so strong if you search "high probability" setup, but, after all, i found that the opportunity factor of this setup in the ES is not that great... by the way, i guess, the 3-point stop came from a time, when the SP was around 1500... trading
Admittedly, days like this are not my forte. Ultra strong moves leave me gun shy. To this point (10:45) there have been two classic bear flags (one at 9:47, the other at 10:11). Both had moves of at least 3 points. I took neither. Why? To my way of thinking the market was very oversold, and thus both trades were not âhigh probability trades. But the day is still young.
every day this week will be volatiles like today, this week is jam pack with economic numbers not to mention daily dose of downgrades from analysts.
Just playing devils advocate here - but I didn't see a rule in your entry rules about deciding if you felt if the market was oversold or overbought. Are you breaking your rules already?
I don't think so. Somewhere along the line I did mention that trades were not to be taken in overbought/oversold conditions. Now it would be fair to ask how I determine that - but the answer would be quite complicated. Can I get off the hook by saying it's basically just a "feeling"? BTW - I remain very impressed with your work. but I'll be damned if I could handle the first half hour! I stand in awe of your abilities!!!
A whole lot of nuttinâ going on here. A bull flag set up at 11:50 @809 ¾ that ran for 3+ points. I passed on it, but this one is harder to explain. Iâll let it go as having erred on the side of caution. (the fifteen-minute chart was still in a steep decline â but,,,) Yet another bull flag set up at 12:07 @811 â again I passed for the same reason as stated above. At long last, a correct decision! Prices moved down to what would have been my stop at 808. As I have previously said, I do not do well on days like this. I have become a very conservative trader, and only play when I am reasonably sure that the odds are in my favor. While the âactionâ so far today may be boring/disappointing to some, I make no apologies.
Tampa - You sound a lot like me when I'm trying to trade something that is ultimtely up to my discretion. In your initial post, if I remember correctly, you basically said you wanted to write this journal as a way to force yourself to trade your system. I got the impression that you were not taking a lot of trades and that you were dissappointed that you were not bascially following the system. In this most recent post you seem okay with not taking the winning trades because you can come up with a reason that you didn't take them - and then those feelings are confirmed when you had a reason for not taking a trade that ended up being a loser - you claim that was a correct decision - but you don't claim that not taking the winning trades were a correct decision. The mind is a funny thing - it will do damn near anything it can to avoid pain - don't you think that you will be able to continue to justify not taking trades for one reason or another if you choose to? Isn't that what you are trying to stop doing? (BTW - Don't take this as any sort of criticism - I could be totally wrong, and maybe my point is irrelevant. It's just that all of this sounds so familiar to me)