Well, as for those trendline breaks, which constitute pullbacks on higher timeframe, they are relatively objective to take in realtime with good odds also. I posted a few live examples in this thread I think. But have real trouble with catching quick and shallow pullbacks (or maybe with defining a runaway trend).
Funny, that without the down channel on 1-min I'd hardly trust such a p/b on 5-min because too often took those after climactic moves.
Yes. Actually, I rarely enter on H1. They like to fail, but here with the 1m PA it was a good signal. Also, if you look at the 5m chart there is a shallow trend line from far back and this was the second attempt to break above that and we got above the high of the first failed breakout, so that might also suggests that the trend continues. (I know it sounds easy in hindsight, but the 1m would have given me an entry signal. WHat I have problem with is the exits ....)
No problem with hindsight analysis for me as long as we all know we trade this way in real time also. I absolutely agree with your reasoning, just usually prefer, when channel is also more clearly visible on 5-min, what gives me more confidence in those trades. As for exits, personally I use the following tactics (more or less): have initial target at the closest significant support/resistance or just some significant amount away from the entry, for the case it's an explosive move. They do happen intraday and more often than many people think. If it doesn't shoot like a rocket, then I watch it and take what the market is willing to give. Sometimes it's just 10 pips, sometimes 15 or 20. That's up to how you feel the PA. But anyway, with entries (which are more important than exits, I believe) fine tuned enough, profit is almost always bigger than the risk was.
E, you got some great feedback on this already! Here's my take: 1. Ditch the Keltners. During wide ranges, Keltners can be useful on a 5-min chart, but as Xpurt said, don't use them to anticipate anything, neither entries nor profit-taking exits. I cut so many profits short using Keltners (on a 5-min chart only) that I removed them from my chart quite a long time ago. 2. Anything you do on the 1-min chart should be in confluence with the 5-min price action (unless you're strictly a 1-min chart scalper, which from our conversations, you don't seem to be). Look at the 5-min PA where you were looking for a continuation long. Price made a strong run up following the 11:40 ET bar bear trap setup. Price broke the previous high 108.99 by just a few ticks and pulled back cleanly to the 1-min 20 EMA. When price gets near the 1-min 20 MA start trailing a buy stop as long as a previous 5-min bar low doesn't get taken out. This is the scalper's method of re-entering the trend using 1-min pullback with-trend continuation (non-scalpers would be holding their initial long and looking add to the position on the pullback to the 1-min 20 EMA). So using this buy stop trail, you end up long again @ 108.83, with a .10 or so stop loss. Price stays above the 1-min 20 EMA, pulls back toward it at 108.80, tries to move up again and there's no follow through. Here's where I'd scratch the 108.83 long or stop out on a break of a previous 5-min bar low (108.80 breaks) for a very small loss. If a 5-min bar low breaks after such a strong move up and a failed breakout of the previous 108.99 high, price will most likely pull back to the 5-min 20 EMA. If you like to scalp for 10-20 ticks a short @ 108.79 5-min bar break will give it to you far more often than not. E, your mistake was going long after the initial 1-min continuation setup fizzled out, telling you a deeper pullback is now in order, most likely to the 5-min 20 EMA. CF, I think this answers a question you asked me as well. Also, if price doesn't pullback much at all on the 1-min, I sometimes just buy a break of the previous 1-min high if there's good airspace to the next likely R level. I also miss a few 1-min cont entries because price doesn't pull back as much as I expected and I'm not prepared in advance with my buy stop above the previous high :eek: (All this is simply reversed for downtrends.) Chart attached, notice how the 5-min previous bar break (scalper's short entry for a pullback to the 5-min 20 EMA) coincides with the 1-min trend line breaking and then becoming resistance, setting up the deeper pullback. This is the beauty of using the two time frames together. The less experienced traders reading this should scroll their charts back to the hard right edge to see how these setups look there. Everything looks just beautiful after-the-fact, but not always so easy to take the trades at the sloppy right edge until you learn to recognize the setups and react immediately. I'm still working on that one!
I realized that I need to elaborate a bit on this. If price is pulling back to the 1-min 20 EMA in a well-defined uptrend on the 5-min chart and a break of the previous 5-min bar takes price right into the 1-min 20 EMA, this is a likely bear trap setup on the 5-min and you can still trail the 1-min buy stop if that 1-min 20EMA holds as support. Make sense?
I remember reading you used to use Keltner lines as targets. If you no longer use them as targets what do use now? next level S/R perhaps?
Donna, little off-topic here but whatever happened to that price action trading bot you were training to be NoDoji++? [They can do really well when you maintain the discretionary control of when to take the initial entry (then let it go auto).]