The zoom meeting lasted more than an hour so I didn't get to work in the garden. But I did make it to grab 2 more trades near close. I am showing them here on this chart with some comments here in this post. First of all look at the type of day. There are many ways to trade PA. One foundational thing is it is often good to try and recognize the type of day that is unfolding early on. This may affect the tactics that one will use. Today was a BO at the open followed by a PB that consisted of several bars (sort of a two legged PB) that was essentially a bull flag. That flag ended in a triangle. A triangle is BO mode. So, we get a BO to the upside and a continuation of the previous BO so a bull trend. A flag is a continuation signal. This BO of the triangle is also an H3. We saw price in the triangle go down (3 bear bars..then up after PB (H1) ..then down again..and back up (H2) finally up into a BO (H3). In summary, a BO..bull flag..then continuation of the bull trend. This together forms a MPBL (medium PB bull trend). I traded the flag scalping using different techniques. As that second BO ends we go into a SPBL (small PB Bull Trend). At this point a trader could opt to hold long and add on every PB more then exit once the session ends or once price reverses (which in this case was around bar 13:10 or bar 13:15). Or a trader could buy every PB of the SPBL trend and exits on every surge north scalping as the session progresses. Or a trader can average down on every PB then dump the position on any decent surge north. The reason for understanding the type of day that is unfolding, and doing so early on, is that it may influence you, as to how you are going to trade the PA. In this case I had no opportunity to trade the SPBL portion of the trend because I had a zoom meeting. But I did trade the opening BO and the two legged bull flag culminating in a triangle and got in one the H3 BO of the triangle by entering early limit order, on a PB nested in the triangle, and exiting that position on the triangle BO. Then I took another long scalp at the top of that continuation of the bull trend from the bull flag. My second comment is concerning trade #8 towards the end of the session. Trade #8 we were obviously headed south for a second leg so I short on an implied PB (of bar 14:45) on bar 14:50. I reasoned I could get 2 or more points easily. I was out on bar 14:55 with my two point scalp. My third comment is concerning T#9 and using a technique I rarely use but will use at times when time is running out, or price is just stalling in a trade that I already have a position on. It might provoke a coronary arrest for the gurus as it is martingaling. A big no..no... per the pundits. So in trade #9 I short at the bottom of bar 15:55 betting on more down move. Instead we get a little rally. So, now I am looking at the bear move from bar 14:35 to bar 15:55 and I reason that a PB will likely not go too far before the close. We are getting real close to the close of the session. So, I will add to my short which I did with entry 2 on bar 15:00. Price continues against me ...time is running out...the end of the session is near... I must get what I can out of this trade and do so quickly. So, on bar 15:05 I martingale. I double down. I add double the amount of contracts that resulted from my entries 1 and 2. Why? The purpose of this is to get my exit as close as possible to BE. Or possibly even a small profit, simply because there are only a few minutes left in the session. I would like to end this trade #9 with at a small profit or at minimum a BE. By martingaling I get that BE exit real close to the price action ATM. So, it resulted in exiting the trade on bar 15:10 with a profit on my latter two entries and a loss on my first entry. But overall a profitable trade #9. So, 9 trades (and many more could have been taken). All profitable. Being greedy and grabbing the profits as the market hands them to me. Maintaining a high win rate. And use a martingaling technique for quick exit.
It is important for a trader who is a scalper and trading PA to have a repertoire of trading techniques in the "tool box", so to speak, so as to have plenty of trading opportunities throughout the session. It is also important as a scalper to maintain a high win rate. Some traders prefer anti-martingaling which can work in trend following but not so well in scalping as the phenomena of price probing in short term movements will eat your cake and the icing too.
A note on my post #1707. In TR’s the general idea is to short near top and cover in the middle or near the bottom of the trading range. And go long near the bottom and exit in the middle or near the top. So there are basically 2 ways of looking at this while looking at the entry and exit concepts just mentioned. 1) do the entry and exit actions in the top 1/3 or bottom 1/3. Stay away from the middle 1/3 unless employing other techniques such a trading price probes towards the low or high of previous bars. 2) more conservatively doing the entries and exits in the top 1/4 or bottom 1/4.
Today I was playing around on the SIM which I at times will do just to sharpen my skills of reading PA. I took several trades that I thought would be instructive concerning some concepts, even though they were taken on a SIM. I am posting the 5 min chart and a two min chart of the same trades. I have to stop trading to get the Motorhome ready for a trip to see family on Thanksgiving. So I stopped trading. Perhaps later today I will find time to make more comments on the chart, other than those comments already written on the chart. The purpose of showing these SIM trades is none other than to drive home some salient points concerning the concepts that Brooks teaches and of course, my way of adapting them. If I find no time to make further comments just study what is on the chart. Maybe you will find it useful. Maybe not. Of course I am sure there will be the detractors that will scream "hindsight." Well of course it is. I cannot very well show concepts drawn in on a non existent chart! LOL. Just study it and then practice on a SIM to see if the concepts are valid and if they are potentially useful to you, as a trader.
Ok I have a few minutes before the markets open. Look at the first chart in my post above #1714. Look at that opening gap (green vertical rectangle). It is helpful to view such a gap as a large bull bar. So one would expect the next bar (which WAS the opening bar of the RTH's) to be a good follow through bar, but instead it was a bear bar. That is the first sign that the gap would likely close or that at least we would get some downside before any real up side. Of course by the second bar (bull doji with a tail on the bottom we see a little buying). Now I had not yet drawn in the orange bear channel lines as their was not enough info to draw then however, just looking at PA after that faux green bar and the no FT bar, I am getting ready to short. So, on that doji I beginning shorting. On the same bar I add to my first entry. That is, I average down. On the next bar I add even more. So now I have an averaged down position and the bet is we will see enough down action that I can get out with a decent scalp. This I do exiting the entire position on the 8:45 bar with a decent several point scalp. Now I have two points and I drawn in the bear channel lines and a line that is roughly the middle line. So now I am going to do some bear channel trading. The basic idea in channel trading is to short in the top half and cover in the middle or bottom half (hence the drawn in middle line which you don't have to have as one can simply eyeball it) and go long in the bottom half and exit in the top half. A trader can take positions in the middle but if doing so take small enough positions so that he can average down should the position go against him towards the outer edge BEFORE he can scalp out. If the channel is broad enough he can also scalp in the middle on price probing action. Price probing is the tendency in overlapping adjacent bars for price to move a little out of whack (i.e below or above the last two or three highs or lows of bars) as bears or bull probe). One takes a position betting the other side will close the gap that was produced by the probe. This works better in overlapping bars as that indicates bullish and bearish pressures are both operating with neither side really controlling the market. If you don't believe there are bulls and bears on every bar then look at it this way; there are bullish and bearish pressure ON EVERY bar. I mean it is kinda of funny to think that there may be institutions looking at 5m bars all day ROFLMAO. Some may be but most aren't. Many are just filling orders for clients. Others are HFT's. So, when I say bulls and bear it is largely semantic. What I am really talking about is bullish and bearish PRESSURES. And those pressures are active on every bar. It isn't just random noise. There are actual pressures at play. Now this is a bear channel. So the odds favor short in the top half and covering in the bottom half maybe even the bottom channel line area. One can trade long in a bear channel but needs to only scalp one legged scalps and not go for 2 or more legs, unless it is a really broad channel. I like to take quick long scalps in bear channels and not follow the profit too far because the overall pressure is down. That fact is evident and actually the very reason the channel forms as a bear channel. So, make sure the channel is broad enough for at least 3x the size of a min scalp to trade it as a channel by shorting in top half and going long in the bottom half. And profit taking in the top half for longs and profit taking in the bottom half for shorts. So that means it needs to be at least 3 points broad which would actually be a kind of tight channel. In ADDITION it is better if the average size bar (just a glance will do) is at least 3 times the size of a minimum scalp, which is 1 point. What makes channels scalping opportunities is that BO's top or bottom fail 70% to 75%of the time and price within 3 to 5 bars goes back into the channel. I have to go now as the market just opened for today. I will make more comments later on these charts above.
I hope your surgery for the cancer went well. I tried to PM you this but it did not go through so here is what a friend of mine with cancer uncovered in his research. It sounds pretty amazing. An hour long video but worth the time. In short for those who don't have time to watch it is about thousands of people being cured of terminal cancers with the drug Fenbendazole which is a vet medication. It is beyond the scope of this thread but I wanted to get you this information.
Hey man, hopefully everything is clicking right along. If you get some flutters or leg cramps maybe look at a 1/2 teaspoon of magnesium citrate powder stirred into a glass of water in the mornings a few days a week. symptoms of a fluttering heart cause magnesium https://duckduckgo.com/?q=symptoms+of+a+fluttering+heart+cause+magnesium&t=h_&ia=web https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/cardiovascular.335482/page-2#post-5409435 edit: just noticed this in one of the search returns, news to me. "a broad spectrum supplement that combines these four forms of magnesium: orotate, citrate, glycinate, and taurinate."
@Overnight I happened to see this scalping methodology over on another forum. Thought you might be interested as it uses renko charts. I have no idea what the difference is between renko and unirenko but you would know. I think you said you have only used unirenko. I use time based charts as when I scalp I want to see it going my way pretty quick or I might just exit BE or a small profit. Time/price/volume. For myself I mostly need to observe time/price. Anyway I did not study the guy’s method. I only casually glanced at his first few posts but what caught my interest was it was with renko charts something you are keen on using. You might want to check it out? To me it seems like a small amount 2 points a day. One would have to trade size for it to be meaningful or at the minimum trade ES not Mes. Says he has been doing it for ten years so he probably doesn’t fool with MES. One could test it out on MES? https://futures.io/emini-emicro-ind...res-contract-scalping-strategy-2-pts-day.html
Thanks for the link. He's using a method of comparing renkos, a range-based bar, with tick bars, which is kinda' a hybrid between range and time, along with Doncian indicators. It is an interesting method, basically using one chart-type to indicate direction in another. But that is not for me. If anything, it sounds like it would be more up your alley, where you could compare pure time and pure range bars side-by-side! As for the difference between renkos and Unis, the Unis provide a tail-wick structure which can be helpful, as they give a bit more definition of price action. As an FYI, notice the time stamps of his charts. He started the thread 10 1/2 years ago, and looks like he stopped posting in 2013. Were he to employ that method today, I am sure he'd want to use something bigger than a 2 brick renko, hehe.