Yes MN, a typo. BTW, there is no way you should have exited at that level on the chart, as there was no reason to! This is why, when trading, you should learn to let the chart tell you when to enter and exit, not some random thoughts based on assumptions, which are just that, they are not facts! J_S
I can vouch for this. I've had a couple sidebars with IAN and it was strictly business related. His research and trading style seem to closely resemble my own.
I agree with you, but I think you can always try to improve, while trading what you already master. If one day you can go from 5 sec trades to 1 min and later to 15 min it will make your trading easier and more profitable. Traders should be ambitious, as long as it has no bad influence on the quality of their life, and as long as it is fun.
Well, you can consider designing a method with main consideration is to make plus one tick on original entry within so many minutes, so as prices goes against position only makes system that much better as all will exit where original entry gets out. There will be a few where 2-3 points is achieved 25-30% but over all breakeven plus one tick is made over 65% of the time. Very much reversion to the mean system, and that is what most Scalpers do, they add liquidity to market, and let the masses fight for bigger profits. But it all really comes down to your personality, Long Term I can wait it out years, it is almost like sticking it in a drawer and checking each weekend, but I just don't have the time nor desire any more of sitting behind the screen all day any more to day trade. I love trading very early in the morning before the masses wakes up as they tend to screw up good things, but by 9:30cdt, I want out of the house. It is best to design systems to what it is you want to do or make then automate it. "Pearl of wisdom." You have a crystal ball? Even if you wait to get in, you have no idea that was the low, how many times have you entered and that was high of the area? Averaging down might lose for you, but that tells me you have not broken down price enough, you study Swings averages, corrective swing averages, Major/mini swing averages in uptrend and down trends, knowing what average exhaustive bars have bigger ranges in up moves then down moves in last four weeks, knowing what is considered extreme fast move is not the same as exhaustive fake move. Spend three years watching the Dome, there are patterns within watching the Dome volume in the bid/ask. Did you know most of what happens in the Dome your eyes can't pick up cause it happens so fast? Did you know before some the moves HFT can alert of possible move? Study Time and Sales for three years. And you have develop indicators fast enough to see what the eye doesn't. I never recommend to anyone to average down, cause most Americans are too lazy to dedicate the time to really dig in deep to study price action. They rather say it can't be done, so much easier.
Price is price, it is the person looking at the charts that makes assumptions as to what might, or might not, happen next. At some stage we all go round in circles, and myself being no different, but, it is only when the silly time wasting activities stop, and one gets serious, will any real progress be made. Many think you can make money talking about trading, but that will never work, for to make money, you have to place trades, which then, of course, means you can lose money. Scared money will never win. One needs confidence, to act and react, but not so much confidence as to ignore risk, which, I will admit I do myself at times, but am getting much better recently at stopping this foolish activity. The best way to stop risking too much is to focus on what you know works, and do not let yourself get sucked in to trading without consulting the charts and going thru the process of determination - meaning - you work out the odds of a continuation or reversal based on MTFA, or whatever chart setup/s that works best for you. I have sometimes traded without charts, and made some money, but, I know it was pure chance, as without the analysis you do not know the odds, and without knowing the odds you are at nothing. Any worthwhile endeavor requires time and effort, and trading is no different, in fact, it requires a lot more focus and systematic approach, as if one tinkers around trading, especially with Futures, then one might just get a nasty big surprise one day, that can, and has, cost many a good deal, or not all, of their life savings. Fools and their money are easily parted, but if one is a fool, it is no one's fault but one's own. J_S
You always seem to enjoy pointing out where people get something wrong, so you show me where I said that you were a vendor. I don't know what happens in your PM messages, but I never suggested that you're a vendor. Impossible to prove since there are many ways these days to hide your true location. Besides, Baron has no interest in this. Its been shown over and over again that multiple aliases aren't out rightly banned. It creates more traffic for the website, and this website needs to bring in revenue to survive. Just because you never saw a good trader do this doesn't mean a thing. I happen to know a very profitable one who does go in and out quite frequently. But you still don't get it. You show absolutely nothing and here you are criticizing someone who was completely transparent and quite profitable on many of his days. When will you get it through your head that you have no right to criticize anyone's trading when you can't show a damn thing. For all I know, your ass is sitting in jail and you're using up your 1 hour internet privilege on posting to ET when you should be looking up porn since its the only women you'll get to see for years! Seriously... nothing you say has any worth because they are all cheap hindsight words. Well, if this to you is how logic works, and we are just supposed to believe anyone who says they are profitable without saying a thing then I might as well say I'm Batman and I come online here between my crime fighting sessions. What you say has just as much worth as what I say. But tell you what... I'll end off with something I've learned from you. I hope you were smart enough to capture all the moves on Friday. Look at these 3 nice trends I've outlined. I even post the chart in your own color scheme so you have no trouble understanding it. It adds up to 48 points. Did you manage to get most of them like I did?
Yesterday I was just about to add to 1 ES contract that was down bout $500 after NFP, but as I was outside gardening, and on my mobile phone, I said, nah, I won't take the chance this time, even though I expected the run back up. I still made $308 on the trade, but lost out on another 2047.50 - 2031.50, or 16 points, or $800, and all because I did not tap the screen on my mobile, which I was seconds away from doing I have done a lot of trades with averaging, but always on purpose, and as yesterday was not on purpose, I decided not to, and it cost me, but that is trading! J_S
When firefighters throw gasoline on the fire to stop it. That's how avering down could turn ou to be. As everything... Risk needs prudence.
It is all relative, as in what is your objective, your timeframe, your risk, your max drawdown, and your available time. Horses for courses! Different people will trade some of the charts different ways. The best way, for YOU, is the way that you can make money with - forget about all the rest. Screen 1 of 3 below. J_S
If you average down just because price went against you, then you might well be setting yourself up for a real bad experience. If you average down, based on scaling into a position, with a max risk and max drawdown identified, this is no different than someone else scalping the ES with a 4 tick stop - the objectives and risk parameters are different, and as with all trading, both trades can be losers and must be taken as so from the onset. J_S