the ema is just there for a rough guide .....so we do not enter too far from it.....however the strongest trends do not return to ema for a long time so if you wait for the pull back to reach the ema you may miss many of the most lucrative moves..... keep it simple: once the pull back ends enter and usually you have tight stop. if it is not tight then reduce the position size or do not take the trade
since you are a newbie some more advice. do not take a risk with your money too eagerly.......trade a demo until you make money. also i used to look for at least 2 reasons for a trade ......now i search for any reasons not to take the trade........do not be too eager to take trades. this may sound negative......but trading is a balancing act without a safety net
closed the trade because of the support level: trading range to the left.....mistake taking it. this works well if the market is swinging cleanly so i entered but the trading range support made me change my mind and exited at break even but lost brokerage: but loss is not the issue;trade was a mistake so get out
now about context. you have the immediate context and you have various contexts depending on how far back you want to consider. that is why when you are buying at support you find someone selling to you...he is considering a different context,perhaps
introduction to Brooks 3 book series.....hear it from the man hinmself "There is a reason why there is no other comprehensive book about price action written by a trader. It takes thousands of hours, and the financial reward is meager compared to that from trading. However, with my three girls now away in grad school, I have a void to fill and this has been a very satisfying project. I originally planned on updating the first edition of Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), but as I got into it, I decided instead to go into great detail about how I view and trade the markets. I am metaphorically teaching you how to play the violin. Everything you need to know to make a living at it is in these books, but it is up to you to spend the countless hours learning your trade. After a year of answering thousands of questions from traders on my website at www.brookspriceaction.com, I think that I have found ways to express my ideas much more clearly, and these books should be easier to read than that one. The earlier book focused on reading price action, and this series of books is instead centered on how to use price action to trade the markets." the emphasis is mine
"The books cover many of the standard techniques described by Robert D. Edwards and John Magee (Technical Analysis of Stock Trends , AMACOM, 9th ed., 2007) and others, but focus more on individual bars to demonstrate how the information they provide can significantly enhance the risk/reward ratio of trading"- Al Brooks with computers being used to trade intraday by institutions in the last 10-15 years, this would mean that there is more intraday trading by the smart money and this means the shorter time frames will have less noise than before. that is reassuring if you are trading 5 min like i do
Learning what the market is telling you is very time-consuming and difficult, but it gives you the foundation that you need to be a successful trader.-Brooks not if you understand what Brooks is saying