I think I did a fairly good job with the trendlines on my 104 charts. I drew them all the same way, and if there were two, I drew them both to test both. But just looking at these charts, nothing seems to work well enough. I don't have the numbers yet to back this up, so I will of course do this, but I get stumped before I even start. Many of the summer days are just bad for setting up good moves. If I just use the "good" charts, I don't think this is even 20% of them. I guess I'm just expecting that each day price will hit a trendline and provide a nice clean move, and if the first move doesn't work, then taking a SAR would then be the move to make up the loses and go into profit. But I see that doing an SAR entry would just be killer on some days, and there aren't enough nice and clean days to tell me to for sure just buy or sell at the trendline. It seems like context will go a long way.. long long way to helping. By context I mean the overnight as well as the hourly chart, but mostly by what is in my brain by just seeing where we are. But when I introduce this new variable (my brain isn't even a variable), all the backtesting goes out the window. It would take hours just to figure out context for each chart, and context is a bit subjective. So I'm not coming up with anything that seems like it would be "automatic" enough. But clearly there must be a way... so I just have to keep looking and trying.
Basically connecting major swing highs and swing lows going into the open. If I connect 2, and then price even touches a third going into the open, this makes my "line" even better. Essentially, I am forming a triangle of price before the open if price is somewhere between the OH and OL. I have also been drawing a SL across highs, almost like a channel if price just kept rising... or a DL along the lows if price just kept dropping overnight. Basically, I'm trying trying to draw lines from the hours before the open that contain price and wait for price to his this line.
Here is a good example from Oct 30 that shows the entire overnight. Edit: This SL I don't like as much since it connects right before the open mind you... so its no wonder that it breaks right away.
No "basically". How are you defining "major"? "Swing"? What bar interval are you using to draw these lines?
I guess by major swing, I am using the highest high, and then the next high. I am doing this on a 1 minute chart, but this should look the same on a 5 minute chart. I had gone back and forth between these two because I was seeing that the lines weren't matching up well when drawn on a 5 min and then switching to a 1 minute. I understand the reason behind this now (the software doesn't know what "minute" you used to connect if its initially drawn on the 5 minute), so now I just draw them on a 1 minute chart with the idea that the high would still be a high on a 5 minute chart. I'm not sure if this answers the question well enough though.
Theres the whole of the Grand Canyon under that pink downward trend line. You might be better off using the blue upward line at that point, but I haven't tested it myself.
LOL... yes. Essentially I just drew whatever SL I could by just connecting swing highs that wouldn't break before the open. Before this open, there was a tiny swing high, so these were the two highs I used. Clearly the trend is up based on the DL though. I'm just trying to be true to the BOPB idea of drawing in my 5 min trendlines before the open, but clearly this SL might not be all that useful since it connects just before the open and is so far away from price for the past few hours. Here is the 1 minute view... look at how good a trade works that breaks this SL... hahaha! (Like I say, I know this SL is tricky and just begging to be broken)
Whether or not it answers the question well enough will be determined when it's tested. How are you defining "break"?