O - So the open is marked, and based on the one minute chart there isn't much to do. But lets dig into the 15 sec. A - Just before the open we have a tight little range which holds for a minute or two, with the upper resistance line at the open indicated by this line. B - Any attempts to go lower are bought up, forming higher lows. I am already visualizing these lines before I draw them in. Basically, if we can break above A, it should be a good move. I could enter long at one point above A. Now when I look on the one minute, I don't see this, I just have to wait until we get to C. The SLA entry could be at one point above this, indicated by the green arrow on the one minute, but it never triggers. In the 15 sec, we see a few attempts to breach 3990 but can't. A previous swing low at D is what I'm gonna watch. D - For 3 minutes we are in this tight range, but once price drops below D, down we come! I know that I mentioned how crazy it is to take trades off the 15 sec, but using this in conjunction with the 1 minute which shows you the general trend is I think a winning combination. I guess in a way I am thinking about just making a few points. I need the steady stream of points, I want the wins, the consistency. The market is a bit choppy these past few weeks, maybe this is what the summer session is all about. Db does after all say you have to characterize your market, and doing this for an entire year would be great, and so if this is what the summer is like, then I cannot hold through deep RETs as I am seeing with my trading thus far. I get stopped out, I enter moves too late. Anyway... moving on. E - So the drop brings us below the opening price, and although we have some hesitation here, I do put in some sell stops in accordance with SLA. The second one is moved up to reflect the higher low on the bar. I get a fill as you can see and draw in my SL. I have seen in the past how I could just get a fill for a short at what turns out to be a higher low, so I'm watching very closely. F - My exit is above here. I see the bounce, I realize that 79 was a level of congestion yesterday I outlined, and because I am trading by way of my P&L, which is bad, and because I need a good day, for emotional reasons, which is just as bad, I'm out. (at least I had a solid reason based on price!) As it turns out, our SL does break, so the exit isn't so bad. I'm up $56. G - So we just every so barely breach the SL but come back down, perfect for a re-entry. I don't take it, but its marked where it should be. It would fill, just before price shoots back up. H - In fact, this could almost set up a long here. If we wanted to be anal, which I guess you can't be with trading, gotta be more fluid, but we could say this is a RET for a long, which happens just at the SL break. Works for a point or two, but back down we come. Now we have a down trend as we can see in hindsight from just after the open, but this bounce from F at 77 to just above H at 84 is a pretty serious recoil. I even have the DL drawn in and it has a higher low. A fellow member has been emailing me and pointed out how, or rather reminded me, just as Db says, that losing the lines is important. They do get broken, and are very arbitrary depending on how you draw them is what I am myself seeing. They help, but can't be used religiously. They are only mean to show you when price is moving up or down. I - Anyway, after saying all that, if we do draw in the next SL, we have a RET here for a short. It ultimately fails, but if we get out at the line break or just above, its a BE trade. There is still a LH and LL, so really, our down trend hasn't ended, just our SL has broken. This makes the entry difficult mind you, and you're in negative territory for a while if you keep holding, but the proper entry is higher up anyway so this is just a recoil that breaks the SL in an otherwise down trend. J - Now this is just another lower high right now, but its used later. K - This is just another lower low for now, but it too has significance. L - Here we fail to make a lower low, so I'm gonna watch this level to see if we drop below. We have after all fanned our SL a few times, so the down trend is running out of steam. M - Here we actually make a higher high, but it matches the level at J, so I can draw this line, and I'm setting up a range here. N - Here we drop below, and I'm inclined to take a short perhaps, thinking that we are now going below this area of congestion, but it ultimately doesn't go anywhere. P - We ever so slightly go above the J-M resistance line, but turn back down again. Selling at 75 and buying at 70 is money in the bank! Q - Is this a hinge? When a hinge happens in a range, its just part of the range mostly, but perhaps this can launch a good move. Ideally we would also either go above 75 or below 68 to really have faith in the move. I should also point out that all of this is happening around the overnight low at 72, the mean of all of this action for the past hour is this 72 level. Oppps... took the screen capture of my chart too late so we can see how we just trickle out into more sideways action, not a huge surprise given how price got too squeezed, its supposed to exit before the hinge closes for the move to have strength, and it also happens in a well defined range, so another negative for the hinge this time. SUMMARY So only one trade, and obviously for money reasons to stay positive today. I felt very sure about what I outlined at the beginning, the first long followed by the short, but I didn't take them because its not tested. I can also say now that we failed to reach the overnight high, so that makes the short also have more strength, but so much of this is after the fact realization. We have a very clear down trend, but the SLA entries are a bit problematic if I get freaked out with price going against me 2 or 3 points, which I do. But it is a move down of 20 points, 10 of which would almost be easy to capture. Also showing a second chart. As I type this, the hinge action cleared itself up, but when I look on my other monitor where I have a more compressed one minute chart, here is what I see. I see the range, the top pink line. I also see price getting squeezed up against the upper resistance line by way of the line that tracks price up, the DL I guess, although I draw it in thick to not be a DL but to show the effect of this squeeze, and I see the little break. Sure enough, it takes off! Once it takes off, it has left the range, and its a good reason to take a long. There is even a nice RET in there with one point above getting you in the move at roughly 77 worth a solid 5 points now, a very low risk 5 points is what I figure based on my observations thus far of seeing this behavior in ranges.
Interesting to see how yesterday was in fact one big hinge. Now it looks to have dropped out the bottom, only after the market close mind you, and we have even a gap after the brief pause. Overnight, there hasn't been a rally like on the may days leading up to today. Price has bounced between 3955 and 3965. On the hourly, we can see that no matter what DL you draw, it has broken, and there is a SL in play. The first one broke, but only as a result of sideways action, so the fanned one is still good. The result of price breaking out of the hinge is really quite prominent and I think sets up a very nice down move. So in some ways, I am going into today with a short bias, but lets just call this more of a LOLR, or just a continuation of the trend to make it sound more appropriate. Of course we can also have a bit of a rally at the open to let the traders who want to buy get in, but after so many up days, after getting close to the top of the channel, and after what looks to be a strong turn around, I think going down has a higher probability based on what I see at the moment.
A - So just before the open we do drop below the overnight low, but I have to remember that this level isn't significant until there are a few instances of price doing something around this level. Here it is just the overnight now, where price turned around only once. But it still made me feel as if I should have gone short and am missing out. What is holding me back is knowing that at the open, there could be a frenzy of activity that might stop me out of a position in a trend that might still continue. O - Just like here. Price does go back into the overnight range at the open (not really a range once again since there aren't multiple instances of price bouncing off the upper and lower bounds). Price does stop short of the SL which is good. B - I mark a possible short here and it fills. Goes against me a bit, but once again, it turns back down at the SL and then I'm just watching the points add up. This got me in trouble though. I had my short bias, I entered my short, its working, and so now I will use any excuse to hold on. Having entered my short at 3952, and with price dropping below 47, I am more than $100 ahead by now and thinking its just a matter of time before I see how many bills I make! I just fully believed that today would be a big drop and I'm so happy to have gotten in early. C - We start to turn around here, but no problem, lets see what happens if price goes back up to the SL. It gets there and crosses it. No problem, lets see what happens at my entry level (as if this matters, the market doesn't know where I entered). It hits my entry but comes back down. Ok.. no problem. Now I am watching the 15 sec chart all the way up, and I just don't see a higher low yet, so I'm waiting for that, but clearly, we have gone from a low of 46, up to over 51, which is more than 5 points and so this is gonna be one huge recoil if we do in fact still turn around to go down. D - After finally seeing it, I'm out. Once again, worst possible place as price does dip down again and forms a higher low that is visible on the one minute chart, but this was still the beginning of an up move. How on earth did I let price go against me so much? I turned a decent profit into a -$19 loss. No worry about the money, its the way the trade was handled. I do often see price going against a trade just to test an apex, or in this case, I was watching the opening level, but even this was so far away that if price was truly going to test it and come back down, there is no point in hanging on for the ride. It becomes more apparent when I show the tick chart. Lately I am watching the 15 sec and tick chart more, and here, without even marking in any lines, you can see how the exit should have been way lower just based on the higher highs and higher lows. These didn't stand out too much in the 15 sec chart, but its clear here. I will do some reorganizing of my chart windows over the weekend now that I have a better idea of what I'm really going to be watching. E - No worries, lets just continue. I really am getting so much better about just getting back up on that horse. Here would be the SLA entry for a long. The DL does break in the range that follows, but it wouldn't be a big loss, and if held, can still turn into a profitable trade, but only in hindsight. I know in real time, I'd be out for a loss, most likely at G if I even held on that long. F - So a few bounces around this level make me draw in this resistance line to see if we do in fact form a range here. It does looks solid because once we leave, we do leave out the top. Just like with SL/DL's, there is an art to drawing ranges. Unless you have each bar match tick for tick, you really have to have lots of experience with how you define a range. I go back and forth. Sometimes I use the value at which price bounces off of the most, sometimes I use the most extreme value so that once penetrated, it will be obvious that price went higher or lower. G - What I have drawn in as a support line does get breached here, a nice little fake-out, and I can see the move back up is strong. So if I'm gonna take a trade that leaves a range, I gotta hammer out where the safe entry is to minimize getting stopped into a false move, but to get the best price right at the beginning of the move. And then of course where the stop should be to get out for minimal loss since here, the move ended up being out the top actually. Is a stop and reverse trade therefore justified if the initial exit doesn't follow through? So many good questions... I wish someone else had the answers for me! LOL H - Here would be an SLA long. I have my DL drawn in from the lows at G, which is a tight line, but leaving the range is a good sign, and the fact that we tried to go out the bottom first but traders kept buying higher is another good sign. You cans see an entry a bit higher, taken off a tick chart just to get in. I - You can see an exit here as well. Nothing wrong with the trade, maybe just a bit of hesitation in the tick chart, but I just want to be in the positive for today in case this would be my last trade. Silly I know, but hey, this might be 2 positive days in a row! (LOL... my positive days in no way make up for my losing days, so I'm fully aware of the flaw in my logic and I in no way mean to present this as being what I think... just some good old humor) So now I'm up +$7. (of course when I'm trading 100 contracts this will be up $700!) The DL does in fact break and we just cannot penetrate that upper resistance line I draw in. Following this is a serious of lovely lines, all pointless in the whole grand scheme of things, but since today wasn't a great trending day off the open, I've got time to try a few things out. J - So by the time we get to here, I'm looking at my 5 minute chart and notice the break of the uptrend from the low at 46. If I draw in this DL on the one minute, the break is obvious, and there is a RET here for a short. Now this is a very messy area, sort of in the middle of a range, but that lower high above looks solid, and we might at least come down to 55 to see what traders want to do at that previous swing low. K - I didn't take this, missed it by moments, but after getting focused again, I was watching the tick chart and saw a lovely entry on the tick chart so I took that. I really was just messing around, knowing I'm just gonna scalp, but it worked. So now I'm up +$23. L - So I'm only typing at this point, went to the bathroom, and wow, major drop. You can see a scalp way way down. It was a scalp because I just took a short off the tick chart, full well knowing I'm way into the move so a turn around can happen any time. But then I realized I went short at exactly the low of the day which you can see at C, so I slid that profit target up and although I was in the negative for a few seconds, my profit target hit and I was out for ticks. So now I sit at +$34. What a shame to miss this whole move. The entire day has been kind of slow, but with price dropping at the level of L, having cleared the previous low which happened to be at the blue line of the overnight low, my chances of taking a short were very good below 55, so this could have been an easy 10 points. SUMMARY There is so much homework to do over the weekend. This week has been rough, but thanks to some emails back and forth with a fellow member, I think this might be a turning point. I am fairly good about getting into moves now. If they take off right away, I'm already in which is good. If they turn on me, I need to get out sooner, but just this piece of information, price turning on me, might point to a trading range sort of day or mean reversion kind of day. This will therefore I think put me more into a scalping mode where I'm not going to be waiting for the 20 point move, but happy to get a few consistent points, waiting for breaks of ranges or whatever else I test as statistically valid. As for the exits, I see in the many trades this past week that made me take a fairly heavy loss, when I plot them on a 15 sec chart, the exit sooner is much more obvious, and this is also the case for the trades that initially worked for a few points but I held them until I was in negative territory. So although I said earlier that trading off a 15 second chart would be crazy, I only arrived at this conclusion if I was using only this one chart. But with the main chart being the 1 minute, cross referencing a 5 minute for seeing the longer term trend since this seems to work so well, and then using the 15 sec to look for a great place to enter is I think going to be a winning strategy. M - As I type this, we have a RET here for an SLA long as marked. We also have this resistance line mind you, but what came up first was the SLA long. N - This lines completes my little wedge, and although we have a slight dip below, lets see where this going. Two ticks above M, so at 3948 I would think to go long. If it triggers, I'm very curious to see where price goes, or how far it goes against me.
So to follow-up with the last trade.. it would have worked out well. The price at 48 would never trigger. That DL that tracks price up gets broken, and we see at P that price can't even make it to the previous highs. When price bounces off Q, just a tick below the previous lows, I can use this to draw in a range. So when price drops below this at R, it just keeps going. On the one minute chart there is no RET that can be seen to enter, the only RET is within the range, but on the 15 sec or even tick chart, it for sure is there. So the one minute here provides the context, and the lower bar interval chart would provide the entry. Its a fairly good drop, and with an entry of roughly 43, an exit of roughly 38 could be a solid 5 points. Edit: Opps.. that N-Q line should be aqua in color since it provides support before it breaks.
There is an interesting discussion going on in another thread entitled "Is Day Trading Worth It". It seems that not many of us SLA people have made it work yet. I do believe that there are for sure nuances that each trader must really hammer out for himself. Taking each and every single trade on the one minute chart works very well when the NQ is trending, but not so well when its in a range. So I think it takes a bit of time to develop the keep eye to know the difference. The method was after all developed to just show the trader if price is moving up or down, and once you figure out how to read this, losing the lines is what you are supposed to do. The system after all is a trend following system because this is where most of the money is made. The huge point that was brought up has to do with the emotions. A profitable system will still have loses, and if the environment that you start to trade in is choppy or doesn't trend as well, you might not last long enough to see the long term nature of a profitable edge. I have seen this in the charts that fortydraws used to post from last summer and into September. Right at the open price really took off one way or another, and if there was a reversal, it was definitive and took off in the other direction. Many days these past few months have been choppy, so it has been emotionally difficult to just follow the trend when what little trend there is is over by the time you get in. I myself have shown on my charts where the SLA entries should have been, and sure enough, many of them worked and would have made the day profitable. I have gone over a week with just applying SLA and seen that blindly following the lines would have made the week positive and given me a much better result than all my thinking thrown in. Now of course I also saw that in real time, there is an art to how tight you make your lines and what you consider a line break, but these are nuances that you can develop a firm rule for, which I haven't yet, and once you backtest this to see what works best, applying it every time is what would then be necessary. So I think that the SLA is an excellent method, but the trader still has to make it his own. But what the SLA doesn't address is the emotional response of the trader, and really, no trading method would help in this regard as its a separate issue from what would actually go into the mechanical trading plan. This is why I am trading with real money. I am trying to teach myself to not have emotional responses and to take each trade as it comes regardless of the previous trade. Its not easy, but I see that this is the only way to become profitable. And I do believe that with practice I can become desensitized to the emotional responses and hence why I am still pushing forward even though I don't have a solid trading play laid out yet. PREP FOR JULY 28 Ok.. enough about that. I am attaching the 5 minute chart which shows the overnight range marked in, 3946-3963... or rather that was the range until price shot up to 65 and turned back down. There is so much going on in this price range from yesterday that no specific level stands out. The high of yesterday at 65 is where we just turned around now so lets see what happens if we make another go at it as this level has been rejected a few times now. I also have this hourly chart. You can see the hinge I drew in, which I did last night before going to bed. The hinge did close, so price didn't exactly shoot out one way or another, but price has pretty much remained about the apex. Based on this hourly chart, we certainly do have higher highs and higher lows, so this downtrend of the past few days might be over. Lets see what happens at the open!
A - So about 30 mins before the open, we could have had a DL drawn in which broke as a result of the bounce off the previous day high at 65. Price starts coming down and we can plot in a SL and an entry for a short. The trade would go sideways for a bit, but never make you run for the exits. B - The SL can be fanned once here since it broke earlier. C - Just before the open it looks like we just might be having a rally at the open because of this little thrust up. O - The open actually happens lower down, and for two minutes price can't go above the open. D - I figure this looks good and I take a short here. It happens to be at the line I have marked in as the mean of the overnight range, but I'm not using that as a reason to not put the trade on, my mean lines are after all arbitrary. As you can see it goes against me instantly and I'm out on the next bar. So I'm now at -$64. I hate starting with a loss. E - So the exit was good since price just kept going up, but we turn around here at 62. I don't have a DL drawn in, I did after all just go short, but the drop is fairly obvious which would have broken it if drawn in. F - So this kind of sucks that price barely went 3 points above the open and came right down again, hesitating ever so slightly at my previous entry for a short. Here I show where the SLA short would be, and once price comes down to trigger it, we can draw our SL. I'm foolishly reluctant to short around the same level I just tried to short before as it looks like we might just be in a tight range today, maybe a mean reverting day where we just go up and down around the opening price level. G - So by the time we come here, that short is already worth 5 points and I'm really missing out. I find an entry on the 15 sec and I take it. I'm in and out on the same bar because price came back up and I just didn't want to suffer another loss so I'm just out at BE. H - So price just touches the SL and comes back down again, so lets try again. You can see my entry and my exit. Exit was based on the slightest hesitation and want to keep the less than 2 points I have. I figure that if I missed the first best entry, I will at least try and just make this a break even day with a couple of scalps to climb back up. So I'm now at -$34. I - Here would be an SLA long after a SL break and the new DL drawn in. It doesn't go anywhere, so it has to be scratched for maybe a point or two loss. J - Here would be an SLA short. K - Here would be an SLA long after the SL break, but it doesn't trigger and instead price comes back down. L - So now here would be a short. Its based on what I saw happening on the 15 sec as pictured in the insert. Didn't take it, and sadly just watched price plummet. You can see price bumping up against the support level, but each time it goes back up it just can't get any higher than the previous bar. So the only option is to break through, or bounce off and in fact make higher highs. I need some stats, but it breaks through at least 50% of the time, and when it does, the move is good for the most part. So this is why I look to get in at just below the support level. M - Here is a short I do take, also as pictured on the 15 second. And then I spent a few minutes wishing and hoping. I was missing out on this trade since about 39, and we are all the way at 30 now. This entire day has been down now, and I just want to get in once again for all, but full well knowing the move can end any time. I'm seeing the behavior set-up that makes me favor a long, )the opposite of what I saw up above at L), but I just entered my short, and yet I keep holding, wishing and hoping. I wanted to exit a bit lower, but when I finally closed the trade, price shot right up so I think I got caught paying a whole extra point above where I wanted to exit. I guess they called that slippage! So I'm now at -$116. N - I am somewhat watching this develop, same exact behavior with the resistance line and up sloping support line, but have zero confidence, and the fear of making today worse overrides the desire to get to break even, so I'm not even looking for more trades. Once again, this would be good for at least 4 points. SUMMARY I can see even at the end of the day why I went short. Taking a 3 point loss was perhaps a bit much, but oh well. No long would have triggered on the way, so that's good, and I can see why I didn't want to take that short again right at the same level where it didn't work out the first time. But this was a drop after all of 30 points, and we have the reversal at a key level, the previous day high of 65. As it is now, we have retraced 50% of this down move (from 60 to 30 lets say), so we are now at 45. So 30 points down, 15 points up, and I sit at a loss of -$116. Kind of pathetic I would say. Going over previous days now as I'm starting to print out charts to put into a book, I see that often we do move up or down from the open a good amount. Some days are mean reverting, and I will get some stats once I have a few months printed out (a whole year will be best to see what this summer session is like), but I'd say its more likely that we either end up going up or down from the open. So getting into the direction early on would be the best, because if I don't, all that happens is I end up getting chopped up like today. Its not catastrophic, but the first trade was perhaps early, the last 2 were just random, and the entire move down was missed.
Hi KP.... nice journal. excellent job describing what you are doing. A few comments on your chart: 0. First is that I only took 1 NQ trade today. 1. I don't use moving averages or trend lines anymore. For todays price action, I looked at the high of yesterday (sunday) as resistance at about 3963 and when price started moving down, I didn't have to draw a line to see the near term direction was down. Once I decide that direction is down, then all I look for is pullbacks that may indicate a pause in the move. if, i'm still not sure of direction, then i would have waited for a pullback like the one at point E. I divide my entry process into several pieces. First is to determine price direction. Second is to look for a setup in the form of a pullback. and last is to look for a trade trigger in the form of price then continuing in the price direction prior to the pullback. 2. once the direction was down, price hit 3956 (about the daily floor trader pivot) and bounced off of that area. I would have shorted after price pulled back up to your resistance area (noted by Points A, B and C) and then turned back down. somewhere between 3957-3956... its really difficult for me to judge entries without seeing some sort of pullback. so my entry would be somewhere after your point E and used a stop market to ensure that price was really moving back down. Quite often, if i enter when price is running, that entry is just prior to a pullback that hits my stoploss. 3. I suspect that I would have exited the trade about 3946 and the low of sunday. Price then moved nicely down to about 3941 and pulled back up to around 3946. The same applies here, price pulls back into some resistance and I would have taken a short when price started moving back down. The entry would have been somewhere between 3946-3943. 4. I'm not sure what your green line is at 3938, but price hit support here and pulled back up again, opening the chance for another short trade. In between 3939-3936. 5. The price move down from 3966 to 3930 is a really good move for NQ and I would have been expecting some sort of pullback or reversal about then. The problem is... when is it a pullback or reversal. I always wait for 1-2 pullbacks down after the reversal, before I decide its a reversal up. In this case, price bounced off of 3929 upward and then pulled back down close to 3929 again. Price couldn't punch through 3929 and when price started back up again, I would have decided that price direction was up and entered long after the pullback you labeled N and somewhere between 3933 and 3936. 6. There were a couple of other chances for long trades. The first was when price hit 3948 (close enough to 3946), pulled back down and then moved up again. The other was a nice wide pullback starting about 3956 and pulling back down to about 3946 (i took this trade, in at 3949, out at 3966). both of these trades long would have been profitable. I know that some of what I have said might not match to the process you are using, so feel free to ignore any or all of what I have said. cheers toucan
Thanks for reading! First, the 3938 green line is the previous day low. You're right, there was a bit of resistance at this line, but this didn't jump out at me at all. But I make sure to draw in previous day highs and lows. Its absolutely frustrating to be doing the work of all this prep and not take advantage of it. Your thinking process sounds spot on, and I like how you are ready to take that reversal back up after a pretty good drop. I'm not sure why I'm not seeing this in real time and why I'm not acting on it better. For today, I was unfortunately in the wrong frame of mind. From the open, based on my chart, it looked like we could be in a range sort of day, going around the mean, and by the time it was clear that we would just keep dropping, I tried to find a place to get in, but only managed a scalp and then of course of sold right at the bottom. It was far too late anyway, regardless of the outcome, and the exit should have been better anyway, so lots of mistakes made.
So I'm a little pissed about today. Not only did I have the right levels plotted in, and price bounced off the previous day high, but I just didn't take advantage of the drop down which was in fact 30 points. Going over the chart though I find something interesting which bugs me. When I reload the data, things move a bit. In real time, I notice price really starts to move somewhat after 08:29.30. I just assume that traders are getting in their trades before the opening bell. I watch for 08:30.00 and see what happens then, but I almost think that the times aren't matched up well and the beginning happens before my platform hits 08:30.00 and start forming that first bar. Look at the attached imagine. My live chart shows the opening bar above D with the red O, and you can clearly see the tick where the bar begins, then price drops. But on the reloaded chart data, without moving my drawings, the open happens where I colored in yellow, maybe a couple of points higher. This to me changes everything. First, in the reloaded data, it certainly looks like we first went down, the bounce back up to E is a test of the opening level, and when we come back down, it looks like a clear rejection of the opening price level. But in the live data, it looks as though we first tried down, then tried up, and although we are coming down again, because I think we already rejected both, I'm not sure what to think. What's worse, in the reloaded data, my short happens at the bottom of the third overlapping bar... no way would I short there. This is almost a tiny little range and I'm selling at the bottom of a range before it come back up. At least selling a point below these bars is what would seem more appropriate and price of course never goes that low until 6 minutes later. Perhaps this looked better on the 15 second chart, heck, maybe even the tick chart, and I do have both of those up, but I'm trying to stick with the one minute as my main chart. I'm of course not blaming the chart, and I can only work with what I see, and one mistake shouldn't ruin a day, but its still frustrating. I mean you can clearly see why I shorted in the first live chart, and you have to wonder what the heck I'm thinking when you see it on the reloaded data. Perhaps if this first loss of 3 points didn't happen I would have been able to see the drop more clearly and gotten in sooner. This is also the one frustration I have with SLA. I can see a move, and I'm waiting for one bar to close slightly higher or lower, giving all the power to that one tick! The RET is in there somewhere after all. A fellow trader has emailed me and of course the entry can be made sooner as SLA can be applied to a shorter bar interval chart, so I'm hoping I can make this work going forward. But my gosh, how much the picture changes when you just package up these ticks differently.
Will we have a repeat of yesterday? We just bounced off 3970.75 which is just a touch above the high of the previous day, just like yesterday where we bounced of 65, the PDH then, and it was downhill from there. We had such a huge day yesterday that the PDL is over 40 points below at 3929. The overnight range is quite large as well, 3950 to 3970. I think for today, I will reload my charts after the first couple of minute to see what the opening really looks like, or perhaps just focus on the 15 second chart for the first little bit as I don't want a repeat of yesterday where it made a fairly significant difference. I could go through and outline all the different levels to be looking out for, but I call this more of an advanced move. I really should just focus on putting a trade on and managing it properly for the first few minutes, be it holding for more than a scalp, or getting out when it doesn't look good as opposed to hoping and wishing.