A - Here is that REJ I talked about in the prep, the second one. The first one allowed me to draw that dotted cyan support line, but here when we had a poke again down it was a solid reason to go long based on the tick chart. Almost... almost got in. I might have sold just below 83 though. B - WTF??? Where did this come from? 2 minutes before the open??? Lots of stops getting run??? I'm fully aware that this now creates an airspace, so although we have a strong move up, coming down to fill this area in is on my radar. O - So we open somewhere around here... C - I mark the 50% of the up move, and since we bounce off at exactly 50%, this shows a sign of strength. D - Slightly lower high here, 3rd instance of turning around here. We just had a sign of strength below, and we aren't quite close enough to 91 for me to take a short yet. If I did, my stop would have to be around 92, so a bit risky. (says the guy who holds on for 4 point stops! LOL) E - Was that a hinge complete with a test of the apex? Ok.. price busts through after, never mind.... F - WTF??? Again??? No way to prepare for taking a long or short here, price shoots up 3 points in about 2 seconds and righ back down. Having a minute to think about it, the REJ of 91 looks good, but I'm only thinking this while at 89 now... so a bit too late to play the REV since the stop now has to be above 92. G - So although we do REV at 91, this little REJ here is in fact another high low. Hmmm... H - Looks like another REJ on this bar below here, but I don't take it because of all of these higher lows... I guess I am expecting a break of this level and going higher. I - We are inching higher. J - Really felt like buying here. The lows just keep getting higher, and when we run out of sellers, price will more than likely shoot up again. K - A bit surprised by this drop here. Had I gotten in at J, I would have sold already once the trend line following price up was broken, so would have gotten out around 91.50, good for at least as scalp. L - Is this a bounce of the little support shelf here where price was REJ at G? M - We don't quite make it to the previous high, but I cannot overlook all of the lower highs below so I still think the LOLR is up, but going long up here is problematic. So as it stands now, there are multiple reasons for why the LOLR is still up, but at the same time, we are having trouble staying above 91 so who knows how this will end. SUMMARY So it looks like no trades today. I have such a busy day which is a shame because today might be a big day once all of this mess is worked out. I do feel quite good about the stuff I'm looking at now, and I think if I get my entries worked out and learn to scratch right away I might turn profitable. This is the beauty of trading at the extremes... the exit is well defined and very close by if the entry is right at the extreme level. Getting in again after a scratch I will still need to master, as well as taking the opposite trade once I'm out for a loss is also prudent under the right circumstances. Just as I'm about to post, we do still go above M, but come back down... I bet we form a higher low and eventually go higher again!
What is? My analysis or the action? LOL I see that if I waited around just 10 more minutes, there was a strong move down, and then every level on the way down was taken out easily. Shame.... It only went 3 points above the level I was watching and when we ran out of buyers o support price up, it dropped like a rock. Now of course I kept favoring a long, which I still stand by as a solid analysis, simply because although we weren't exactly shooting up, the lows were all higher. But this picture quickly changed, and once we could make lower lows, what was more important was that we failed in the attempt to have a solid move above 91.
some big dawg called a top. or it was high enough to sell already. No you're not nuts, hopefully.... I was talking about the drop to hell in NQ. lol I was long too, but I was waiting for the panic down. Got some nice shorts. Took forever for a good fill though. I'm still learning how to stick to the PLAN!
What? I'm listening to a guy who is still learning??? LOL I can't wait to study these past few days over the weekend. Both yesterday and today has similarities in that price was going sideways and chopped lots of people up, but yesterday we continued up, today it was down. I need to figure out what the clues were, how these two days differed, and what I need to see in the future to get in on the move early.
No don't learn from me. My SIM account could tell you that. But it can't speak. It's in pain. Maybe instead of catching the move early, catch a big chunk out of middle?
What else is there to say. Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
No way to figure out anything as far as the clues, so don't try to beat yourself over it too much. This selling was news driven and came in all of a sudden, without any warning (unless you have a hotline to Vlad, LOL). It took me about 30 secs or so to react, even though I'm always watching every tick. My stop in the ES got hit instantly but still had to manually close out long positions in my other accounts. I'm glad I did . Great journal btw!
Oh... when I mentioned looking for clues, I didn't mean to the spike, I meant how after an hour of sideways action, what was the clue that it would break down. I kept mentioning a series of higher lows, but I guess on the last upswing, it failed to make a higher high. I was no longer able to watch in real time, but I see this just before the drop. By now I guess it was also apparent that buyers weren't able to take price higher. For a long time neither could sellers, but once that lower high was in, once the initial drop started, I guess that was the catalyst. Thanks for the nice comment. So far it has been a journal of what not to do! LOL... I'm hoping the turnaround starts next week!
Both comments are on the money.. can't argue with that. I think I've got the random entries when price spikes in one direction out of my system. I think I would be down only half if I didn't take these entries. And I think that I would also be down only half of the other half if I didn't hold on as long as I did with some trades, essentially waiting for the stop loss of 4 points or 5 to be hit, because I could feel in my gut that the trade wasn't working much sooner. So this, combined with looking for trades at the extremes should make a big enough difference going forward. I am exciting about studying more over the weekend and work wise, the next few weeks are very light, so there will be less distraction.