Every traders experienced that kind of feeling and those "stupid" losing days. However, that is the only way the market teach you discipline and the importance of your trading plan. Don't worry to fail and lose money. Instead, lose money until you find and overcome all your faults. In fact, by waiting the setups your plan says, only this can save you losing lots of money. Don't worry to lose money. But learn something from those failures. And let your "trading brain" work properly, train it. I think you are on the right path.
I tried to find stats, but without doing paper trading, it's impossible to look at a chart and know how I would read it in real time and I am not in the mood to do paper trading today. I guess I'm kind of in the dark as to what the stats are for each set up and it is something I should know so I'll likely work on it at some point in the future. After looking over my different set ups in the MES, I just don't find one that has all the things I'm looking for, which is basically, to go somewhere quickly and not come back to take out my stop loss. Maybe the MES has just become too volatile for the way I'm trying to trade it and I haven't been willing to be flexible to adjust for the volatility. I'm switching, temporarily, to the Micro 6E, which has it's own problems. I do sometimes trade it, but unless I get the direction right and it actually moves, it has been impossible to be profitable with. There is a lot of slippage and it has only half as many ticks as the 6E. I don't think I'll stick with it for more than a day, but I want to give it my attention without being distracted with the MES. This chart looked unreadable to me until I put up the trendlines and boxes. Still looks difficult. Like I said, it's just for a day and just to clear my mind of the MES, unless it turns out that it is tradable. As far as my entries go: I will try to get into a trend using retracements. No countertrend trades, unless it follows my rules for possibly starting a new trend direction. I have more rules than this that I just wrote out and yeah, they are still flexible, but I need to see how it goes. I'm thinking it will be easier to trail the 5 minute candles in the M6E than it was in the MES.
A rules based trader does not "find" stats. They generate their stats using setups and triggers on charts as described above. If they find a setup that generates probability of success then the ability to follow the rules becomes the task. To trade the setup according to the rules is done the same way on an old chart as they need to be done in realtime. The trader either has the ability to trade the setup / trigger or the trader does not. Does that make sense? Here's an example of a setup that has a classic "trigger" for entry. Keep in mind that lots of artistic traders swear by their artistic method. Rules based trading is not for everyone. If you want to look into rules based trading, here's a simple setup to get your protocol chops underway. Your trading plan can start with one setup tool and expand onto a plan that has a toolbox with as many setup protocols as you have stats and confidence in So, if you are indeed interested in fact rather than in theory, here's a black and white place to get the show on the road step by step. Do your stats? Break a leg. https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...t-right-here-baby.335635/page-18#post-5309309
Entering with a 4 hour chart instead of a 1 minute chart? In that case, maybe the slippage wouldn't matter so much! But you'd only get one trade every week or so!!! And that would probably happen overnight and I'd miss it. Thanks. Double tops and trendlines are great!
Are you serious? Are you saying that this setup is only for 4hr charts? Is that your excuse? LOL You are such a kidder. You have the makings of a budding artistic trader. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. Sturm und drang - https://www.dogpile.com/serp?q=Sturm+und+drang
"budding artistic trader" NOT going to happen. I am going to be as rules based as a computer algorithm. I've had enough of trying to trust myself. I want rules that work. I have rules that work, I just can't use the stop loss size needed to trade them on the MES. I can usually be profitable in demo trading 5 minute candles but the stop loss is so large that I would never do it in real life...I have large drawdowns in demo at some point if just on 5 minute candles, even though I generally will end with a nice profit. My problem with the ES is that down on the 1 minute or 15 second charts I can't seem to get in with a 10 tick stop loss and not get stopped out. Why 10 ticks? Just because I want it to go somewhere and I think 10 ticks is all I want to risk. There is some logic behind it. If you think there is a move to make 20 to 30 ticks but the 1 min candle is 20 ticks away, well, it makes sense to get in and only risk 10 ticks....AS LONG AS you can be accurate in getting it to go to 20 to 30 ticks without taking your 10 tick stop loss first. And I can't do that on the MES. I keep thinking if I just get in at the right point it will go and not come back....but do you know how many trades I move to BE after going about 10 ticks into profit, and it still comes back and take it out? If I move my stop loss farther away, then the risk to reward goes down and I'm not that accurate in calling direction, so I end up losing then too. So that is my logic, but obviously, it is probably a logical fallacy since it is NOT working. Take a look at this chart. There are only 3 places where price just drops and doesn't come back to test an entry. Well, there are other places, if you look at the tops along the drops down, the last top does seem to go far. But I cannot figure out how to get in right at the top of the pullback on the drop down, When that happens, I think it will reverse and go up. But that is the place where it seems one could get in and move to BE and have a safe trade.
LOL I guess I was just thinking about the trade set up being on a 4 hour chart. I don't mind finding set ups on 4 hr charts or 1 hr charts, and then trying to get in on a 1 minute chart, but I was just trying to think about what it would be like to only use a 4 hr chart and not fine tune the entry on a 1 minute and the thought came to me that people using only a 4 hr chart probably could care less about the slippage on the 1 minute chart of the M6E. The double top set up is great, and I do know that they work all time frames.
I'm still not sure what I think about trading the M6E. It wasn't stress free trading today and maybe I'm hoping for too much to think trading will ever be stress free. I ended up with 5 demo ticks. I don't plan to make this into a journal where I share my trades or how I'm doing. This journal is just meant to provide me with some accountability for keeping rules. But for today I will show my demo trades on the M6E. These are the only trades I took today. I'm undecided if I want to continue with the M6E. It is actually moving along nicely at the moment so, like I mentioned in an earlier post, the key to trading this might be to find those places where there is a strong trend. I guess the important question is whether or not I can manage to find those trends and make a profit on the M6E easier than making a profit with the MES. I'll give it some thought today. Not sure what I will trade tomorrow.