Hi, You may be interested in the following posts/threads: http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/best-indicator-for-a-bounce.218301/#post-3145836 http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/day-trading-difficulties.218977/page-5#post-3156762 http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?attachments/6e-06-11-4_18_2011-60-min-gif.113104/ Good luck.
You mentioned you have a tight SL but so far you have zero losers ? This is unlikely except you let the market move back to profit level after it go against you ? e.g. you remove the SL when it almost hit it and due to the nature of the volatility in DAX, it is likely it will reverse back and let you get out with small profit ?
Only about 12 trades so far, zero time at the moment, most have turned into 4 - 5 pt scalps, the little micro range with the over all trend is pretty much guaranteed to always get you to a small profit. As said knowing when to kill them or let them run is the tricky part, I'm just killing currently banking small profits, losses will come when i get greedy and let them run. SL is auto set to 8 as I can't run it any closer, I tighten if it moves my way. Drives you nuts doing this though, be warned
Not an indicator but Market Profile is an old method to define S/R as value areas that both sides of the market agree to and where liquidity is present. Momentum , volatility occur as price moves from one area to the next. Maybe there is some method of measurement and testing available beyond observation that uses Market Profile.
I don't like SR atleast on DAX and FX, entering near bindly gets a very low win rate, if your waiting for the momo to turn, then you might aswell ignore the SR and just trade off that.
Then maybe you can use the line to close a trade, before it turns around and reduces the profits. This works for me in EUR/USD.
I reallybdont find enough in them, i use live 1s so if price has held over last 5mins say, then i join those buyers basically. Downside that entry is when it breaks down its generally fast and makes the SL slip to much. Why i focusing currently on joining an up move, low of tbe 5s range, when 1 of my emas agree with that direction, i use 21, 42, 63 emas for that. Generally a break below the 5s range is a momentum shift. But you can get hours where it holds, hence very few losers
Chart of what I do :- Basically go with the slower ema's, try to get in at the low of the white 5sma based range, obviously if it's selling badly don't get in front of it. Chop on the DAX will generally get you a few pt's but the object is to use the entry then catch bigger moves, I'm pretty much just taking the first stall for a few pts. It's making okay $$$'s, but it's hard to get in quick enough and risk the low of range won't break repeatly, be more worth it holding longer most of the time, get some 20's for risking 5-8. White badly drawn arrows mark the main areas. MoMo and chop made easy
You mentioned you have zero commission with 1 tick slippage in DAX, I assume you are using some kind of bucket shop (spread betting) than a licence broker ? You mentioned you risk about 8-9 ticks and aim for a target of 4 to 5 ticks, which mean a risk/reward ~ 2. Your cost is about 1 tick which is 25% of your profit, to me this "cost" is still quite high. DAX is quite a volatile instrument and I am quite surprise it is not hitting your SL which is only 8 to 9 ticks ? However, 12 trades without any loss is an impressive results through. I prefer to bid a small size and aim for a bigger return, example below is the trades I took in one of my swing trade account : +576 +142.5 -610 -182 -410 -530 +882.5 +1925.60 --> stop for the day Technically I should stop after the 2nd winners but I can't resist the temptation to get into another position which turn out to be the losers and followed by another 3 more losers
FXCM so not that bucket shoppy. In total agreement with you, it's an entry method which should lead to bigger profits, but I'm being a wuss and micro managing and closing out early, there has been a +15 and +20 I think. It's also a entry method, which will if I decide it's a bad trade give me a BE+ exit most of the time. If I held longer I'd obviously have more go against me, killing them early ie first stall and not risking them coming back is making safe $$$'s repeatably, might keep it this way, greed generally goes badly. I'm basically just jumping on the current MoMo but on really small pull backs, I use to trade off bigger pull backs then the risk of them being a reversal is much much higher, taken years to be able to focus at this small a level. No chance this week, work work and yes more work, throw in a virus for good measure LOL