Agreed - it is a perfectly reasonable strategy to take intraday trades along the same bias as the longer term trend.
And if you are always fading moves and making money at it, then don't change. How could anyone argue with a consistently successful methodology ? Listen, just because you can't trade a certain way personally does not mean that it is not a viable and successful strategy. Seriously. I was David Ellis' first big spread trader at DE Trading / International Trading Group in Glenview, IL starting in the late 1990's. Before going electronic, David was a top step S&P pit trader at the CME who would take a 200 lot in the big contract without blinking an eye. Now, at the same token, David was also very technical and he really knew how to use a CQG terminal. David told me that his thought process was to scoop up the price retracements and corrections on the same bias as what was an already established and recognized historical trend. Trendlines are very easy to draw. So, for example, if David saw higher highs and higher lows longer term in his charting, he would very likely be buying into S1 and S2 support levels during retracements. Simple and wildly successful for him. He still does really well electronically in terms of his personal trading. My point is that trading counter-trend to every market move is very stressful for some personality types, and that a person can indeed trade intraday and honor the longer term trend bias.
I keep reading how important volume is alongside PA. Care to help me expand my view past simply looking at volume underneath candles? Or is your interpretation of the large volume spikes (or where it drys up) the extent of it? Thanks. BD
Anyone with a chart can look at Feb-April 2010, Sept 10-Feb 11, Dec 11-March 12 or Aug-Sept 2012 etc. and see that the current action is very similar. Find some simple buy indicator which works (trendlines, MAs, floor pivots), use wider than normal stops (due to higher than normal odds), and keep rotating in at lows and out at highs until we see some sign of a phase shift. How early could you have made this determination? It's always a judgement call - maybe the 9th of January, maybe as late as the 15th. Some strong warning signs of a phase shift would be a 20+ points down day in ES which crashes through multiple erstwhile support levels, and the return of visible two-sided trading action intraday as opposed to bot-driven drift and grind, day after day closing green, etc. If you want to be precise the current action actually looks like an 'ending surge' to me implying there isn't much more left to run - but there are price magnets higher and I'm not calling a turn till we see a decisive change in the action.
It'd be cool if someone demonstrated it. I understand though that, if you're a trend trader it probably makes more sense to enter in the direction of the trend the moment you identify the trend. If a trend will last for a finite amount of time, it makes more sense to get in earlier rather than later.