How do you decide to trigger a buy or sell to enter a trade? For example for the trade(s) you took today?
I mostly orient on levels of support and resistance, and the patterns the highs and lows of price fluctuations form. I’m trying to long when I think the price hit a support and will bounce off, and short when it hits resistance. On the screenshot above, I took a short trade where the crosshair is. I drew the blue trend lines, and figured out the price is going down for quite a while, so I can just short. Problem is, the yellow line on the screenshot turned out to be a support zone that I for some reason didn’t notice. To give some context, that’s how a chart for a higher scale looks like. The yellow line and the purple and blue rectangles are the support and resistance areas I identified. I then took another trade today: So I took a long trade where the crosshair is. I thought that the price reached the purple rectangle that I identified as a support/resistance zone. I saw that it started to consolidate there for quite a while without bouncing right away. I also saw that the price was rising to that point in two big pushes, so I figured the trend is upwards. And just as I longed it bounced down.
Just going to comment on first one. Chit happens missing the fact your short entry was into support. Been there done that, although it was glaringly so in this case. But you were going short after it dropped a lot which most of the time is asking too much out of the market. Best to wait for a retrace at least. Lastly notice on right hand side a perfect long setup once price revisited support zone again.
Can you be more specific than 'Three hours in the evening'? Is that Eastern Time Zone where New York is? I notice on your charts that you have trade marked entry at what - 9:30 AM? Are you available from 8:00 AM - 11:00 ET? or what?
‘Three hours in the evening’ is Central Europe time, so more like 9 PM - 0 AM. The one at 9:30 I did from my phone at work, looked at the chart and couldn’t hold myself XD but that was more of a casual trade, I’m still looking for an optimal way to manage my time trading. Looking at the charts and doing trades when there’s a minute here and there and seeing how it plays out is nice, but I it only has my full attention in the evening when I’m free.
Keep trying the goal is to get to 0.5% of profit per day, or 10% per month. I'm thinking of keeping a trades diary: do 2-3 trades per day, log the reasons for me to take them, then reflect how it played out. Journaling helped me a lot before to make sense of things, maybe it'll help with trading as well. What do you think I should do?
imho, Two considerations: 1) Scheduling during Action. 2) Simple Setups and Triggers 1)Scheduling: If you can work out how to trade during hours when 'action' occurs repeatedly and consistently, for example between 8:00AM and 12:00 Eastern time, accurate setups can be had during that slice of time on a consistent basis. On the other hand, there's a trader, Maxinger, here on ET that slices his day into 3 - 2 hour sections that span the clock - linked here... https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...rivatives-futures.335584/page-79#post-5759915 2) Simple Setups: Given that you may need to spot a setup and trigger combo At A Glance, At Work, you will want the simplest no bullshit tested method that answers in no uncertain handwaving terms the following questions: linked https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...solid-trading-plan.340340/page-4#post-5031706 Suffice to say that it is highly recommended that whatever setups and triggers you decide to use should be tested to prove that they work in your hands with a high enough probability to make it worth your time. The fewer variables in play the better. Simple Setups.