Picaso, thank you for the good word, most appreciated! You aren't kidding about NoDoji and her price prowess... one lesson over the weekend, and I just had my 2nd-best morning ever... I think I captured 80% of the price action before noon... all due to those little tips in the pdf... and I seriously doubt we've exhausted her supply Cheers, \gg
LMAO! I'm tired of CONSISTENCY! I want the BIG ONE! I want to be the one who shorted CL today @ 74.42. (I did.) And then held it till now and is still holding it! (I didn't and I'm not.) I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not (yet) the Queen of Price Action because I don't trade all my signals. I'm the Peasant Serf of Price Action, who crouches down each day in the vast field of trading opportunity and pulls up the potatoes she thinks might be good based on the leafy greens sticking up through the ground, thereby missing some of the finest potatoes available. Since I started the day on ES Journal in a Monty Python mood during my ongoing quest for the Holy Grail, I would like to close with a clip of me and my fellow peasants: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAaWvVFERVA "I'm being repressed!"
You guys crack me up... On to today: Actually turned out to be a pretty decent day considering what I had to deal with on the platform side. My mentality was interesting today...there were a couple of trades I really wanted to be in but was hesitant because of the issues i was having with the platform. But on the flipside, I am wondering if I didn't use good enough judgement on trades 2-4. No question though, the platform cost me money today. Trade 1: 7:02- Long 1048.75 Stop 1046.25 Target 1058.00 7:04- move stop to 1047.25 7:10- move stop to B/E 7:14- move stop to 1050.75 7:14- Sell 1051.75 +3.00 pts I got a really crappy fill on this trade...the market was moving pretty fast but I had a limit order in well before it reached the 1048.00 level...I have a hard time believing I was that far down the line to get this fill. I really think this had something to do with the ToS and their order sending. So that cost me a 0.5-1.0 pts or so...kinda a bummer. But, my major criticism with this trade is that I got really anxious around the 1052.00 range, I saw momentum dying (well at least it looked like it on my screen) and price started to find resistance. I got out thinking there was a pullback coming or possible reversal. In hindsight, I think my target was way off the mark and should've evaluated my target more closely and that is where the anxiety came from. It turned out to be the right call, I just wish the anxiety wasn't there, more like confidence in exiting because of the momentum dying is what I was looking for. Trade 2: 7:38- Short 1048.50 Stop 1050.00 Target uhhhhhh hello dummy? 7:40- Buy to cover 1048.25 +0.25 pts This was a trade I shouldn't have been in. Not totally sure what I was thinking and I think that shows since I didnt have a target written down in my notes. I realized this was a bad trade when it hit around 1046.75-1047.00 range where there was some support...again, maybe for a scalp trade this would be ok, but not for me right now. Once again, when I realized I should get out and price was right around 1047.00, I hit the market buy and it didn't get filled till it moved another ~0.75 points. I guess in the end Im lucky to come away ahead, but it sucks fighting the platform. Trade 3: 8:36- Long 1052.75 Stop 1051.75 Target 1055.00ish 8:39- stopped out at 1051.75 -1.00 pts Need your guys opinion on this one...I felt like this was a pretty good set-up, it broke thru the triangle formation on some momentum, but it turn right back around for a retest where I got stopped out. I chose my target as the 50% retracement level from yesterday's HOD to early morning LOD. Was my stop just too tight? I didn't think this would be a homerun type trade since it was the middle of the day but at least good for a couple points. Trade 4: 11:37- Short 1045.75 Stop 1047.25 Target 1042.25 11:42- Buy to cover 1044.50 +1.25pts Can I start screaming now? AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! This was my last straw for the day with ToS. I really wanted to be in this trade at 11:12-11:13 when it bounced (for like the 10th time) off the upper channel. I have in my notes to take it short on a reversal moving down off the 1052.50 range and into 1051.50. I further wrote, have the stops tight above 1052.50 because it could reverse hard, target would be 1046.00 range if busts through 1048.00 with momentum. But I didn't take the trade because I was nervous about the platform. Then it started making the hard move down. At this point, I am thinking, this is a bummer, I should be in this trade...not too upset about it. Then a bear flag starting forming up and I decided I would look to go short if it broke down under the flag....again, a Sh*******ty fill. Had a sell stop order in at 1046.25. Then about 2 mins into the trade everything started freezing up big time...I had no idea what was going on. T&S froze, bid/ask was jumping all over the place, chart wasn't moving, flying blind. So I decided to hit the buy button to cover. Really frustrating. I think I could have squeezed another point out of this trade. One thing I noticed later was that I picked the target as S1 pivot point based on ToS at the beginning of the day...but at the end of the day the PP magically moved to 1036.00...hmmmmmmm. In the end my target was a bit off due to the poor platform but still it was the right idea and I came up short because of all the issues today. From now on I am going to use this site, found on another thread for my pivots: http://www.mypivots.com/dn/?symbol=100 On a final note, I am pretty sure I would have been in the the breakout trade at the end of the day on the long side...so probably left another couple points on the table....just sucks knowing you could've had an awesome 7+ point day. But this is why I am so happy I am trading for real. I realized between yesterday and today, sometimes you are fighting more than just the trades...may be something going on in life, with your computer, internet, platform, whatever. Total Trades: 4 Winners: 3 Losers:1 B/E:0 Total Points: +3.5 Avg. Win: 75.00 Avg. Loss: 50.00 Total Win: 75% Total Profits: $175.00 Also, I was going to try and post a 5m chart, but it is way too messy to figure out what is going on. Maybe tomorrow.
A gap is a gap to me. I follow cash SPX in my gsp analysis. When ES deviates away from what price it was when cash closed, I am looking to play RTM from there.
On an RTM play, are you just looking to fill the gap from the previous day? Or over a specific period IE. Mean over the week or last 3 days or whatever How do you handle gaps from say 2-3 days ago if they haven't filled?
The big problem with this trade was that "uhhhhhh hello dummy?" is an inappropriate profit target. Once you master both price action and technical analysis you will learn that the proper technical price action target on any short position is "somewhere lower". Your stop wasn't survivable. You played a breakout after price established itself in fairly wide range following a strong move up off the low. Similar to one of your trades from the other day, you need to buy a pullback in the range to position yourself for the breakout, OR play the actual breakout knowing that you must either stop out quickly if there's no follow-through, or use a wide stop (previous pivot low) to keep you in the trade.
Very asute of you NoD I like that. So in your opinion, should I've not even played the breakout trade? Do you guys have any insight as to bouncing off upper/lower channels 'x' amount of times. For this trade I was thinking, "this is the like the 4th/5th try to push through this upper channel" and then once it broke I was thinking "it should go higher" Now that I am writing this, thinking back, I definitely had bias on the breakout because of the number of times it hit the upper channel...is that the wrong way to think?
tlow, Are you in the market today? Relatively strong volume... and we just took a huge elevator ride to the top... ideal time to go short IMHO...
Ya...I watched the ride up, wicked rip...I am waiting to see how this 1075-1077 level holds, waiting for more information before going in.