Early recognition of the structure of a trading day is essential to the active trader's success. I day trade the indexes, holding for the entire session, only when there are signs of trend day which are about 10% of the days. Those are the big pay days where you have an edge - the opposite of inside days. Knowing when not to trade will save you lot of $ and aggravation.
ok.... I like that... now the big question.... how do you identify a day as a trending day, like last Friday, before it occurs??? it is so easy to see after the fact....
I had at least a couple of reasons to go long at 28 and again at 25.50. I often sit out the open but then I see a lot of opportunities go by.
Punisher,,, Well, yeah that would have worked... but you had to sit and watch it go to 2420.0 at the low... that's 8 points off your first entry. You would have to run a 10 point stop. That's $500 loss per trade, I think that is just too much, at least it is for me. I used to run super wide stops like that and of course blew myself up, plus it caused way too much stress. My stop is 2 points, no matter what.
If you want to see why you had a miserable day doing short-time scalps, put up a 6-min ATR: it will show a value mostly around 0.50, and very little above 0.75 -- deadly. "Just say 'No.'"
yup,,, I saw... I am just learning ATR, but I did have it up... so what is the number for ATR to be a go vs. no go ??? say 1.0 ??? or above appreciate your input. I am reluctant to add another piece of criteria for my trades, but if it helps then great. Maybe ATR is more important than volume. HMM, ???
Well, everything has happened and can happen. Based on what you say, mean reversion sounds to be the way to go. I must say that I struggle to understand the forces behind. A 10pts straight sell off from the open (just 1.5pt pull back in between) seems pretty strong for me and calls for a follow up continuation. It couldn't push through so those shorting for continuation move down had to puke out. But the last 60min move is beyond me. If there was so much strength then why would it sell off that hard at the open.
My brain is fried for today, plus it's midnight already here (Central European timezone) so I'd need to be spoon fed where are you going with that thought process. Thanks