Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I did not trade on Friday, but here are a couple observations I would have made looking at the 5 min chart. We opened around the middle of the horizontal trading range area of the prior day. The first bar was a doji. Those 2 factors would lead me to think limit order/trading range open until proven otherwise. There never was a strong breakout all day. Because of the location (within yesterday's tight trading range area) and because of the day's price action (tight trading range all day), stop entry swing trades had a lower probability of success.
yes
1. Friday's are normally crappy sideways narrow range chop (aka Cabbage)
2 It was Memorial day Friday in the USA
3. the on was normal range and inside
4. by 8:40CT the market had only covered 2.25 points.
Reasons for taking the trade:
- HL MTR (bear trend + TL break + HL)
- failed bear BO
- signal bar ( bull reversal bar)
Comment: Ok entry reasons, but maybe to high in the range and to close to VWAP. I did narrow my stop when I saw the big tail on the entry bar and that was obviously the right thingh to do.
After opening:
GMT +1: 16:00 / EST: 10:00 AM (ISM Mfg Index)
Sentiment (GMT +1: 15:00 / EST: 9:00 AM)
ES: neutral
Gold: neutral
Bonds: down
Sentiment is neutral
Higher TF charts and ON Daily chart: TTR after bull rally to ATH. YD was and outside, doji, wide range day which means increased chance for an inside narrow range day today.
120 min. chart (ETH): TR. Sideways break of bull channel TL.
30 min. chart (ETH): TR. Close to TR high and above Weekly VWAP+2SD, so possibly overbought.
Overnight:Overnight has traded inside YD range on low relative volume. Bull spike after news event.
Scenarios (blue), S/R-levels (pink) and Targets (green)
Reasons for taking the trade:
- DT with bar 1 (=2nd entry)
- Strong signal bar at HoD (2 bar reversal)
- High of TR and Resistance (=ATH)
Comment: OK entry reasons. SL was smaller than required for the big signal bar, so maybe I should have passed since risk was somewhat higher than I was willing to accept.
May was another losing month mainly because of a far too low percentage of winning trades.
The good thing is that I have managed to improve my ability to enter trades that are in line with the rules in my trading plan to 77%. It's still too low, but it's a step in the right direction.
There are some factors that may have affected my results for May:
- The average Daily range for May was 11,7 points and that is somewhat less than prior month, which was bad for swing trading.
- At the beginning of the month I decided to add a new setup, that was to enter on any signal bar at a S/R level during the first 30 minutes to chatch the first directional move. This setup requiers a somewhat higher risk. The first week in May I had 4 consecutive losing trades with this setup so I stopped trading it. The result for May would have been almost break-even without this new setup.
I do see two things that I need to improve:
1. I have to be more realistic about the target for a a swing trade that the market will offer based on:
a) the price action of the daily chart (Don't expect a BO of a tight TR)
b) the price action of the current day (Recognize the kind of day: TR day, small TR day/inside day or Trend Day)
2. I need to avoid to take unnecessary risk because I want more confirmation for my trade plan since I use a tight SL of 2 points. If I wait for confirmation my SL usually doesn't survive the pullbacks.
a) Only enter on a stop order if the signal bar is very strong, usually a reversal setup.
b) Else try to enter at the S/R-level on a limit order.