I thought I would get back to journaling again on the forum. I stopped doing that here after day 1 because I didn't want to post all my losers. I know I know...I am the only one that does this :sarcastic:. Anyway go here ( if you want to see my trades last month. I am not going to post there anymore because I haven't been disciplined to keep up with it. I suggest looking at some of my previous posts on the forum to see my own journey from tons of indicators to (slowly) watching price patterns.
I trade 6E on the 5 minute with a 20 ema and Volume Up Down. I target 10 ticks with the first contract and let the other two go. I (try to) exit when I see volume fizzle out on a 20 ema price cross after a second or third pullback. I have a 10 tick stop and my stop moves to breakeven with the other two contracts when I hit 10 ticks profit. Maybe some of you can help me describe the trades I take a bit better than I can. My goal has been to trade very, very simple setups on the five minute chart alone. I tried looking for more complicated patterns but it just didn't work for me. I found myself overanalyzing and second guessing. If I want to see the bigger picture I just squish the 5 minute chart. The setups I seem to take over and over are double tops and bottoms, first and second pullbacks, and breakouts from consolidation. Additionally, I don't trade the news (I get from Barrons) and I use classical pivots from Daily Notes. What else...I don't enter at pivot levels but sometimes exit at them. I look for low volume on the pullbacks to confirm the trend. If I think of other things I consider when I am in trades I will post them as I go.
Having said all that...here is my trade from last night. I saw a lot of tails on the bottom there right before my entry where all the sellers got trapped. I was also watching the gomiladder. At the bottom the cumulative delta shifted to net longs. The second low that formed at 18:00 was lower than the previous short tail. I set my buy stop at 1.4324 and waited for it to come up as sellers began to cover. Usually I will hold this position where I exited but the gomiladder showed a slowdown of buyers so I got out. I don't know how much reliance I will put on it for long term trading. I think it's outstanding for watching volume as you trade though. So I have been considering whether to add it as a second chart. This move would be a major change for me away from my single chart.