Howard Roark 

By the way, I used to dabble in CL ages ago, but haven't looked at it in ages either. Why CL? I saw some guy comment that he thought it was easier for retailers to 'gain an edge' in CL compared to indices. I don't know. From my POV, indexes are very well behaved and technical. Last time I traded crude it seemed ruthless and much less orderly than indices - frequently overshooting levels and just doing its own thing. Maybe I just didn't study it well enough.

If anyone says indices and/or CL doesn't 'behave' properly - look at NKD (Nikkei 225) futures.

You will hit your head on a wall trying to understand what it even wants to do - too much noise and confusion.

It starts at 9 AM Tokyo time, so check your local time zone and then check its price action.

'Indecipherable' for me - if that's even a word in the dictionary.

Edit: Btw, the award for the 'most confusing price action EVER in the futures markets' goes to..... TA DAAAA: Heating Oil futures.

Most. Confusing. Price. Action. EVER.

lightsun47 

'Indecipherable' for me - if that's even a word in the dictionary.

It definitely is.

It's the standard term pharmacists used to use to describe doctors' handwriting on prescriptions (before they almost all became computer-printed).

I agree with you about NKD. I've been looking, recently.

I remember this thread from a year ago. Good to see it again - how are you doing now, @Howard Roark ?

Tymbeline 

It definitely is. It's the standard term pharmacists used to use to describe doctors' handwriting on prescriptions (before they almost all became computer-printed). I agree with you about NKD. I've been looking, recently. I remember this thread from a year ago. Good to see it again - how are you doing now, @Howard Roark ?

I've been doing better and have seen much better results this year, but I'm still not sure where I'm going with this. It's still just a hobby for me. Basically, I still have a full time job and trade on the side which is exhausting.

I made $80K this week. Not a typo. If I can pay down all personal debt, have a nicely sized personal account and some savings, maybe I'll take my chances on doing this full time once again.

It's the consistency that's tough in this game. It's a very marginal business. I've become much better at cutting my losses short and riding home some big winners.

Howard Roark 

Well, that's the dream for most. Extract a small daily sum consistently and scale. It's much easier said than done, though. I'm repeating what I said in the prior thread, but I think it's easier to structure an approach where you aim for a larger move while keeping risk small. My goal is to enter around major swing highs and lows. Simplistically, my stop is too tight if it's placed below the swing high or above the swing low. You should track the small oscillations back and forth. That's the noise. If your goal is the move from A to B, you need to stay out of the noisy part in between. If you got whipsawed on a small oscillation your stop was too tight. Of course, there are situations where you can't enter with low risk. One can always skip those trades. The bulk of my method haven't changed that much over the last 5 years, although I'm still improving and learning. However, it's only these last few years I'm able to actually trade it successfully (to some extent) by running winners all the way to target and actually cutting losses short ruthlessly. I think this is the part that takes time for most people. You really need the type of experience where you've seen it all. Studied it all. Know it all. And when the market opens, you know what to expect. Nothing surprises you. And that's the part that takes time and can't be read in a book. You simply need the experience. No shortcuts.

Yes, I'm moving to a larger time-frame. I basically switched to a more boutique style broker, and they can give more personal help and guidance, in addition to morning briefs for the products you choose. I'm basically switching to daily, and moving to the micro contracts. This will allow me to leave the noise alone and set a wider stop-loss, like you said. I talked to the chief strategist on the phone, he said he bases his style on the TurtleTrader system.

Congrats, man! Yes, from what I've gathered, and as Tom Hougaard outlines in his book, letting winners ride and cutting losers seems to be the key. And also hard to do consistently. Basically the only thing I've done right the past months, was to never move my stop-loss in the wrong direction. Not once! Now I need to build on that.
That rings true, there is no substitute for getting out there and place trades, observe, repeat. Like slowly learning the language of price action.

Benefits of crude are many things. Daily move and volatility is one (also double-edged sword). But it is also highly manipulated, which is a good thing!
Seasonality is also a factor!

Holy cow, man, 80k? Geez, with that much I would open two separate accounts and run a conservative tranching LT 112 strategy on one, a conservative dividend portfolio on another (mixed with REITs, I have several books on that waiting for me). And screw it, I'd have a smaller pure trading account for more hands-on.