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Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248
I plan on posting regularly starting tomorrow.
The time away was focused on family but it served to put things in better perspective. Hopefully it will help me keep a clearer head.
I have done some review. My best trades are still the inside bar trades. The toughest of these have been those that occur right at or just shortly before the open. Looking back, I think a good addition to the toolbox is to add the 30 min ORB that Jeff Castille covered in the All You Need thread last November.
One other thing I have come to realize is not to focus on money, especially a daily target. Yes, I want to make money but a focus on making a certain amount can cause me to take trades I should not. The focus needs to be on consistently trading well...ie making the proper entries and then managing the trade. If those are done, the money will just follow. Some days the market will offer a lot of opportunities and other days, there will be less. To expect to make $XXX dollars/day is not the goal.....
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248
Market was a bit strange today. Slight upward bias overnight in CL and index futures. Oil opened and shot up initially and then turned down. Oil looked very weak but not really a strong downtrending market in my view.
I watched the 30 min ORB Jeff discussed in his All You Need thread last Nov. My bias was for market to go down since pre-open price was above Friday's close. Market opened at 9am and shot up. A long entry would have been successful. I don't regret not taking it though. Today is the first day of using this tool and I want to get more time with it. Of note, had I left a short entry at the low of the 30 min ORB, it too would have been successful. The ORB is noted by the horizontal red lines on the chart.
I watched the market action. A 10 min IB formed at 9:20. This bar closed above the Keltner Channel, price was well above the open and had not gone towards the gap fill in any meaningful way, so I put in a short beneath the IB. Price initially exceeded the IB but I didn't want to be long. After 9:30 the market dropped as the NYSE went down and so did BANK. I was filled on the entry below the IB and profit target hit. I continued to watch the overall market. NYSE stayed negative, the index futures were negative and BANK was negative so I thought we would make a push towards gap fill on CL. I put in a short below the opening price, was filled and profit target hit. There was an IB on the 15 min chart at 11am, but I did not play that one. I am just wary of going outside Keltner Channels.
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248
Today had lots of news at 9 and 10 am. At 9am, the Case Shuller index was released. I set up a 30 min ORB trade thinking the news would cause price to break one way or the other. It caused the market to go up. I was filled and the profit target hit very quickly. Price continued up and closed outside my Keltner Channel. The next bar was an inside bar that closed inside the Channel. I thought price would retrace back to the moving average (there were small up gaps on the index futures and those tend to close). I set a sell stop below the IB, and was filled. Price action hesitated for several minutes and did not continue my way, so I cut the trade for a smaller profit target. Shortly thereafter, the market dropped rapidly. It filled my sell stop at the low end of the 30 min ORB. I took a small profit there since I thought price would reverse after such a large drop. I then waited for the 10 am news releases. Had an inside bar form at 10:15. The NYSE was showing a retracement up in price following the weak 10 am news, so I figured the market would go up. My buy stop was filled 1 tick above the IB and my profit target was hit a bit later. Price was hesitant just after entry so I did not go for a large target. Again, shortly thereafter, the market took off.
I am going to lunch with a friend so ending trading a bit earlier than usual.
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248
My primary signal is the inside bar. I think the use of that is rather self explanatory. Any questions about its use are really covered in Jeff's Three Setups thread. On my charts I also use the Keltner Channels as an aid in decision making while trading. The best explanation of how I use this channel is covered here
I don't trade based just on the Keltner Channel (I tried it a couple of times without impressive results). It is something I use as a confirmation/help.
I am trying to get to as simple a setup as I can.
My secondary signal is the 30 min range breakouts Jeff covered in his All You Need thread last Nov (I think it is around page 190 or so on that thread).
I know my trading system has changed dramatically since the first post of this thread but it has evolved for the better. My system is straightforward, easily understood and explained, and has withstood use in the "real" world. I think it is something that can work for anyone.
I owe a great deal of gratitude for Big Mike for this site and for Jeff sharing his ideas..
Platform: Sierra Charts, Investor RT, Ninja Trader
Broker: VanKar
Trading: NQ
Posts: 520 since Sep 2009
Thanks Given: 583
Thanks Received: 1,248
I set up the opening range breakout trade and was stopped in shortly after market open. Market went down and hit my profit target fairly quickly and continued on down. I just watched and was rather surprised at how much it dropped. At 9:40 an inside bar formed on the 10 min chart. Price was within the Keltner Channel so I put in a buy stop above the IB and was stopped in. Price went my favor one tick and then headed south. The trade time went beyond the next bar, so I raised my stop to just below the subsequent bar and that stop was hit. After the news announcement, price went up. An IB formed on the 15 min chart at 11:00. I was stopped in above the bar and profit target hit. Of note, the 15 min bar that closed at 11:30 exceeded the upper Opening Range break price level and would have been a successful trade, but I was not trading at the time and thus did not participate. But that is the third day in a row that the ORB could have been successfully traded on both sides.....
Jeff recommends not trading IB's on Wednesday until after the oil inventory report. I have traded Wednesday mornings in the past, but leaving a 15 min buffer around the 10:30 news announcement and some trades worked out.....but some did not. As I have stated in the past, Wednesday's have been the hardest day of the week for me to trade (and that would be due to the price action before the news announcement, duh). I can be hard headed and slow to learn, but I think I got it this time. No trading IB's until after the news announcement. I may do the opening range break and then stop until after 10:30.
Also, I am going to go exclusively with the 15 min chart for the time being. I have also been using the 10 min chart for the last couple of months since the bars are generally smaller and thus stops are tighter, and some more opportunities are presented. But I have had several times that if I had followed just the 15 min chart, I would not have taken a trade that resulted in a loss (today for instance) or taken as much heat. I think that adding back in the Opening Range play and using just 15 min chart IB's, I will have enough opportunities to trade. I really don't want to trade more than 2 or 3 times in a day and that chart seems to suffice for that.
I have been using the IB technique since the later part of June. On the 2nd of July, I started using the spreadsheet Big Mike posted over a year ago to track my trades. I am embarrassed to say that before that I did not record each trade. I would periodically use a spreadsheet to record the net results of a day but I never recorded each trade. It was not smart to operate that way. I found the spreadsheet to be easy to use and it quickly became a habit. I have found looking back over it to be very helpful. I had a spreadsheet provided by a vendor I tried out a few years ago that had some statistics on it and I was able to use that to add a sheet to BM's that gave me some basic statistical analysis. I have to do it this way since I no longer use NinjaTrader and the ThinkorSwim platform does not give me the analysis that NT does. Anyway, for this past quarter I took 56 inside bar trades with 52 winners and 4 losers (93% success rate). I took 41 other trades (outside bar, Keltner Channel, gap play, price action break {LL break, or HH break}) with 32 wins and 9 losers. I let one of the losers turn into a monster loss. The overall win rate for the quarter was 86%.
This was the most profitable quarter I have had in this account. If (woulda, coulda, shoulda time) I had not let the one monster loss happen, this would have been an outstanding quarter. Overall I am happy with the progress made.
My focus going forward is on the Opening Range trade and the 15 min inside bar trade.
Very Good! Very encouraging to see someone have consistent, profitable results. An excellent demonstration of discipline and continual improvement. Keep up the good work.