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Planning the session:
- a number of news events clustered around 8:30 AM EST trailing off by 10:00 AM EST.
- N American stock market futures modestly positive at the moment, oil up, gold so far holding its own after yesterday's rise so my commodity stock/ETF holdings likely not a distraction.
- From the charts EUR/USD consolidating around yesterday's high, in the area of 1.3030 -- something about 30, a number that is neither here nor there, that still escapes me. At the moment the number arouses suspicion that EUR/USD may fall before it rises.
To test that notion put a sell stop at 1.3020 (on paper) just now to give me something to visualize. Initial stop would be above here at 1.3027 if the order is accepted, midway in the channel between yesterday's high and close since hitting that means price may have no intention of breaking down (presumably to 00) right now and don't want to get involved in the consolidation. For that reason an initial stop higher still (just above the last high) at 1.3040, say, is out of the question--smack dab in the middle of the consolidation zone
6:40 AM AST Order following price somewhat aggressively, since if price retests 50 may turn into enough of a range to trade
6:47 AM AST Order accepted at 1.30455, initial stop at 1.30515, targets as indicated.
6:50 AM AST Stopped out, re-entered short at 1.30495, targets unchanged, new stop at 1.3053. From a trend trade perspective this (range trade) is counter trend -- dangerous
6.56 AM AST Stopped out. Price not interested in that particular range, it turns out Start thinking about trading any emerging trend. As usual want a retrace but will go with the flow if price wants to tango. Tell myself this is not revenge--this is the juices flowing I know it's revenge when I start placing market orders
7:08 AM AST Price calls my bluff, in long trend trade at 1.30655, stop at 1.30565. Won't worry my pretty head about targets until price decides what it's going to do--all that matters at this point is how much I'm going to lose if this is not a trend. This trade low probability according to 5 energies interpretation of indicators so guess we're going with gut instinct.
7:10 AM AST. Not dead yet stuck in an all-out target at R1, 1.3084. Stop moved to protection at 1.30675. Now we do our Jesse Livermore imitation: sit, don't think.
7:13 AM AST. OK....don't have Jesse down completely....start to trail the stop.... Turns out no need, target hit at 7:15, reversing our fortunes, up $93 on the day.
7:17 AM AST. Content with the outcome so far, starting to hear life stirring in other parts of the house, need to get my act together. Expect price to oscillate around R1 for a while but hoping for a strong price day as "unlimited" QE sinks in so with a few trades under my belt will wait for a retrace (R1 being in the vicinity of 90 expect relatively strong resistance here), see what other folks are thinking.
7:27 AM AST In other news, since Manesh Patel recommends diversity as the antidote to impatience started monitoring 5 other major pairs mainly at this stage to determine the degree of correlation, to decide if I can afford the distraction from EUR/USD and to figure out what kind of monitor real estate is required to observe and trade them comfortably. So far looks like the system may require another monitor or 2 if I go that route.
7:43 AM AST Trading possible breakaway from R1, in long at 1.3086, stop already at protection at 1.30875. Need to place target(s) but don't want to jinx it .... what the heck...can't argue with 00....common sense trumps greed. But fear trumps common sense--stop moved up to 1.30905.
7:52 AM AST Common sense has fear on the ropes...stop back at 1.30875. Trying to decide if 1.31005 too greedy in terms of Murrey Math or to go for broke and move it to 1.3107.....solution of course to split the target, take partial profits, devil (trailing stop) take the hindmost.
8:03 AM AST 2nd target hit. Up almost $300 on the day. Combat song by Clash starts playing in the back of my head, "Should I stay or should I go...". Kind of early to quit.
8:21 AM AST Resolve to halve quantity & watch, since I see 1.3180 sitting like a siren on a rock on the horizon, N American index futures and oil/gold still buoyant, 5 energies trend still intact, R2 halfway 'twixt here and there at 1.3144.
Oops.... in at 1.31175, stop at 1.31055, target 1.3144...perhaps a tad premature.
8:36 AM AST Stopped out for a loss of ca. $80. Feel the "This Means War" juices flowing. Double the quantity, do the short counter trade at market, stopped out for a pip profit or less. Whoa......steady big fellla
8:48 AM AST More war, price doing that coy, passive aggressive foot dragging thing it does, that I hate so much.
8:57 AM AST After a few more trades no further ahead, up for the day $218, down about $80 from the peak. I know I shouldn't fixate on $$$--points some say, percentages say others, but Maserati doesn't take points or percentages last time I checked. Having let price get to me time for a cooling off period....maybe go slam my fingers in a door a few times
10:06 AM AST Scalped my way tooth and nail up to $412 on the day--no point in showing details of the brawl but will post the summary at end of session. Once again need to decide--stay or go. Depends on how EUR/USD responds to N American stock market open I guess--can't take much more of its thumb twiddling.
10:28 AM AST Scalping the run up to N Am open taped my eyelids back.....blinking was causing me to miss some of the action :-/
10:38 AM AST Up over $600 on the day. Price still buoyant. Currently long last trade with 1/2 position remaining target R2 (1.3144) if price clears 1.31225, although expect headwind at 1.3138 from MM 6/8 (sorry Fat Tails....can't help myself :-/). Still....got real resistance at 12/13 , hypothesis 1/8th is the unit on some derivative somewhere.
10:58 AM AST Up just over $700 on the day. May be it for me....while I hate leaving a dollar on the table hate folks picking my pocket worse. Any event expect price to oscillate around R2 (1.3144) now for a while...unless it doesn't. Can see 1.3180 from here. Might trade a few half positions.
11:16 5 losing trades in a row sitting at $671 even on the day, 1.3180 living up to my perception of it as a siren What would a reasonable person do? Have his crew lash him to the mast, of course. Damn the sea serpents.
11:24 6 losing trades in a row, sitting at $630. Starting to think I should stop trying to will the market higher....signs have been there for a while--market looks like mule with its hooves dug in and ears pinned back. Maybe time to join them if I can't beat them (profit takers, presumably, or accumulation/distribution occurring at 1.3150--if I'm out of my league).
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Yeah--happens enough it might make a decent chop indicator Not entirely kidding--there are systems out there that use MAE/MFE/ETD to adapt.
ETA: Should add, you've pinpointed exactly one of my biggest issues--knowing when to change gears. In 1st when I should be in overdrive and doing 100 mph when I should be downshifting for a curve, little clue when to pull over and park, no clue how to find reverse, so to speak.
This morning ordered all 3 of Al Brooks latest books from Amazon.com (as opposed to Amazon.ca) in hardcover--winter is coming...soon need something to curl up with--my favourite bookseller and cheaper after shipping, exchange rate & fees than buying either online or over the counter in Canada. Not sure why intellectual property (even the E-book versions) is ca. 20% more here than in the U.S., or why some U.S. sellers add 20% to the price of IP for Canadian orders, but until that changes will continue to do all of my book buying from Amazon (US).
As planned back to the cash account this week, starting this evening trading the slo-mo Pac-Rim session with tiny quantities for the most part (0.6 contract mostly, occasionally 1.2 contracts) to ease into it. Find there is a definite disconnect moving from paper to cash. Through trial and error found 0.6 to 1.2 contracts is my "do not care" range (i.e., able to stay almost entirely unemotional unless I run into a losing streak. 2-5 contracts and every trade is an "I care" trade, particularly trading cash.
NT is still running on the laptop, still happy as a clam. Performance of the previous operating platform seemed to improve (no longer eats memory) when I disabled MS SQL services used to store incoming N American market data during the week, as well as apps that do a rudimentary scan for buy/sell opportunities on the database. An app written in Perl to acquire the data in text files on disk after the markets close is still running. This seems to support the hypothesis that NT works as well as can be expected for an app in its class, simply does not cope well with dwindling resources. From now on will make sure it has lots of head room.
So far up about $90 since start of session 6 hours ago in 15 scalps--$15/hour--profit factor 2.21, 73% successful bearing in mind when scalping I try very hard not to take a loss, so some of these "successful" trades may net $1. Losses are all that matter to me since as I've said before I don't have much of a problem making money when the market is dishing it out--problem remains keeping it when the market starts to chop. Either have to find a foolproof way to trade chop or learn to sit on my hands. I find Pac-Rim action particularly hard to predict--very much different than European or N. America. As a consequence have been trading more or less "out of the corner of my eye"--playing Spider Solitaire, checking email and monitoring trading screens with peripheral vision until unusual movement causes me to take a 3 second look and either place a stop/limit order or go back to the game. Just as Manesh Patel claims I find this approach helps me avoid staring at the chart and seeing things that aren't there, prevents me forming opinions of what price is going to do. Preconceived notions do me in every time, although I admit there is a fine line between "preconceived notion" and that peculiar insight into what price is about to do that causes the hair on the back of the neck to stand on end and is behind successful trades--still don't understand the difference.
That said, it's late here, I'm tired and just uncorked a bottle of wine, so that's it for me for now as fascinating as price is to watch in a cat/mouse sort of way.
Woke up late & groggy this AM after maybe 5 hours sleep, coffee not much help, 53 trades since last night--33 since I sat down in front of the computer, now ahead about $14 (cash), paid about $225 in commission. Can't seem to do anything right even though the market has tried to be accommodating. On a brighter note lots of bad trades to analyze Will sit here for another 30 minutes or so until end of session--not planning to trade anymore but never know. Chart and summary at end of session.