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I keep my eye on the 20 period Exponential Moving Average and one custom indicator. I have several custom indicators on the chart as well, indicators that show up occasionally on an individual bar so they do not clutter up the chart. I also found that too many line indicators can be too much.
Mostly trade a 5 minute candlestick chart, watch a 3/5 minute chart for the morning chop, watch a 24 hr. and Day 15 and 45 minute Day chart. Trades lasting from 5-10 minutes up to several hours.The 3/5 minute chart has Volume, which I also monitor.
Indicators aside, for day trading, I prefer to trade just one market, the NQ. It works for me to get a feel for the market trends and price action. For long term a single equity index would work for me as well.
I use 2 tick Brick Size UniRenko Chart.My Entry Line is a Horizontal Line.If the bar closes 1 tick above my entry line system
Takes Long trade and vice versa for short.Short entry is long exit and long entry is short exit.
If my Trade bias is long I disable short entries so system only takes long trades and if trade does not go my way it cuts off the trade as the bar closes below the entry line and vice versa for Short Bias.
I Use Blood Hound and Black Bird as Automation Tool.The best automation tool I came across in my trading career.
I use 600 ticks Swing on ES for my Macro trend Bias and 15 Min chart for picking turning points.
For Es my trade execution chart is Unirenko 2 tick with 1 tick offset and 1 Tick reversal settings.
I have explained my Macro and Micro trade setups concept in this thread dated April 13th, 2023, 08:37 PM.
In That post I analyzed the micro picture of market context and confluence of different technical indicators and how they help to locate potential high probability trades.
I follow my exit and entry rules mechanically no fear no greed.
I made it simple.
The main indicator that helps me to take mechanically precise entries and exits is custom made very simple price action Swing indicator.
The same indicator I use on Macro and micro charts.Shown in previous posts.It gives me tons of information about price action in few seconds on both Macro and Micro Level.
Even the last 2 days? I feek you're dealing with millions if you can withstand that. With Bollinger do you just buy on the bottom band and short on top band? Or it helps you see which section trend is headed in ...
I find the amount of time put into analyzing these indicators can be put towards only candlesticks and size of candles , and not force you to have such a large stop. How do you use stop loss for a Bollinger band position?
Yes, so for me , size of monitor matters more than indicators. Multiple times frames , larger to smaller , then use small tf for entries. I can go as low as 15 sec on high volume days but normally use 1 minute. But the 15 min, 1 hr, 4 hr, daily give context.
I have had Dom opens but still no clue how to decipher them..
Hi… I have traded for 26 years, 10 years daytrading stocks and 16 years daytrading futures. I have read all of your posts in this thread and want to thank you for your candid posts. I found them to be very interesting and several of your comments match my thinking. For example, you said:
Following are the factors that are vital in risk management.
1-Risk v Reward (covers loss and profit management)
2-Probability (Likelihood of event happening in your favor or against)
3-Position sizing (orders management , Orders lots involved)
4-Expectancy (Per trade profit/loss irrespective of number of winners or losers )
We all use different indicators/lines/etc. but the elements of risk management should contain the above categories. I use what you have plus a few more that are more tuned for the way that I trade. I daytrade and most of my trades are less than 10 minutes and the rest could take up to a couple of hours.
Risk of ruin is one of mine and I think you covered it in one of your posts. Too many times I have seen newer traders risk it all on one or two trades and blow up their account. I have losses like other traders, but I always live to trade another day.
Diversification does play a role in my trading risk. I trade metals, crude, and natty. That gives me enough diversity to get 10-12 good risk/reward trades in the 3 hours that I trade. My goal is to trade more than 50% of these potential good trades.
Spread and liquidity is a risk specific to me using market orders for entry/exit. I don’t trade futures that have spreads greater than 3 ticks because it eats into my profits. I didn’t trade natural gas for most of this year because the spreads were always greater than 3 ticks and the price ladder had many holes in it. Natty is good again, so I’m trading it again. I don’t trade futures that have less than 10 contracts at each level, given that I can trade up to 9 contracts per future and prefer to enter/exit each trade with minimal slippage.
Events and news. Market opens/closes, economic news and important finance people talking are important factors to consider for risk and reward. There is the risk of large volatile moves due to surprises, but often, there is the reward of great price action moves after these events. My personal opinion is that opens/closes, economic news, ets. all bring in more traders and the potential is greater that price will move in some direction for some period in time.
Given that I daytrade alone, I don’t get to discuss trading with others very often. Over the years, I have talked with others and some of those discussions led me to new ideas on how to improve my trading processes. So, if you don’t mind, I would like to ask a few questions about the attached chart. If you don’t want to answer, its ok and I understand. Some of what you have on the chart I can relate to: you use volume profile VAH/VAL and high/low of today. I use high/low of yesterday and high/low of today. My questions are:
What is the timeframe of this chart. It looks like during regular trading hours. minute chart? is the open or close on the chart?
Are you a daytrader or a swing trader.
What is the basis for those red/yellow rectangular lines above/below the candles. It looks like they are the same distance away from each other and change when price hits the upper red line. How/when/why do they change and how are they used in your trading. Is that distance based on standard deviation or something else. I assume that sometime in the future, those lines will cross and reverse direction down.
What is the basis for the cyan line below the yellow line. It looks similar to the red/yellow lines, but it seems to change more often. is that used for possible entry area or automated entry?
What do you mean mechanical entry… is some part of your trading automated. I am partially automated on entry and fully automated for trade management and exit.
Here are my answers to your questions.
1- I am not a conventional swing trader all my positions are flat at market close so you can say day trader.
in this post you quoted for CL The macro chart is a unirenko 32 with open offset 1 tick and reversal 500 ticks.
2-No matter what kind of trading style (scalping, Momentum, HFT,Momentum Steep Trend, Slow-grind steep trend, Swingy trend or range bound price action) I participate and trade all market conditions. So no specific trading style but for sure day trader as my trades are closed 30 seconds before session close.
3-Yes my entries are 100% automated but profits sometimes I manage manually looking at market context.
4-My trading charts are not time based they are renko charts in my case unirenko of suitable brick size for different instruments in case of Cl is unirenko 4 with open offset of 1 tick and reversal 4 tick.
5-The micro chart you are referring to is 4 tick unirenko not a minute chart.Depending on the price action for a particular instrument
how much price action can be covered in the given snashort.the chart in the post shows two days open and two days close as well.
6-Cyan line is the control line which controls the swing size and the red and Yellow-green lines.Yes red and Yellow-green Lines are entry and exit lines. Red line is used for possible high probability counter trend and pullbacks trades entries and exits and green line for trend entries and exits. Cyan line is a must trade line no matter what when price touches cyan line the system take the trade in the direction of trend and if candle closes below the micro swing bias Changes direction and now cyan line moves to top and red and green lines interchange colors and now can be used for micro short bias trading for counter and trend trades.
7-The lines have no bias the background color of the chart show the micro bias the teal is long bias and purple is short bias.
The back ground color is controlled by cyan line which is certainly controlled by price swings which are based on price movement
may be in form of standard deviation or simple price swing measured in ticks.I have about 25 different parameters in this swing indicator which help me manage my entry and exits mechanically in any market conditions and any style of trading.
8-When I say mechanical i mean my stops may vary a tick or 2 in my favor or against depending on market condition but not beyond that, as I have such lines available on my micro trading charts for tight entry and exits for any kind of trading style.
As the scope of this thread was not discussing trading methodology but just to give an idea, how indicators can help us to facilitate
our trading so I tried to substantiate my point.
I have about 5 variations of this swing indicator which help me to dictate the market my terms (my-way or highway).
Which means go my direction or take few ticks as SL and take a hike no chasing no fighting no adding to loosing trades for the sake of $ cost averaging .
I am a big proponent of law of large numbers and it has changed my life and trading style and I am following it religiously.
Some times people ask how large is actually large the answer is at least 100 trades qualify for large number concept.
Hope it helps.