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Yes good observations. I think one way you can quickly get a even better grasp is taking a step back and look how the weekly structure is forming. The image i have here posted is a simple way i look at the market. Every Sunday evening i draw in Sundays open and Fridays close. The importance of those levels are more significant then most people realize. The big banks, HFT's and market makers protects those levels strongly. Remember the big bankers aren't looking at 1 or 5 minute charts. They are protecting levels, such as the weekly opening price.
So if you want to get on the smart money train you need to be able to monitor those opening and closing levels and you can make strategies just from those 2 price points. I suggest get a better trading software ASAP. I use Sierra charts and i pay only 27$ a month for there best package. That is definitely the best reoccurring monthly investment i ever made in my life. Try to spend 1 week without even looking at a live market and just focus on backtesting historical data and keep looking for patterns.
If you really want to get sophisticated with opening and closing levels , i would monitor tf,es,nq along with your Dow Jones and draw in those lines and watch how smart money protects the levels compared to the other markets. If DowJones is storming under the Sunday open and Friday close resistance zone then you better hope the other markets are also poking under that line or else you just may get a nice pullback.
Looking at the chart below you will notice how one arrow is showing the Sunday opening and the other arrow is pointing at the candle showing bullish divergence. The ''ask/bid volume difference'' study is clearly showing bullish volume on a undecided/bullish candle . So that is when i would make my trade of the day. I've seen this story play over many times in my back testing and trading and i have the confidence that zone will hold.
Nice, never thought to look at the weekly open/close prices, thanks for the heads up. $27 a month is super cheap, I will look into that asap. Definitely don't have any useful volume indicators like that one either, all I have is the daily vol profile that resets with each session. I know not having the cumulative is killing me, as any area outside the current days' range is dark.
I have found a pattern that keeps recurring, several times a day that I can vibe with, so about to start some back testing on that. My breakout strategy just killed me today, but I continue to mark where a nice conservative entry would have been. Especially if I think it will move to the upside, why would I not be trying to get the absolute best price at a double bottom, or area of confluence close to the lows of the consolidation vs. buying it where a pro is looking to short it? So I have been wrapping my mind around that, as I become less enthusiastic about buying and selling those breakout areas.
FT71 really got my mind working when he said that the pros will take information risk any day over price risk. Which makes total sense if you are thinking in terms of probabilities. No matter how good your edge is, if there is a chance you could be wrong anyway, why not make it as cheap as possible, and as close to the area of trade failure as possible? Instead of waiting for the double bottom, then to get back above an ema, then a trend line to form, etc. Only to have your stop stretched to your max risk, and it could not work out anyway!
Every time I think I have this gig figured out, it always humbles me. But now I know that I will never have it all figured out, and to always keep my mind open, challenge beliefs, and to keep learning.
My new edge I am testing out has the qualities I listed above, so I think it's a move in the right direction.
I did open a new hourly chart today, and placed daily, weekly, and monthly pivots on it. I always got lost when I tried using them before, but today I was able to see very obvious levels of important S/R that I didn't notice before. And I believe will help me plan each day a little better.
Finally downloaded the free trial for Sierra Charts, and so far really liking what I'm seeing, but I can tell right off the bat that the ask/bid vol difference bars, and the bid/ask vol ratio is going to make the biggest impact in my trading by a long shot. It is the missing piece of the puzzle that I needed, so I just wanted to say thanks again for pointing that out. I am seeing some great divergences given off from the ratio, as you can start to see more buying come into the market on pullbacks.
I love being able to see the buy/sell strength behind each bar! It's gonna make me wonder how I traded without it all this time. Every market pattern has more context with that indicator.
Do you have any more recommendations on the usefulness of it in your trading?
Cheers!
P.S. Oh yeah, are you grandfathered in with the $27 rate, cause it's showing me $40 a month to use the TPO portion of their service.
Ok right on ! now you got the power. The bid ask is ok but i wouldnt get too too hung up on it. I think the best way to scalp now adays is range chart or volume or momentum charts with a few indicators ( bb's, ma's,cci, divergences ) . Here is a example of a 8 tick Range chart. It eliminates alot of the mess and will keep you on the right track. Ill look more into your journal and see more of what your doing specifically and ill try to have more comments later this weekend. Also if you really like the scalping try to look at the russell 2000, euro or crude with range charts , Alot of opportunity.
Been taking some time to get things dialed in, as I realize that this is a marathon, and not a sprint. It's about sustainability. So I figured if I took my time in getting my thought processes on paper, and refined through back testing, that I could have a good shot at getting this right. Still a long way to go, but I am very happy with progress over the last month.
So here is an update on my style of trading with my thought process. I understand now vs. previously that it is not about trading a specific price action pattern every time it pops up. It's about trading price action around targeted levels, based on context of a larger overall market perspective.
This is from my post in the elite section titled what is your profit taking strategy, but thought it was a nice update for the thread here as well. Plus I wanted @mpo7 to look at it @josh I highly respect your opinion as well, if you wouldn't mind taking a look at what I have going on here, and giving it your two cents. As I am finalizing my trading plan, and would like all the outside perspective I can get.
Figured I would post an example of trade and profit target.
In the first chart you can see where price was meeting resistance at the IB low, higher time frame trending ema, and S1 pivot. It is also in the top half of the squeeze which is where I look for early entry if price action gives me the opportunity.
In the second chart, which is my entry chart, I have labeled where the market failed to make a new high, and gave me a solid low risk entry to go short. And you had two options to add another contract if you were scaling in. One was the second 3 bar reversal, showing more rejection of any retracement. Or the break of the short term support at 641.
So if you chose the latter for second entry, the final trade outcome would be as follows. Remember that we got entry above S1 so our target would be the next pivot mid-line.
Total trade profit: 91 points/$455 Total risk: 26 points/$130
As I had said before, I would generally trade the 2nd contract through price action, and target the pivot level for one of the contracts . But in this case, the exit at 622 was due to a large support level on the hourly chart. I would rather take a little risk off the table, and book some nice gains rather than be greedy, and get less than desired on both contracts possibly.
This is the concept I'm dialing into as well. The difficulty is figuring out the optimal way to take profits. When I take them too early, I ended up getting back into the trade and overtrading. When I take them too late, I usually lose >50% of profit, get pissed, and end up overtrading. Price action by itself however can be tricky if you're not just scalping it. Any ideas?
Well, you had a nice trade, made money, and had some methodology for making it happen .. especially given that I don't know what day it was or any info about it, I don't really know how to comment otherwise, good job
the scenario above tells me your trading what i call mid stream. its the hardest of all places to master in the data. its complicated i cant type it all here. basically you might starve to death eating small bugs, you need a big steak dinner.
that only comes at the regime changes - master where those occur and then you can let a winner run and make some decent money. example where a long average changes from up slope to down slope this would be a trade worth letting run. traders go broke cheating themselves out of profits, you need those profits to finance the losses.
ps highly recommend perry kaufman smarter trading. memorize it.
Sorry for not being more specific. Wasn't really looking for a pat on the back, as much as any critiquing or anything you might add to my thought process, and trade execution. Was hoping for a tidbit of wisdom from a much more experienced trader that's all . Time and date are posted on the chart, thanks for taking the time to reply.
Here is the link to the PDF for kaufmans book. Checking out profit taking first, then risk, and then will decide whether to read the rest of the book or not. Preface sounds interesting though.