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Thank you Brian for your comments and observation. I really like and agree with your concept of trading the range expansion. Sometimes when I start trading at 9 am est, I might find a recent "range expansion" that is already under way. Other times, it may not show up until way later in the session...or not at all.
The problem with CL is it can be very tricky as far as determining what kind of market conditions you are dealing with. Sometimes you get what seems to be a strong sudden move that starts spiking. It leads you to believe that it will be a move with some strong follow through and then it suddenly fizzles and quickly reverses.
Some things I look for is how strong are the pushes or "waves" I am seeing. This is not really the same as Elliot waves..but more like noticing how far and fast did price go in some it's price swings. To me, the wave is about price moving in a strong directional move while staying in a fairly tight ema. When the price exits the ema, I call that the end of that wave. So, if I'm seeing these large fast waves...and price hasn't hit any strong areas of support and resistance, I know at some point after a pullback, I could get another strong wave to ride under these conditions. On other times, you might see the consolidation you were referring to, where price can go a few ticks up..exit the ema..then turn right around and just chop around. So my point is..the bigger waves I am seeing on a particular day can help determine my target size and of course this ties in with what kind of order flow and volume is present.
I like your "Daily Bread" idea as well. My problem is even after all these years, I still realize I am caught up in the concept of over emphasizing having a winning day. If I am 20 ticks down..or so, I still feel that compulsion to make up those losses and end up feeling like a winner..for the day, instead of a loser. Sometimes, though, it might not be a good day to attempt anymore trades. So I need to understand it's ok to have a small losing day and that in no way did I FAIL. So, I don't have to keep going till I hit my maximum loss limit for the day.
I want to be able to trade more like how a robot or machine would trade. Now, I really don't feel there is a way to automate my trading. I can't think of a way to have a program that can discern certain variables such as market conditions and price action patterns and setups the way my brain can see them. But assuming I could automate my system, the algorithm I would want.. obviously wouldn't worry that it was 20 ticks down on the day. The algorithm would not worry about the need "To be made whole" and start taking sub-optimal setups. It would wait until all the conditions were met..and take the highest probability setup..calculate a reasonble target and fire off the trade. If the conditions didn't show up on a particular day, no trades would be taken. This is how I need to be. I need to be kind of a like a "Cyborg"...which has the human brain's pattern recognition combined with a machine like ability to avoid all impulsive and counterproductive emotional responses.
So...maybe we become The Crude Dude Cyborg Trader??? lol
At issue is not the method, but what it can reasonably produce every day. The Daily bread concept is that sometimes, your daily bread is a negative day. Not that you lost but that the market didn't have anything to give you that day based on how you see and trade the market. As long as the process is followed, then a losing day is nothing to be ashamed of or to beat yourself up over.
That being said, I think its possible to win every day. Is it probable? Most likely not but long winning streaks should be the norm and not the exception. For me, the emotional win of doing it right is more important than the dollar win.
I agree with you that averaging 50-100 ticks a week is a home run. Size up when the risk is appropriate and your golden!
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
Just read the thread from start to finish. Crude Dude and Panda, thanks for the great commentary. The evolution from the beginning to the current was awesome to read. I wish the Crude Dude lots of success and I will be watching with great anticipation as your journey continues. Please consider adding to this thread as you move forward.
I agree 100%. I have become much more "process" oriented than results oriented. I know if my process is followed, the edge of the system will take care of the results .
Thanks for the excellent thread - you're definitely one of the greatest assets this forum has. Over the past week or so, I've read through your posts and watched the majority of your videos and I must say, it's exactly what I needed. Finding videos of successful traders trading live eluded me until I discovered your thread. (Youtube is filled with people advertising their wares and so forth)
The biggest lessons I've learned so far are three things:
(1) Buying on pullbacks instead of giving up ticks waiting for more confirmation
(2) Properly using support / resistance price levels from the trading day and previous days
(3) Place realistic targets and stops, trading only when there's sufficient momentum, and trading high probability setups when scalping.
I decided to put the knowledge I learned from this thread to use in the morning session today (9:30-12pm) and the results have been great. Using the lessons I learned from your videos, I've ended up +95 ticks trading TF this morning (5 winning trades & 1 loss). That said, I do know that an individual day's results suggest little unless compared to P/L over time.
Additionally, do you know if there is a free tool similar to the LogicalForex software you have? A system that draws relevant support / resistance areas would be great.
I have almost went through the whole thread and I think I am going to start trading soon, and SIMing to get my hands dirty and start feeling out the momentum times in the CL and NQ instruments, and of course, keeping y'all updated on futures.io (formerly BMT) (probably on this thread).
... I just had question, I know you've talked a lot about this on CL; do recommend any good days and times to trade on the NQ at this point in time when the momentum is flowing?
For me, it's really hard to see momentum flowing when I don't have that indicator to show the squares on the chart. That is going to be my biggest obstacle, and also I'll only be trading with $1000 real money in my account once I leave the SIM rankings. Once I can identify momentum consistently I think I'll have a lot more confidence in myself and using this system, which I am really looking forward to. I am a huge visual person and I really understood when you said you can't be looking at the PnL counter when coming in and out of trades. It's an art that you develop by looking at the graphs and "painting" the trades on the graphs.
I just wanted to say to both lancelottrader and PandaWarrior you guys are really putting some really great resources out there and that if people are interested in doing their due diligence and learning a set strategy, can learn quite a lot from both of you from reading the beginning of this thread to the present day now.
I've got a whole summer to do absolutely nothing (I am an engineering student on break) but to watch charts and see if I can find some real good consistencies; once finishing reading through this thread, I think I will be ready to start...
Thanks for the suggestion. Interestingly enough, I've already downloaded and imported this indicator into NT. Additionally, I believe this indicator is more similar to the Rampage system Lance uses instead of the logicalforex system.