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The Allas Avg on the medium chart is "visual flare" and not part of my trading rules. I've documented my rules in several videos in the download section.
Took three trades today on ZN. Two losers, 1 tiny winner, for a total loss of 9 ticks.
Today I used poor judgment. I did not trade Monday because I hadn't slept. Tuesday I woke up two hours late after again having a very hard time sleeping last night. I missed three nice setups and tried to "make up" for it, but forcing trades that were less than ideal.
I knew better than to trade when price was right on top of Allas Average on the big chart. But, I pressed my luck. On top of that, the ES was setting right at 900 during all of this, which added a lot more uncertainty to the mix and made things more complicated (even for the ZN).
I guess I can be happy I only lost 9 ticks before coming to my senses, but in reality I did not follow my rules today and that is why I lost money. It had nothing to do with the market, ES @ 900, Allas Average, or any indicators -- I lost because I did not follow my rules.
I am currently in the middle of "Trading for a Living" by Alexander Elder, a book specifically written about psychology and money management, where I believe 90% of your focus needs to be -- 10% on indicators/setups. So far I am enjoying the book but it has not taught me anything yet, I am hoping it will before the end of the book. Today was a reminder of why psychology and money management are the most important thing in trading.
Also, over the weekend I decided to go back to my 6765 volume chart for a while on the ZN. I might raise it to 10946 volume. Really either is fine for getting the job done. The renko chart looks great in hindsight but it is rather laggy for real-time trading. And even though I wasn't trading it directly, I was relying on it to tell me more than I had previously realized, and I think switching back to the volume chart makes more sense for me. The main reason is simply by design of renko, price can lag 3x whatever the bar size is, so a 4 tick renko can see 12 ticks of movement before printing a new bar... and that was a bit much for me.
An important note: I have renamed by charts to make the naming more accurate: Big = 6765 volume, Medium = 4 range, Small = 1597 volume. Previous the 4 range and 1597v were the other way around, but in reality, the 1597v moves faster than the 4 range and I take my entries off the 1597v almost always.
Second important note: The up/down arrows on the small chart are just heads-up alerts. Just because there is an arrow does NOT mean a trade was taken, or even that it met all my rules (because many don't).
I took four ZN trades today.
I missed the first two to three hours because I woke up late. I am having a lot of trouble sleeping right now and it is definitely having a negative impact on my trading. So I missed the two nice runs in the morning.
I took the long @ 117'075 at 10:15a central for 4 ticks. I was a bit concerned of a double top so lowered my target. It went on to hit the full 8 tick target.
I then took a long @ 117'080 at 12:01p for break even. It went against me 4 ticks then for me 5 ticks, I moved by stop to break even when it was +4 and it came back and took out my stop before it hit the 8 tick target.
Then I took a long @ 117'065 at 12:36p for minus 5 ticks. The signal failed.
I broke for lunch and there was a nice run while I was away that worked perfectly. Really kicked myself, it was a perfect setup.
My last trade was short @ 117'010 at 2:45p for break even. It went 5 ticks for me and I moved my stop to break even. It came back and took out that stop then continued on to the 8 tick target.
Was a rough day mainly because I missed the best trades in the morning and was left with other setups. I ended minus 1 tick plus C.
I just uploaded a video where I plead and beg fellow traders like yourself to work on your money management and not on your chart and indicators. The video talks about money management, psychology, indicators, and journals.
I haven't taken any trades in a while. Lots of good info lately on the forum about money management, have learned a lot and am coming up with ways to adapt what I've learned into my own plan and method.
I discussed some stuff with Gary by phone and he and I are doing similar things, he is documenting his part here:
I am still fairly new to the CL, but like what I see as compared with the ES and ZN, and thus have been focusing much of my attention on this instrument for the last couple of weeks.
Something I started doing (which was long overdue) …
I'm taking a slightly different approach, using backtesting and optimizing to get some of the values. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, we'll be combining/sharing our efforts this weekend and hopefully have some nice fruits for our labor.