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Hi AJ, I remember back when you were preparing to get into full time trading, and then eventually broke through to it with your many hours and hard work of observing the market. Congratulations, and I'm glad at your current stage of success you continue to support the newbies with your great positive attitude.
And also commenting on your great strategy in your prior post about taking the "3rd" stair step off of the VWAP, or conversely taking a stairstep back into the VA "cloud" (the 1st standard deviation zone of the VWAP?) .
Reminds me of CJ Booth's original manuals here , where an entry is after first two "stairsteps of higher high's" except that your .jpg ingeniously shows VWAP support of the pattern, or breakdown back into the VA cloud. Thanks.
If you could at least post a pic of where you traded, and arrows pointing where you entered and why. It's hard to follow what you did. I had tried bollinger band test and pullback entries before so I kind of know where you're coming from.
For bollinger bands reversal trades, I'd wait for a 2nd failed test and where bollinger band started to "hook" the other way. Plus some confluence with some indicator maybe an RSI or CCI. There's all kinds of other context that could be looked at as well. maybe a pivot point, or a yesterday's vwap close line could help. Always try to have an idea of targets and stops before entering any trade.
Example of some bollinger band "hook" reversal ideas:
Don't forget that the pattern can form anywhere. Don't limit yourself to just waiting for a PB to vwap.
I trade by the theory of 3's a lot. I read somewhere the analogy of 3 legs of a chair. A chair will not stand
on 2 legs, but it can on 3. That stuck with me. If I see any type of setup and I have three reasons to enter, I'm in.
The key thing to remember about the pattern, is that the first tier will be at any level of SR. As soon as
price breaks and respects the edge of the consolidation with it's PB, you should become very alert.
If the SR is strong and I feel the price swing is ripe for reversal, I will enter here and not wait for the
third tier. I will use that to scale in a home run runner.
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Thank you for your words on my journey. It has seemed very long, although it has been only 5 years or so.
I was able to recognize the patterns from an early stage, but my patience and emotional stamina is what I
needed to build. You can almost never wait too long. But you can get chewed up reacting too quickly to
anything in trading - entries AND exits.
Ben ,@PrivateBanker , said something once that has always stuck with me - "It's a marathon, it really is".
I come in each evening with this mindset. Get ready for the long haul. Let the market develop.
If you just keep watching and don't get distracted by the internet or leaving the desk for anything longer
than a 5 or 15 bar, (In my quasi Swinging Scalp method) , you will see a pattern that has an 75% outcome.
Another trader said " I don't take a trade until I see the money laying on the ground, then I simply reach
down and pick it up "
@Gabriyele stated - " Trading is very simple. Not easy, simple. " That sums it up for me.
You must be so patient and calm that the game becomes simple.
My good friend @Xav1029, had a difficult time trading simply because he didn't have enough time to trade!!
He would wake up before his very solid day job and try to trade the London open and then go to work.
You simply cannot force a trade into a set time parameter.
Of course, he would overtrade and / or jump trades too early and exit too early. All because his
sub-conscious knew he only had a few hours.
I am convinced Xav will be a great trader when he comes back to it. He realized he was trading with one
hand behind his back and put it on the back burner for a while.
That is an excellent lesson to young (age) traders. Man, you have your whole life ahead of you. If it's not
working right now, put it away for a while. ( never give up!! ) .
I discovered this gig from a kooky documentary on the subject. They were comparing the masses to sheep
- working in the system, getting your wage , calling it a life and retiring. Then they ran some traders by
that were wildly successful ( doing a bit of disservice in not playing the other side of all those who fail) and
showed how simple it was. I was pumped. At fifty years of age, I felt like a change, so I jumped in with
both feet. Many will remember how I would trade during recording sessions. ( Long term swing Euro / Dollar)
The charts were always up. If I was up, a chart was up.
That is the key, new traders. All in, all out. You must watch 1 chosen instrument for THOUSANDS of hours.
It will begin to speak to you.
Where do i start is a great question. Most people don't ask it, they just start. You start where we all started, at the beginning. There are a lot of better ways to start than others, definitely there are better ways to start than I did. I think I've been starting and re-starting for 5 1/2 years. I'm now just past the starting stage and on to consistent but still small gains. That was a very rough start for me, I'm so done with the start.... So the better ways to start are: small, low risk, having rules, keeping a journal, learning technical analysis, then applying that analysis to what you see on the chart during market hours, and then compare to after the market and see if you are coming to the same conclusions. It's very, very easy to start with too much risk and be forced out of the game before you've learned how to play it.
Mate, honestly not to dishearten you but I don't want you to lose all your money so I'd advise you don't trade options until you know how to trade everything else. It's the most leverage product and you can lose your hard earned cash quickly.
As a first step try taking a course in futures trading and read plenty of books and start from there. then write a trading plan with the setups you want to take and then journal your trading activity so you can gradually improve your process and that will be a big help in learning from past mistakes.