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"You, You,,, you're good!" Hi @josh thanks for stopping by, actually I was expecting just a little bit more movement before 2am. I had my price levels picked out before the Globex open and wanted to be flat by 2am. This was an Asian Session trade, for lack of a better term. Beginning at 8pm I wanted to be a seller above '88 up to '94 with an all out STOP at even. That part worked. My Sweet Spot for a target was Friday's 50% level or the Pivot at '77 (4 ticks). This play fit my style right down to the ground!
So, since I know, you know, the Devil is in the details I'll throw it out there. The average range from the Globex Open until 2am over the last 20 sessions is 25 ticks, for the last 10 it's 27. So I figured it (6E) would show me the 14-21 ticks I was fishing for, prior to 2am. And I know you're a tough customer so I'll take this one step further. What is normal? When throwing hand grenades the "average" is usually 'close enough,' (for me anyway) but I do know statistically what the "normal" range is and my target area was well within the lower range of "normal." Here's a chart FWIW,, and I'm posting a snip of a simple, free, on-line standard deviation calculator anyone can use if this is something they might want to look into but don't want to do that whole spreadsheet thingy (the link is below).
Yesterday's Low is sitting on 1.3219 Today's (Friday) trade opened at 1.3243 gunning for that low might be a nice 24 tick trade. But this is the Mighty Euro and She's not known for giving away money. The Open was "textbook," right between a rock and a hard place. The rock was the whole number 1.3250 and the hard place was that 14-16 tick rotation at 1.3236-1.3234. We all hold our own beliefs about our markets and these numbers I hold dear. So, for price to reach the low it has to trade through that hard place of '36/ '34. Straight out of the gate price traded lower and stopped on 1.3235 for some reason, then left the area and tested '50, spiked up to the High (so far) at '56. Price didn't do much there and returned to 1.3236 and stopped dead again. Traded back up to '51 and and staged another run to the '36/'34 area. As I said, we all hold our own beliefs about price movements and I take note on the third attempt at support or resistance areas. This time with plenty of churn and the support of European Traders stepping in, the hard place gave way and price traded down to 1.3223. Not quite the low, but damn close.
For those who have studied the "retro fitted" Taylor Numbers I'm posting a chart to Highlight the Decline number and one of its uses (for me anyway). This number is the average of the distance calculated by subtracting today's low from yesterday's high. This morning the 3 period average distance was 116 ticks or the price level of 1.3228. What this number is saying is if price declines it might find support in this area, remember it is the average of the last three declines. It appeared to work this morning after price chewed thru the 36/34 level "something" started to tap on the brakes and price just couldn't reach Yesterday's Low (yet). This is one use of this number and there are others, but this morning it gave me a target a little further than the 36/34's and a little shy of Yesterday's Low.
I just couldn't NOT post the end of day chart from yesterday. Look at that Low, it didn't stay there long, only a fraction of a second. BUT if your order was on the book early,,,,, who knows. Gotta love this stuff
Is that a tick? two, three ,,,, My FXCM data went cold again for about 45 minutes, still not sure if it's trustworthy I'd never trade it, but I do watch it.
I've never read any of Al's books (forgive me) but I have seen several of his videos, for that reason I'm going to credit him for the statement above, I've heard him say it more than a few times and I believe he's absolutely correct. Was doing some chores around the house and kept thinking about that statement because I was asked in a couple PMs about my stop placement on a few set-ups I trade. The more I thought about it (Al's quote) the more complex it became, or I should say, the more complex I made it! I believe at the most basic level the quote means, I don't care if this trade wins or loses, it is just one of thousands of trades I'll take in my career as a trader. I also believe getting to the mind-set where you are willing to sit and watch a trade creep toward and trigger your stop reducing your trading equity by any amount isn't something most of us are comfortable with when we first start trading. "I don't care," is dangerous ground for a newbie, if he/she lacks a thorough understanding of risk. Without predefined risk parameters "I don't care" can and often does get confused with, fuck it! How many journal entries have we read that describe just that kind of behavior, many. Learning to trade takes time and money, there's no other way. You are not going to learn how to trade by trading month after month on a simulator, IMO you have to have real money at risk to taste the true flavor of the emotional and psychological aspects of trading. OK, time out, let me clarify that I believe trading simulators are great tools, when used properly and I also believe the TST Program is an inexpensive way of adding accountability to the simulated experience (the down fall of simulators, IMO). This notion of accountability when using a simulator is one of the topics that makes the "I don't care," concept so complex. I'm not sure traders on simulators develop the skill to "shut down and walk away," without the specter of accountability looking over their shoulder. In the real world, it's only you and you have to be the judge and jury for every entry and every exit you take. You have to develop on your own strict discipline for all aspects of your trading. Everything from eating and sleeping to changing the batteries in your mouse and controlling your risk. You have to be it all and do it all there is no-one else. "I don't care size," adds up and eventually you will care! Your trading skills will allow you to trade in a variety of market conditions but if you're not there yet then you better have the discipline to "walk away" when things aren't going well. For me, "I don't care size" has one meaning for one set-up and another meaning for another. This hinges on another concept, the idea of all in all out or scale in scale out. I have a few trades I can put on and go back to bed, my stop is at, "I don't care," and my target is predefined. Other trades I may scale in and manage them from the edge of my seat, my stop is at "I don't care," divided by three, this means I can take three losers and NOT care if everything goes wrong. If I can't get in tune with the market after three attempts at analyzing the price movement I need to call it a day and "walk away." This thread is about the Euro, anyone struggling with "I don't care size" should look in to all options available for trading, the 6E, the mini and the micro. There's no shame in trading the Micro contract, it offers many things a simulator can't, a few are, real market, real fills (or not), an emotional and psychological connection and it offers the ability to actually make "real money." Don't be so quick to discount the $1.25 per tick pay-out, this ain't about making money, it's about learning how to trade. How many ticks can you consistently make on your simulator in a week, with total accountability, this is where the Micro will hold you firmly in reality, not in the world of simulation. I believe the Micro contract has a lot to offer when it comes to "I don't care size," put your discipline on the line in all areas of trading with very little REAL money at risk, and be rewarded for your progress. This contract will nibble away at your trading account and you will soon realize it is not a trading simulator. Wasn't sure where this post would go, I'm tired, it is what it is.
The problem with the M6E that I can see is that you pay a huge spread - I'm seeing a 20 tick spread on it at the moment, compared to 2 ticks on the 6E. Admittedly it's still 04:25AM Chicago time but how much does it improve? Plus then with Interactive Brokers I pay commission too, so any method I would use would probably get killed on transaction costs (and I've no idea what slippage is like).
But I get what you are saying - although you might find it's just the quality of the sim account - speed, fills, etc - that's putting you off. I find Interactive Brokers' sim account is pretty good.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.