Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
As I look at your trades, it appears as if you trade primarily off of previous levels of S/R to enter and also buy/sell pullbacks in trends.
I have seen quite a few traders trade previous levels of S/R using volume profiles and price profiles(variations of market profile). Have you ever looked at this approach to trading since it appears to be very similar to how you trade and provides a lot of information to the trader?
Actually, there have been many webinars on Big Mike Trading on this subject and how this methodology can be used.
Traderwolf, I haven't looked at it before. I really don't even know what it is; I do see people talking about it a good bit though. Given your sense for how I trade, how do you think it would benefit me? Looking forward to hearing, and thanks for the info!
Since I do not know your trading routines and you are a consistently profitable trader, I am not sure any of this will help you. One of your biggest strengths appears to be money management , and this process does not touch it at all. Here is my take on the value of Volume Profile(to me anyhow):
I will talk about Volume Profile since it is my preference. It represents the amount of shares traded at a given price or tick. I look at previous day in detail looking for places where price traded frequently(Called High Volume Nodes or HVN), and I also look at places where price did not trade frequently(called Low Volume Nodes or LVN). I do look at previous days profiles to look at previous days highs and lows and overall market trend, but place more emphasis on previous day since I am a scalper.
HVN's typicallly act as S/R since price has traded at that level frequently. I am expecting a reversal when heading into a HVN usually. You identified one of these today in your video from the close of the previous day and actually played a reversal off of it. LVN's do not always act as S/R since price did not trade there frequently. It can either be a place where you would expect a breakout or a place where you would expect a reversal and I let the larger price action context guide me as to which way I would lean when we get to that level.
So the real value (to me) of this methodology is to allow you to determine price levels that I have high interest in placing a trade BEFORE THE MARKET OPENS. This HOMEWORK is done without the stress of the market moving fast and furious. As you know , trading is all about having the patience to wait for your setup or levels to appear and sometimes "hurry up and waiting" is the most difficult part. This methodology allows you to do your HOMEWORK before the market opens and develop an overall trading plan for the day. There are other methods and ways to do this and this one is not the holy grail. It is one that is easy to define , easy to use, and very repeatable which lends itself to trading plan consistency.
This is a very brief explanation of a version of this method and hope it helps. BTW, the same analysis can be used with Price Profile(Called TPO for Time Price Opportunity) and should produce similar results.
As you say, all methodologies are subject to our individual interpretation and use. With that being said, most profile traders would probably disagree with your remarks above. Each case is unique, but in general, extremes (where reversals occur) are characterized by low volume. Thus, a return to a low volume area is viewed by many as an opportunity for a possible reversal, given that the market rejected that area previously. High volume areas, on the other hand, contained lots of activity, and are the "meat" of the day. Thus, while a group of prices that previously traded heavy may indeed provide a bounce, the market is returning to an area that was previously accepted, and thus may very well be accepted again (i.e., no reversal). Again, these are just ideas, and there is no right and wrong; but I think most profile traders would tend to generally accept this way of explaining things. It's quite over-simplified of course, and should not be taken as anything other than a rough overview.
Indeed, it is not the holy grail though many seem to be religious followers of profiling due to its recent popularization by some in the trading community. Neither is "homework" the holy grail, nor is exhaustive planning necessary, for me. Some approach is certainly necessary, but for me personally, my pre-market preparation is greatly influenced by activity all the way up to the open, rendering any planning done the night before or much before the open to be out of date and rather useless. I have ideas at the open, but by no means does my approach that day which is developed prior to the open have much bearing after the first hour or two; at that point, the activity of the day rules and I try to get in tune with that, regardless of what plan may have been created prior to the day's beginning. Again, just my thoughts, and YMMV.
There is a good thread on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT) here.
Honestly IT7, I wouldn't spend your time learning volume or market profiling theory. Its reasonably good stuff to know but I don't think it will help you the way you trade now. It may change how you trade and that may be good or may be bad. I think you've got a good, intuitive feel for the way TF moves and you're relatively fearless and consistent (meaning that you will trade and keep trading and stay with it as opposed to letting opportunities pass you by).
That said, I think you would do best to figure out ways to help you get rid of your losers quicker and hold your winners. That advice "cut losers, hold winners" is useless on the face of it - the key is figuring out how to cut YOUR losers and hold YOUR winners. You might look at how many 250 tick bars it takes for your typical winner to start showing a profit - they you could decide to get out of your trade if its in the red after x number of bars. A lot of this is going to come from getting used to the action of getting rid of trades that aren't working - just getting out of them and then waiting for the next time you see an opportunity - cut and move on, cut and move on.
Holding winners is also difficult - you're never going to know which trades will be the big winners vs the ones that will come back and stop you out at BE. You seem to hold your trades for 3-10 minutes on average so you might spend some time to look at historical data to get a feel for the average size of a move over this timeframe and set realistic objectives for the size of your typical winner. That way you'd have a goal - say 20 ticks or so and you can try harder to hold a trade that's working until it gets to that size. By "try harder" I mean keeping a looser stop.
Anyway - I'm not offering much practical advice here, just some thoughts. Good trading!
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. - Frank Herbert
I will admit that I've gotten a little jealous over seeing other traders setups. I decided to step it up myself. Just rigged this up tonight. Literally used books to set up the higher monitors in the back. (Waiting on my stand to arrive), but already this is quite functional and quite pleasing even though it's not set up right yet. Looking forward to paying for it all in the session tomorrow.
Today was one of those frustrating days where it seems like most everything goes against you. I kept losses under 1%, but it was just one of those days.