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It's not like it's a big secret..Just trying to show I'm not promoting anything. People can come up with their own moving averages and get the same idea. Nothing magical about mine.. I just don't want people to think I'm a shill for the companies whose indicators I use.
Days like today are not conducive to catching bigger moves. Nothing has any real follow through. The most important thing is to be able to recognize early on the type of market conditions that are prevailing on a particular day. I was up on several trades 15 or 20 ticks, but tried to stay in longer. Just ended up giving up a lot of profit. This is a day for smaller targets and more of a scalping approach. Determining market conditions before it's too late is probably the hardest thing about trading. Matching the wrong strategy to those conditions does not work.
Today is the type of day where my system works best. When the volume is high and the momentum is strong, my signals produce many great runners. The trick is to have the courage to keep taking good entries. On this type of day, I play "offence." I take the money the market is handing me. The last two days were choppy and lousy..and those are the days to play "defense". In other words take less trades..or take smaller scalps. Today, I ended up about 120 ticks.
That's the million dollar question, right there.. I have found there are certain clues that can give you a slight edge. For example, this week we had a Monday with no major economic releases. I have noticed often a Monday with no real news can be choppy..and this one was no exception. Yes, a 300 tick move came out of nowhere later in the afternoon due to a statement by the Saudi's, but the earlier part of the session sucked.
Yesterday we had fairly light volume and no major news and again it was choppy. Also, the 9 am est opening push can give clues. I'll usually take a signal at that time if it meets my parameters. If the push yields a fast big move, I can expect maybe a few other volatile moves during the session..which usually occur at similar times each day. I call these times hotzones and I've mentioned in previous posts when they are most likely to occur. If the 9am untill 9:20 time is choppy, then we may see a prolonged period of this. especially if no major news is coming out at 10.
Today, I took a few trades around the 9am area and lost maybe 10 ticks altogether, but then I nailed the 54 tick move. Then it became quite obvious the session was going to have some major moves. We had things going on in the oil market driving the price down, news at 8:30, news at 10 am and crude oil inventories. Lots of volume and lots of big players. My time and sales shows all orders over 10 contracts and if you see lots of large orders, you can expect big moves. Also, my software on my 2 range chart has vertical lines that form boxes. When these boxes get extremely wide, I know there is lots of momentum going on. Also, from watching price move for several hours a day, I have developed a feel for it.
For the purpose of statistics gathering, I am wondering if everyone agrees on the same definition for a trending day? And inversely, is a non-trending day automatically the same as a range bound day?