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Great question and this has been an area that I have struggled with. When I read my own plan I realized I did not have a trigger described. Ben Brooke has been helping me with this and I think it is similar to what you do. For example, if the trade sets up and we get the 2B pattern where price makes a new high (this would be for a short) the signal bar is the bar that made the new high. I think what Ben is suggesting I do is use a sell stop 1 tic below the POC of the signal bar. One tic above for a long. I'm using 7 range bars on the YM. Does this make sense?
David
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I added a version of the trade plan in word 97-03. You had written Work, so I wasn't sure if you wanted it saved as a Works doc or Word 03 doc. Let me know if I gave you the wrong thing.
Thanks, i do appreciate the comments. I sure hope this is the right direction, it feels right for me. I tried to get you a footprint chart for the trades indicated, but MD is being picky about letting me go back in time that far. i think footprint charts take a lot of computing power. I will post footprint charts on future trades.
I agree , the stinkers are easy to get into . In the past Ive hesitated to enter eventual big winners and jumped the gun on quick losers and its one of the first bad habits I had to break . If you follow the sequences and details in your plan and get stopped out a few times it makes it difficult to stay with the plan and if you bend the rules of your plan and catch some winners it makes following the plan difficult . In the end it is best to define that plan as best you can and stick with it until you have enough data to evaluate it and adjust it slowly , it might hurt a little but in the end it will benefit you even if at first its just having bragging rights for sticking to it .
Jeff Quinto says ; " Pay the price of dicipline or pay the price of regret " . In my experience all traders have to pay one of those two things and you are better off choosing one or the other and accepting it .
The sayings I have always thought best describes this are "the best trade is closest to being the worst trade" or "the trade that is right is the closest to being wrong"
This is just and expression of initial risk, as was davids trading at extreemes.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but today was a great day. Not because I had 3 winning trades and made a lot of money, but because I followed my plan. In doing so I only had one trade today. It wasn't a huge winner, but I'm going to set that aspect aside since Big Mike says not to grades ones self on profitability. Today gets an A. I do have to give Ben Brooke a lot of the credit because he has helped me a great deal.
Today's trade was a bounce of the the 4/1 POC. Could have taken more out of it, but that's okay. I show the profile, the volume chart and the footprint as well as the Ninja markers.
Don't place emphasis on making money. Don't look at today and say "I can't pay the bills with this" and try to ramp up. Just focus on stringing together two days of executing your plan 100%. Then three days, then a week. After a couple weeks of perfect execution of your plan your P&L should speak for itself.
Well, today was another very good day even though for most of the day the action was crappy.
Only two trades today. The first I exited at B/E. I give myself a C because my plan does not address trades that are not moving in your favor. If action is choppy and the trade does not begin to move how much time should one give the trade? I would think some time limit either in minutes or bars is needed. Ben B. helped me out on this one today otherwise I may have taken a full stop.
Trade two presented itself as a pretty good setup, but once again the action was not very convincing. There were many indications to take the trade, but after entering there was never any velocity or momentum. I did get +10 on 2 and +15 on 1. I had set initial targets based on VWAP and value, but moved them based on how much time it took for the move. One thing about this trade is that I got in at the very high at 10927 and I did because in addition to the other indications there were 700 contracts at the ASK on the DOM. This is unusual for YM from what I have seen. I viewed this as resting supply. The orders were not being added and removed, just resting there, so it added to the setup. I thank Fiki for suggesting to look at the DOM at "key" levels.
In regards to trade management how do you handle a trade that sets up nicely, but the result is lack luster. Do you stick with targets as planned or adjust? This needs to be addressed in my plan. Of course just after I moved my target my initial first target location was hit. I give myself a C for this trade because I don't address the management of a slow mover in my plan, assuming it should be.
Overall for the day I will take a B. Only two trades, so no over trading and other than the trade management aspect i followed the rules. I thank Ben B. as well for the continued support.