I think the news at 7:00 PST caused a little osillcator gyration. But once things settled down after a few minutes the long on the ES 6 range bar chart was very clean.

As far as oscillators go..... I try not to look at them !! LOL....but when I do, I like the 3/10 oscillator. I mainly spot divergence with them. But..... look out on a trend up/down day. Divergence will eat you up. I've lost a lot of money spotting divergence ! That's one of the reasons that I'm trying to wean myself from indicators. No indicators forces me to focus more on price and support/resistance. I find trendline breaks are useful also.

An ADX is also useful. It can be used to set up the LBR "Holy Grail" trade and tell you if the market is trending or not.

Hi Cunparis,
FWIW, I found that the LBR 310 confirms chop when the smooth line is waving along the zero line and changing colors a lot on the 11 range. Big Mike has also talked about how chop can be identified when Bolinger Bands are inside the Keltner bands. I found that this works with the 2.5 Keltner and 2.5 Bolinger. Another way I found chop to show up is with the Sharkfin paint bars painting the default yellow on say an 11 range chart in a tight swing 3 range. I suppose this may all be obvious too in mid chop. Usually plain old price tells us first though.

The last few days I've witnessed improvement in my ES sim trading. This caused me to consider last night whether my increased confidence might increase the chances that I would do something stupid. Well, it happened.

I accidentally entered an order at the wrong price. As I was attempting to close the order, price filled it. That's ok because it's bound to happen sometimes. However, instead of exiting immediately I decided to hold the trade. Mistake 1. The trade lost and cut big into the gains made earlier in the day because my stop was wider than it would normally be. Mistake 2. I became upset and started revenge trading, entering trades without adhering to my plan. Mistake 3. In an attempt to offset the mounting losses I began adding contracts beyond the limitations of my plan. Mistake 4.

Basically, I had an emotional breakdown and one problem led to another. It's quite visible in the equity curve. Please don't get the wrong idea. The equity highs on the far right mean nothing to me because I view the positive trades near the end as pure luck.

deltason 

I accidentally entered an order at the wrong price. As I was attempting to close the order, price filled it. That's ok because it's bound to happen sometimes. However, instead of exiting immediately I decided to hold the trade. Mistake 1. The trade lost and cut big into the gains made earlier in the day because my stop was wider than it would normally be. Mistake 2. I became upset and started revenge trading, entering trades without adhering to my plan. Mistake 3. In an attempt to offset the mounting losses I began adding contracts beyond the limitations of my plan. Mistake 4.

I could have written that myself as I've followed the same exact steps. Here's one more:

5. I decided I should go on sim but I couldn't resist trading real money the next day. Mistake 5.

And did you really trade 60 trades in one day???

Hi Jeff,
Did you try out the Sharkfin paint bars? I was wondering what people thought in comparison to the EcoBars...

Hi Deltason,

Sorry to hear about the "meltdown." We've all been there. You are not alone.
I learned from a similiar experience to immediately exit a trade that I did not intend to put on. Even if it means a loss. Usually the loss will be smaller than some other outcome that may be worse !

I remember a quote that goes something like this, "trading is an expensive way to find out who you really are." I'm sure that this is why people find trading so intriguing. It's not just a job. It's an adventure in self discovery! Learning true mastery over yourself. If your account survived today, I'm sure today provided many valuable lessons. Embrace them.

Another thing that might be helpful is what Hubert Senters of Trade the Markets calls a " Two Minute Drill." If you suffer a loss don't immediately jump into another trade. Cool off for at least two minutes before putting on another trade.

Hang in there, Jeff

Hey Dragon,

Yes, I did look at the sharkfins paint bars..... but..... they seemed to paint a lot of yellow bars and this was significantly different from what I was use to looking at. ( ModHeikenAshi) so I opted to go with the Eco bars.

I'm looking at the Sharkfins now and wondering what the calculation is? I can't detect a "look back " period that I usually see with paint bar studies. For instance todays open...
blue/red every other bar for 20 minutes. I just don't understand what I'm looking at.

Hey Deltason,

You might give some thought to over trading. Of course everyone is different..... perhaps you are a micro scalper with many trades per day but...... the way I see it there might have been about 6 good trades today.

How many trades do you average per day?

My understanding is that its best working on a Close, 5 period setting. It does paint yellow alot but it seems to be accurate. I posted a thread about ModHA2 because I didn't like the way the candles painted with ModHA2 and Sharky replied saying to go with the Sharkfin bars at 5 because they were better anyway... Soo... I believe it paints on a Linear Regression reversal indicator of sorts. I also like the way it outlines the bars and looks cleaner, more of a preference issue. However, I am swayed by the masses choosing Ecobars at the moment and wondering if I am missing something.

you can try this paint bar also...sharky