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I suddenly recalled Big Mike's suggestion "Guess what newbies will do?". When ES had a free fall (per enclosed) from 1118 to 1103, some strange ideas came to my petite head.
I don't know about others, but for the "former" me, I would probably buy whenever it had a pause thinking it's the bottom .. can't go further down .. great Buy here. Then after entry it resumed falling, I would think "better average price .. Buy more ..". Certainly it continued falling and paused for a minute .. then the same logic for the formerly newbie me "Should be bottom now .. Buy more for a better average price .. Now I'm going to make more $$ .. haha ..". Oh, I forgot the former me did not have SL. At the end, when I couldn't stand the huge loss accu from the first to the most recent contract purchase (say at least 3 contracts totalling 30 points), I would close all and had a "big hole" in my account!
Sorry for an off-topic sharing. I've changed - CONFIRMED!
I've not forgotten about performing the weekend review .. smile ..
1. Trade Set Ups
a. 4-Range remains to be primary where I spot high probability trades based on Method 1 entry rules + my preference to have EMA(5) black line above or below EMA(2) color line for Long and Short respectively.
b. 30-Minute Market Profile - stay as-is
c. 5-minute CCI chart - I mostly look at it when I am in a trade .. not very often though. Let's have it for another week or two before considering its retirement.
Realization:
1. Going through the overnight session helps as I have a better idea on the trend, HH and LL etc.
2. SOH for the first 10-15 minutes helps (though I may miss an early trade) as I get a feel on the price movement in relation to Open.
2. Trading Instrument
a. Main Instrument
Will stay with ES while practising more on 6E when I'm done with trading for the day. I like 6E's price movement esp a trade will likely be closed within 2-3 minutes. Time will tell.
Note: Still stay with one instrument at one time!
b. TF
I will try to figure out (again) if I can create a TF minute chart using IB as the data provider. No luck last time. If successful, I will only have ES on the main trading station while sim-running my trial strategies on the laptop.
3. Trader's Performance
a. An overall B grade for the week
b. I did make additional efforts to better understand the 4-Range set up. Creating a BETA strategy (at least my 5th attempt) helps my visualizing the Set Up bar (lime or orange arrow) + counting the bars to identify the entry point. As of this moment, I have no intention to sim-trade it. Rather have been doing EOD Market Replay for learning purposes.
Note: The strategy has not been capturing all signals .. maybe somehow one of the entry conditions did not happen. My estimate: possibly 60-70%. However, the triggered signals so far did meet the predetermined entry criteria.
c. I am not 100% happy with the way I manage the trades. Believe more practice will make "close to perfect".
4. My Next Move
For the coming week, I will do live trades again. Mostly 1-contract trades with occasional 2-contract ones.
a. 1-contract Trade: PT/SL @4 and 6
b. 2-contract Trade: PTs @4 and 6 and SL @6 (adjust SL to +1 after a 4-tick move)
Note: If a trade looks very promising, will adjust the second PT to 8.
Maximum No of Trade/Day: 2 good ones (even 1) will be great and 3 will be the maximum
1. I try to do several things, before the session starts. Basically this is framing the session, as I want to put it in some context.
- looking at major support and resistance points on a daily and 60 minutes chart (at least 1 week of data displayed)
- plotting yesterday's high, low, close and volume weighted average price (or POC)
- plotting the overnight range (Asian session), often it is created by the last wide ranging candle of yesterday's regular session
- looking at the impact of the European session
- plotting current day's high and low from the globex session
- looking where the pivot range is ( main floor pivot PP, High+Low-PP)
- looking where the opening range (5 and 30 min) plots, also in relation to the close and the pivot range
- be sure to understand impact of expectations and news releases for the day
This allows me to understand whether the current session has a bullish or a bearish note and where the points are that need to be tested.
2. Often, when I trade during the first 15 minutes, it becomes a losing trade. Needs some time to watch and think through all the options. Best to watch price action prior to the market open. Never trade during the first 5 min after the market opens.
Your prompt sharing has made my weekend. I have some of them on the 4-Range chart (eg, Previous Day's HLC and 4 levels of S/R based on the previous day's data + current day's HL and PP). I've started paying more attention on the current VAH/POC/VAL (30-minute MP) esp if they rotate up or down. When I get more competent, I maybe able to look at more charts with different timeframes.
Spending some time to review the overnight session such as the Asian/European sessions is a great idea. My trillion thanks again.
To round-off this thank-you post, I can't help saying "You are a super-hero looking at so many things!"
Initial Balance: 1124.25 - 1118.00 (6.25 points) Value Area as at 10:35 am: 1121.75 - 1121.25 - 1118.25 (3.50 points)
Price opened @1123.75
Today's High and Low as at 10:35 am: 1124.25 - 1118.00 (matching IB)
VPOCs: Top 1128.50 and Bottom 1108.00 (1120.75 was touched) Overnight High and Low: 1125.50 and 1116.50
A choppy morning + narrow range so far. No high-priority news todays. Maybe Mr Market will be more diligent as the day goes.
Here it comes my Sim trade log for the morning, ie
No of Trades: 3 (2 1-contract and 1 2-contract) (2 winners and 1 loser)
No of Ticks: 3 before commission
Lessons learned:
1. When it's too choppy and narrow range (say around 3 points today), take the morning off LOL!
2. When price movement has been slow, instead of tightening SL, another strategy is to close the trade BE or 1 tick to pay for the commission.
Goals Accomplished:
1. Preserve Precious Capital: Only the first Short was a smooth sail. Unfortunately, it's too early (minutes after the market opened). I learned from many experienced traders that it's advisable to SOH for the first 10-15 minutes. There maybe occasional winning trades though losing chance has been quite high. Soooo, I listen!
I do not like the price movement and choose to sim trade instead.
2. Observed and respected the CHOP signal such as the Chop warning on the top left, ADX below 25 and the thick orange line PLUS SOH when the thick green line was above the thin lines (End of Trend).
It's a morning testing my nerves .. patience is Gold!! Let's see if there're high probability trades in the afternoon.
Over the weekend, I did an overall performance recap on my strategies (which I sim-traded for almost 2 or 2+ months). Did narrow down a few quite promising ones. Having said that, we do not have an investment pool that can accommodate the occasional $1-$2K drawdown. To be more focussed on my discretionary trading, we have decided not to continue sim-trading them on the laptop.
For the main trading station, I now only have the following:
You can tell from the enclosed that Mr Market crawled the whole afternoon. I placed a pair of breakout trades, ie
- Buy Stop @1124.75 (1 tick above the recent HH)
- Sell Stop @1121.75 (1 tick below the recent HL - DB to me)
Buy Stop got in. Stayed in the trade for almost 10 minutes and I exited the first contract with 1 tick (thought the second one would stay for PT 3). Well, I forgot to check 2-step Exit Mode since I did mostly 1-contract trades this morning. Both contracts got out @1 tick LOL! Human error when I was bored .. sorry.
Official record for Mon:
4 trades (3 winners and 1 loser 4 - 2 + 1 + 2)
Total Ticks 5 before commission
Commission: $24 (6 x $4)
Tomorrow is FMOC day. Expect the morning maybe slow. Let's play it by ear.
Beth (I prefer a faster instrument .. let's give it a chance to prove that it does match me .. )