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Hi all, Im new here and looking for a little help. Was today a sit on your hands day or what? Even for scalping for me. I kept trying to short the ES at the trend lines and got killed, (demo mode thank God) still hurt my ego! Im trying to dip my toes in a little at a time with the Risk reward (only want to short the major trend-lines) but that failed horribly. It was clearly a rising wedge also. When to stop? With real money I will allow 1% risk a day then stop for the day but at a major trend-line like this it kinda hard to do. I will post some charts ( forgive my messy charts, I need help there too). Ive done well and the big range days.
Again, when to stop? How should I have approached this differently?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the …
Start at the end & work your way back.
All you really need is @Fat Tails Daily, Weekly & Monthly VWAP indicators. anaHeikenAshi also helps. When you see the "Doji", trade long / short, depending on where price is, in relation to the VWAP. Put your stop a few ticks below (or above, if shorting) the tail of the Doji. Pick a target and wait.....
Trade long when price is above the Daily VWAP, short when price is below the Daily VWAP, watching the Weekly & Monthly for cues as to where price might top / bottom out, being keenly aware of prior support / resistance areas.
Also, you might consider using @Fat Tails anaDailyPivots, although some might consider these "random lines", I do not. You can see where price hits these on a regular basis & then often reverts back to the VWAP. I think they make good targets, as do the 2 Standard Deviation bands (I don't like the coloring of the bands, so I just use the 2SD lines).
On ranging days, sell the highs and buy the lows. You can usually tell if it's going to be a ranging day, based on the overnight activity. If overnight was ranging, today probably will be too....until it's not! Same goes for trending days. If overnight was trending (up or down), today probably will be too....until it's not!
Here's an example of today. I saw no indications to go short at any time today, other than, perhaps a scalp back to the Daily VWAP.
Also, the Daily WVAP is an excellent low risk, high reward entry point!
You'll notice that @Big Mike uses VWAP on his charts. I use what some consider an "exotic" bar type, but it works well for me. Others prefer the 10,000 Volume bars for intraday trading of the ES. It's up to you - whatever you prefer and whatever works best for you.
Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.
After I posted this, I noticed you're using TOS. I don't know if TOS has built in VWAP indicators. Not familiar with TOS. Sorry for any confusion.
After all, it's what you learn AFTER you know it all, that counts!
You've been in a range since February. The range is in charge.
There's no reason to short trendlines unless you have some evidence that they provide resistance. The resistance is the upper limit of the range, given that the highs of the bars are in the market. Whatever lines you might draw are in your head.
We came within a few points of the upper limit of the range at the close of RTH. Depending on what price does overnight, that may make for an interesting day tomorrow.
@The Wizard Not confusing at all, Great answer. Weird that the indicators you mentioned are the ones I have been wanting to look into. Thanks for all the info.
@DbPhoenix I think your right. Im looking for entrys with tight stops and those trendlines are really the only way I know how. You think wait for a pullback and enter on a bear flag?
Trendlines may be the only way you know how, but they are hardly the only way. If you're happy and successful, there's no reason to explore anything else. But if you're not, there's no reason not to.
As I said, trendlines don't provide support or resistance. As you're trading a mean-reverting instrument, the most important aspect of it is the mean, then the distance that traders will take price away from it. These distances, if they have any uniformity at all, will provide points for a trendline. But the trendline serves only to tell you how far away you are from the mean. That is its function.
As for where you enter, that depends on what bar interval you like. If you're at the top of a range such as this one, the strategy is to enter on a reversal. Where you enter will depend on the results of the testing that you do.
You'll note that at and after the close, the ES formed a range at the high. Given that this is so close to the longer-term range I showed you, the probabilities for a successful reversal increase. Unfortunately, we've got a good long wait until the market opens tomorrow, though there's nothing to stop you from entering a trade tonight.
The tactic here is to short a break below this little range. The stop would be above the range. Given that the range is the range regardless of what the bar interval might be (up through the hourly anyway), the upper limit of it doesn't change. If that's too much for you, you could wait for a retracement after a break, but these carry their own risks.
If price does break below this range but fails to follow through, the alternative is to buy a break on the upside with a stop below the lower limit of the range. If this doesn't work either, then stop.
Great advice, Im thinking the reversal after the range break. Its hard for me to have that big of stop above the range. Thats what ill be looking for. Thanks for the help @DbPhoenix!
If you don't know exactly what to look for and what to do with it if and when you see it, you'd be better off just watching and collecting data so that you'll be better prepared next time.
As for the stop, a tight stop doesn't save you anything if it's almost guaranteed to be taken out. Better to take the trade and shift your focus to price rather than your trade. If price doesn't do what you expect it to do, then exit regardless of where your entry was or where your stop is. If you don't know what to expect from price, then, again, just watch and collect data so that whatever price may do in future doesn't surprise you.
I was thinking the reversal as break the bottom of the range down then come up and retest the bottom of hte range and enter there. After that the watching and collecting data sounds good.
After today I am thinking of putting my account on hold and just doing the simulation. I have been doing great at scalping mostly, I need more experience with the holding a position for the whole range, where to put the stops is the hard part for me.
Trading: The one I'm creating in the present....Index Futures mini/micro, ZF
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It helps in my view to have a plan written down of the types of trades you are going to take. It seems to me from the conversation you don't. Of course I might be wrong.
Having a Trade Plan with what you are looking for ahead of time, meaning the type of trades you will be taking the how and the why the where and when etc how much you will be risking position sizing during winning streaks and position sizing during losing streaks how you will manage the trades, this can all really help IMO.
Then, also create a quick 5 or 10 minute plan of attack each trading session in addition to the overaching comprehensive Trade Plan. This might look like ..... ES RTH opened in range (OIR, opening inside of the last trading session RTH range) with a up gap of 3 pts (close of prior RTH session to open of next RTH session). Over night high (ONH) is up 2 pts from open if ES struggles to take out ONH I will short with target of gap close.
Basically don't do anything without it all planned out ahead of time. The only mistake you will make is if you do do something that was not clearly stated in the plan.
I created a "understanding position sizing Excel sheet" and posted it in my trade journal. Of course you are more than welcome to download it and experiment with different position sizing ideas. Here is a video about it....
I am going to post my Excel work on this Position sizing 'game' I made to help me understand winning and losing streaks. It based off of Van Tharp's marble game but with actually marbles it take super long to witness the turn of events. With …
Worked on correcting a few issues in the Position sizing Excel sheet and added a second tier of risk percentages for when the acct is above a users defined amount. Idea is to test out these diff strategies once you have a set of percentages you are comfortable …
Ron
...My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy...
The steed of this Valley is pain; and if there be no pain this journey will never end.
Buy Low And Sell High (read left to right or right to left....lol)