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I do was to a degree aware that in the previous days I basically got long in a downtrend best to see in the 10min chart. I don't really know yet if that's the right thing to do or not, because the next bigger trend is definitely upwards. And in going long, I was able to catch that move that occured after cash-open today, which basically broke this small trend and price moved into my leading trend direction again.
Unfortunately I gave back that move with further trades, but from what I think, the probability of the price going further upwards was higher than the occurence of that drop we saw.
Reversal bar. Thought this a pretty good place for it to reverse and maybe going upwards and making a new high again. But I also try to distance myself a bit from that type of thinking, since it could easily lead to wrong expectations like in this case here.
Pulverized the rest of the gainz, but also reiterated the importance of stopping out everytime. Dropped like a stone and could be one of these unwanted losses that could break the profitability of the strategy
Hated to take this trade, because "I was sure it will be a loser" and also already exhausted and tired.
Anger arose after getting stopped out. Start getting tired of these lousy small gains that take hours to develop and then giving back within minutes
Finally the last prom queen stopped out. Glad about that, because my interest in these stock swing trades has pretty much vanished lately.
Focus again on Futures intraday and will hopefully finally stay there!
60min
Moved stop 4 times
Win: +0.15P
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
As a long reversal-bar I consider a candle that opens, then makes a low at least one tick below the previous candle's low and gets bought back up, so that it closes at least at its open price and ideally it closes above it and has a green body.
I want it to have a span from high to low of at least 9 ticks to be considered significant enough to trade it.
The confirmation is also my entry. I enter as soon as the price moves above the reversal-bar's high. If price goes below, I cancel the order and wait for the next signal. It doesn't matter if there are some other candles in between the reversal bar and the entry candle as long as none gets below the low.
You could probably say that there has to close an additional candle green above the reversal bar for extra confirmation and enter as price goes above this candle's high.
I used to trade on a 100 Trades chart trying to enter on the smallest trend as it makes a new high, but my entry criteria were just too loosely defined and at times it moved so fast that I just couldn't keep pace and it screwed me over emotionally.
Yes for now only longs. When the trend on the 60min chart turns south, I'll start to use the same entry signals on the 10min in the opposite way for ging short.
You could take the same approach and take the daily trend as leading trend and trade your signals on the 60min chart. You'd have to risk more points and get fewer signals, but I think the winrate would be higher and I suspect that the net result would be around the same. It's more a question of what suits your patience and ability to take losses and so on.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
Recap Calendar Week 36
(Actually also the Friday before included)
This was the first week trading my new strategy and I gotta say I'm pretty satisfied. Went way better than expected, but I still have to be careful and do not praise the day before the evening.
In comparison to my first MES trading method, I can handle this one way better.
Trading the M10 chart gives me enough time to think while trading, to better control my emotions and to have time calming down after a loss, whilst the 100 Trades chart at times moved so fast and aggressive that it was difficult to not get lost in emotion and lose sight of the entire situation.
Also are my entry signals 100% rigidly defined which gives me no margin of interpreting things into price action that aren't there and my only task is to execute. No matter what, there's no excuses anymore for doing things I shouldn't do.
Getting around 6 signals per day also helps me to not dwell on the previous trade too much, because the next one is just around the corner.
I also feel that the "holy-grail-syndrom" has almost completely faded away. It makes sense going long in an uptrend because trends tend to continue. I see the big-picture trend as my upper authority where I basically have to work out my chunks on the smaller time frame and that's what I do.
In the past I also tried to force my max-risk onto the market without realizing that higher volatility needs a wider risk level to stay in that "right probability relation", because otherwise I get stopped out not because the trade is wrong, but just by random noise, which isn't the cost of looking if my edge works this time, but just wasted money.
Number of trades: 29
Winners: 11
Losses: 18 Points won: 55.25
Points lost: 67.75
Result: -12.50P
60min
The green area is where I executed this series of trades. The reason why I'm so satisfied is, that this thing only went down, I went long all the time and didn't really lost that much.
Actually in a perfect world I would have ended the week breakeven with 0.00P. I made execution mistakes in Trade #2, #5 and #6 because some rules were too loosely defined at the beginning which produced unnecessary losses. But because I've executed from #7 on flawlessly, I do think that I can avoid such blunders in the future for the most part.
Stats
That's what the trades look like on paper.
That's one contract and also subtracted commission cost.
I don't know yet if with more experience I will be able to switch to shorting in such a market phase, but for now I have no problem having a red week and I think that's better than to start fooling around again.
I think there's a good chance that this pullback is pretty much finished and that the next week will be profitable.
The only concern I have is, that I think maybe the daily trend could go into a major pullback soon, which would turn my leading 60min trend down. I try to stay alert but not let myself get distracted by that.
The reason why I'm thinking of that pullback is, that I think oftentimes the upper half of the progression-arm has a similar length like the lower arm.
Weekly chart
and if the covid-panic was the last major pullback, we're now pretty much at the top if one mirrors this pullback upwards.
But I really don't know if that has something to say.
What I know is, that if it goes under 4340 my 60min uptrend is broken and I won't take longs anymore and will wait if a downtrend gets established.
The plan for the next week is doing exact the same thing that I did this week and look what happens.
I really want to test this strategy on a very solid ground before even thinking of going up with size. Making money now would be fine, but if I think of the long term, I know for a fact that the more I'm used to this strategy and the more I've traded it also through difficult periods, the lesser the chance that my perception starts to warp with more size and I'll have a good chance to avoid having the same mental crackdown again I've had with my previous method.
The market will also be open next week, next month, next year and if the market should ever "close", making money is probably the smallest problem one would be worried about then.
So I'll try to take it slow!
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
Lost my fuckin shirt today. I don't think that my entry-signals or my stop-technique is wrong, but I can't tell if I'm supposed to trade long or short signals in the current market-phase.
The pullback on my leading trend (if it's really my leading trend) has reached now 50%, which seems to be a healthy pullback.
For now I'll stick stubbornly to trading it long. Maybe it's a mistake, but I think the bigger mistake in my current state of understanding would be now switching to short possibly at the worst moment.
I try to see the losses more as a business-cost of testing my strategy.
In my opinion the only way to really learn and internalize something is through pain. So I'll endure it and maybe I'm overreacting a bit and the 3 large losses from today are just normal.
The other thing is, that it appears to me, that the few useful upward movements tend to occur in the Asian session and when I come in for Europe and America, it just moves its last few points upwards and then drops into the dumpster.
Felt like a frickin chaser at this entry. There was a perfect signal at the bottom of the fast, straight movement before and I actually already was in front of the computer when it occured, but since my plan says to start trading on 9am "I wasn't allowed to take it".
Convinced myself that I'm definitely not start to going short now.
The confusing thing is, that this type of dumb stubbornness appears to be a sure sign that I'm trying to force my will onto the market instead of going where the market tells me to go, but like described above, I'm in a kind of a stalemate here.
Loss: -7.75P
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
I have to let off some frickin steam here.
My plan tells me to take my last trade on 9pm CET. On 9:10 I would have gotten an entry which would have given me back 20 points. I know would have, should have, could have......
Oh boy, I start to slip off my path. Hopefully today won't get as bad as yesterday....
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
Thinking more and more that I'm taking the wrong trend as my leading one, but still not going to start short.
Pretty confused. But probably not even the worst thing starting with a drawdown. At least I'm not in danger of getting euphoric.
About 40 points in the hole by now. When the trend hopefully finally starts to turn upwards, I think two or three good trades should make that back and maybe also the distribution starts to turn upside down.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
My current "Which is which trend" problem starts to lead me a bit into the Dow Theory and to Elliot Waves.
Dow is stating that there are basically 3 trends. Murphy's Technical Analysis book says: the primary, secondary and the insignificants. I think I've read somewhere also the third being called the tertiary, but actually the term "insignificants" (hopefully correctly translated. Better sounding would be "insignificant ones", but that would definitely imply a plural. In German it is written in a kinda ambiguous way, which I think suits the situation pretty well).
Elliot is talking of 9 trends. The largest being a 200 year "Grand Supercycle" and the smallest a "subminuette degree".
I've identified 6 trends so far.
Like I see it the trend best be identified on the daily or weekly chart is the primary trend
After this one comes the secondary trend, best to be identified on the 60min chart. This trend is what I consider my leading trend for my strategy
Then we have the tertiary trend or where the insigificant ones begin. Best being identified on the 10min chart
Going down to the 5min chart I can regocnize a fourth trend
On the 1min chart I've 2 more trends (the smallest hardly to see in black), One could even see another trend, but at some point I think it doesn't make sense anymore.
That's what it looks on a 10min chart with (almost) all trends marked
The major question still is, since how I manage my entries and how I trail my stop, it isn't my goal anymore to catch and trade a trend, but to get chunks where the trend makes its occasional accelarating moves, if I'm mistaken in what direction I'm trading now, or if I'm right and it's just a normal drawdown phase for the strategy now?!
I have the foundation for the strategy mostly from one german book, I'm reading the 3rd time right now, but some knot is still in my brain.
The good thing though is, that as time goes on and I have data of series' of trades that I can assign to each trend size (in my case the secondary and tertiary) I think I'll figure it out.
The more secure thing at the moment is going long, and reassuring that for the umpteen time here, I'll stick to it!
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
