Plan for today

If the ES doesn't take out yesterday's high, I plan on getting short. I'm waiting on some sort of actionable signal from the 1-hour chart, but right now buyers and sellers are really duking it out, so it's hard to tell which way the ES is going. the 7-8 candle is outside the 6-7 with better than average volume, but very little movement to the upside, big wicks everywhere.



Higher time frames suggest that the ES could be headed higher. Still red on the week, but a big tail wick, big green candle on the day, and the 4-hour chart shows a grind higher. I'm just not convinced that we're going much higher just yet.



It could go either way right now, so I'm waiting and watching. This is the first day that I've had time to trade as I've working nights and I'm eager to make trades, but the ES is being the ES and so patience is the watchword of the day.

LEROY JENKINS!!!

Just blew through my $3000 goal by $988.80 on a 10-contract trade to the upside for a net profit of $1,196.70. Stats continue to improve.



My plan changed for the day when I realized that there was no seller pressure in the market, so I dropped down to the 15-chart, waited for what little selling pressure there was to evaporate, got in 10 long and held it to my profit target, which was about 2 minutes.



As you can see, I could have held this one a little longer, but soon after price pulls back, then goes back up. I'll take the cool grand and move on.

Today's Plan- 3.10.2022

Overnight the ES saw what I consider very little activity in light the massive moves that we have seen in recent days and weeks. At 2:00 we get a 24-point move lower, so that something, which sets up a further 50-point move lower, which is my current starting point for the day. We are red on all time frames meaning we have full time continuity to the downside, so I'm probably looking to sell at this point. This is what it looks like.

ES 1-hour chart


4-hour, daily and weekly charts


My plan for today is wait and see what sellers are going to do. If they come in and push the price easily above 4265, then I might think about buying today. If they fail, I'll be looking to get long when they do. As I watch what unfolds I'll be thinking about how is pays to be patient just as much as it pays to take action when it becomes obvious that the momentum has shifted. I'll be especially mindful of risk management today. Recent gains have come at a hefty price. For me, there is no going back.

Mission accomplished, kind of

So far up on the day $609.20, and there's a good chance that I might be done for the day. I followed my plan pretty well. Got off to a rocky start, trading in the wrong account, fat fingering a 27-contract entry to a profit of $2,875, so that one doesn't count.



Kind of

$609.20 is good money, but as the saying goes, the enemy of great is good. I made a great trade today but tapped out at good. Today's trade had my heart rate through the roof, and I tapped out in profit, even though I got an excellent fill, and had a great target that the price just simply blasted through. What I should have done is moved my stop to break even instead of closing the order. Here's where I got in and out.



In my trading, this is your typical 'triangle they out', or TTO phenomena. Its corrective action. When the ES failed to make a new high, I knew this was likely to happen. Candle wise the ES went for a 2-1-2 reversal. I waited until I got the 2-2 continuation and got filled in a great position. My target then became 4220, which you can see was hit on the next candle for 13-points at 10-contracts for what should have been a $6500 pay day. Also, I could have scalped 5-points a candle all the way down. The point is I left A LOT on the table here. That's what I mean by kind of.

It's not all that bad

The upside is that I am finding great trades. I've found my edge in the strat. I'm starting to become profitable, and if I keep doing what I have been, and learn to trust what is working, then I'm going to be just fine. Since March I've won 9 in a row.



I don't expect to win all the time, but by being patient, understanding what the market is doing as a whole, and being confidant in directionality, I'm proving to myself that I can have a really high win rate, and that's an edge I can live with.

This is good work, and congratulations.

I am concerned about the number of contracts you are trading. You can trade fearlessly with large positions in sim, but once you are live, the size you take on can expose you to a level of dollar risk that affects your trading judgment pretty drastically.

27 contracts and 10 contracts are very big positions. I wish you well, and I also wish you would lower your size. A lot.

But yes, things do look good right now. Good luck, and carry on.

Bob.

Goodbye SIM

This marks a turning point where I switch from SIM only trading and once again attempt to trade the market live. It's been almost a year since I placed my first trade, lost big, got scared, and then decided to try to learn something about what I was trying to do. In that year I tried all sorts of things. Some things worked, most didn't. I think one of the most valuable lessons I've learned along the way is- don't hold on the losers. I think that this not only applies to actual trades, but also ideas about trading itself.

At its core, this is my edge, it is the ability to keep an open mind. This is what allowed for me to try a LOT of new things and see what worked. What ultimately worked best for me was Rob Smith's The Strat. Why I am so attracted his work is based on his observation that there are only 3 possibilities from one candle to the next. All along I was looking for a fundamental truth in trading, and this was it. When I first started trading, I just saw the price going up and down, and I didn't know why. Now I look at the chart and I am thinking to myself, who's the aggressor here? Where's the liquidity? The Strat beautifully explains this, and how to profit from it. For anybody reading this I highly encourage you go to YouTube and check it out.

My plan to 'go live' starts this week by reviewing, and thoroughly understanding the criteria for the Apex funded trader evaluation. https://apextraderfunding.com/

I would sign up this week and get started, but I have appointments Monday and Tuesday, and work night shifts Tuesday through Thursday, and that doesn't leave me much time to trade. The next week I work Monday through Thursday days, so earliest I could start is next Friday. My plan therefore is to review this week, and sign-up next week, giving me time to make sure that I can login and that everything is up and running by Friday morning.

If this works out, and I am able to pass this evaluation, it will mean that I risked $165 for the chance to initially trade up to 10 contracts from the very start. At this point in time, I am very comfortable with this amount of risk, and also very aware of the challenge before me. This is 'threading the needle' in the extreme. Because of the max daily drawdown, I will have to very disciplined and patient in the early days of this challenge, but that's how my trading has evolved, and I think right now there is a good chance that I can make this happen.

Inside bars everywhere, or should I say time?

As of this week the ES is still 'inside' of last months range, but still very 'red'. Does this mean that the selling will continue? When you couple this with the state of affairs politically and economically, I would say this is more likely than the other way around.



The 1-hour chart from last week shows this crazy struggle in huge sell-offs and rallies, and massive candles. What this is telling me is that both buyers and sellers are moving the market, but neither side has gained enough traction to move the market as a whole.



If I do attempt to trade this week, it will be much like last week, where I look to see how the week is developing, the day, the 4-hour, and then finally picking a direction and waiting for an actionable candle. As I stated in my last post, I have other fish to fry right now, but there there's still much to work on for me trade-wise, and any chance to do so I will gladly take. Last week I was able to make a couple of descent trades that were profitable, but they could have been better. To that end, I will be entering trades in my accustomed manor, but instead of hitting the close button like a little b**ch, I'll be manage the trade only by moving my stop loss once my profit target is set. I would like to try this before I go live, but I don't know if I'll get the opportunity.

What I do know is the ES is moving. Even tonight the moves are big and strong. There is opportunity here.

$3200

My best trading day ever in terms of profit. There is still much work to be done, but today I proved to myself that I should expect more when trading. I purposefully chose a $3000 profit target because that is what I'll need to pass the Apex funded trader evaluation. Today's performance is a strong indication that not only can I accomplish this, but I can do so quickly. Here's how it looks in summary.



The Tools I use

My main focus when trading is gauging the direction by the perceived aggression of participants identified by price and time. To accomplish this, I am watching to see what the participants are doing weekly, daily every 4 hours, hourly and finally from point to point. I have 2 monitors, the left one looks like this.



This is what I think of as higher timeframe continuity. What that means to me is I want to know what the participants that are making longer term trading decisions are thinking and doing. This is the beginning of identifying participants by price and time. Here you can see that every chart that I am watching here is red. This is full time frame continuity to the downside (FTFC), and what it is telling me is that now is good time to short the ES. The other think that I am looking at is the levels generated by these timeframes. In my mind this is where the liquidity is at, and the higher the timeframes, the deeper that pool of liquidity becomes. Friday's closing price is a great example of this. After buyer's anemically drove the price up overnight, sellers came in strong and drove the price down to 4185, triggering the stops at Friday's close of 4189. This resulted in the price moving higher, but were quickly absorbed by sellers, who once again drove the price down. This time when it reached Friday's low, there was no liquidity to float the price, and so price kept moving down. This is a perfect example of 'triangle they out' (TTO), it is a correction of the longer-term trend. In the long run this will probably be my set-up.

On my right monitor I am looking at the hourly and a 4-bar Renko chart.



This is where I am finalizing my trade decisions. Today's trades were based off of TTO and the entry signal was the 3-2 reversal on the 1-hour chart. Today I watched the trades play out point for point on the Renko chart. I'm not sure if this is a good thing. On one hand, in terms of risk management, this works because I get in with a tight stop, the ES makes its impulsive move, and I get out before any damage can be done to my account. On the other hand, as of the time of writing this, the ES moved in my direction 27 points, so I'm also leaving a lot on the table.

If it isn't broke, don't fix it?

Indeed. Perhaps optimization will come in time, but right now my primary focus is transitioning to trading a live account. In mere moments, with a click of a button, I will have an Apex account and set to start my evaluation. I have just shown myself that I can pass it in one day, but only if I keep cool and use what I know is working.

Until you pass the ApexTrader evaluation ( " in as little as 10 days " ) you are still going to be Sim Trading with the added restriction of adhering to their risk management rules. You are paying a fee of $165 to continue to Sim and during however long it takes you will not ever be challenged by actually having your personal funds at risk. It is fair to say that the business model of the "Funded Account" folks is based on you not passing the evaluation but being so close and with a little encouragement from them, having another go at it for another fee.

Although any trading experience contributes to the bank of knowledge from lessons learned you need to accumulate, I'm not so sure this will turn out to be the big leap you imagine it will be.

I'm hoping you will prove me wrong.

Good luck.

$6250.00

I have hit my evaluation target 3 times in one month. twice in the last 2 days, and today by twice the target. I am ready.



This market is really helping me out with its huge moves. Today the ES positively ripped upwards and TTO'd beautifully at the top of the range. I couldn't ask for better trading conditions. I'm still taking small bites out of the market, and would like to catch the whole move. Maybe one day.



Turnaround Tuesday was for real today, the ES flipped to green on all timeframes, FTFC up. Buyers were super aggressive today.



It's back to work for me tonight. I will be using my free time from this point on to set up Apex and get this show on the road. Lord help me.