Steve is absolutely correct. The longer you are in the market the more exposed you are. Some traders limit that exposure by making quick precise trades. That requires waiting for your set ups. That requires discipline.
Try a 1000 tick chart with a 100-200 day moving average, trade in the direction of the slope of the averages. Use a shorter time frame to time your entries. Watch out for divergences in the longer time frame, they can eat up your profits in a hurry.
[I think the market is well positioned for a longer time frame though. ]
I totally disagree, equity indexes have been mired in a 7-10% range for over 18 months. So far this year the SP500 has been in an average range of approximately 5% THAT SUCKS for longer time frames such as daily...
You my be onto something, its called painting the chart, with a hammer candle, or some reversal candlestick, it brings in bids after a couple of nasty days, It is friday with less than 2 hours to trade.
Man I don't see how you did that, I was sitting their scratching my head thinking something was wrong with my internet connection. My hats off to you pal great scalping.
CME has safeguards in place to protect traders in cases like this, just think is you had a stpmkt order in place. Of coarse if you had a resting buy order at 10300 you would be smiling. I don't think the CBOT will do anything about this.