Another Straight Line Analysis Journal
- Thread starter BonScott
- Start date
Its funny because I know that Db would say the lines are in our heads, so this is true. But at the same time, it gives me confidence to put on a trade. Db does also say that you have to look at the bigger picture, and the hourly chart is good for this. But what I also find is that the 5 minute chart is helping me from micro managing too much, and whatever trends I think are in play on the one minute chart aren't really trends all that much. The 5 minute lines allow me to see the trend more clearly. This also allows me to trade more at the extreme if you will. Given AMT, we know we should be trading at the extreme level, but often we miss the best place to short or long at the channel extremes and then there is nothing to do. (this is of course fine if you're in the trade already). Anyway, so I just consider the 5 minute trend line to be more of an extreme, and the one minute is only used to look for the entry once the 5 minute chart confirms the direction of the trend.
Thursday 2nd October 2014 :- Market Preview
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On the daily chart we have moved to the bottom of our upward channel. We may turn back into the channel or head off in a new direction.
On the hourly chart we have broken through the lows of the range again, and I have drawn a downward channel indicating a possible direction to follow. This range had held since sometime back in August, so it may indicate a time for a move downward.
All previous preperation disregarded anything outside the range, so this time I have to look at where the potential swing points are from back in August. There is a swing low at 940 from the 15th, and who knows if that will be of relevance at this stage. We would first have to move past yesterday's low at 965. It may be a consolidation day, or a wild ride of fear. I'll try my best to stay on the right side of any trends.
Also included is the 5 Min chart to show that we have broken the uptrend line and made a retracement for a short just before the open. Not one that I could take though.
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On the daily chart we have moved to the bottom of our upward channel. We may turn back into the channel or head off in a new direction.
On the hourly chart we have broken through the lows of the range again, and I have drawn a downward channel indicating a possible direction to follow. This range had held since sometime back in August, so it may indicate a time for a move downward.
All previous preperation disregarded anything outside the range, so this time I have to look at where the potential swing points are from back in August. There is a swing low at 940 from the 15th, and who knows if that will be of relevance at this stage. We would first have to move past yesterday's low at 965. It may be a consolidation day, or a wild ride of fear. I'll try my best to stay on the right side of any trends.
Also included is the 5 Min chart to show that we have broken the uptrend line and made a retracement for a short just before the open. Not one that I could take though.
Attachments
Thursday 2nd October 2014 :- 1 Min Chart Review
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I was happy with myself today for staying out of the mess for the first hour. Previously, days like this could have caused a frustrating loss. Hopefully I can keep up that behaviour, although it is in no way easy yet.
Watching this for the first half hour I couldn't see any way in for me. A lot of up and down, and no good retracement entries, and a lot of big bars, that are not kind to my stop loss calculations. In my head I was guessing that there must be a lot of money changing hands, and people shouting, trying to stop price falling further after we broke through our range yesterday. So my plan became to wait till the money runs out and watch for a breakout, and hope for a friendly retracement. Eventually the up moves started losing power. They seemed to be getting 3 or 4 bars to go up followed by 10 or so down or level.
1. Finally, I got my breakout below yesterdays's low, with a little retracement for a short with a small stop loss. Again my trade management lets me down a bit. I'm trying to be sensible about exits, and not just use a points target, but the line that I drew could be drawn in many ways. Either way I'm out for a small profit, and looking for the next trade.
2. After that exit, I'm back in again on a retracement. This short was exited when we stopped going down. My 1 contract was not the straw that broke the camel's back today, to cause a stock market collapse. Maybe tomorrow.
3. There is a long here off the double bottom, but I was too busy typing away to notice it until it was gone.
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I was happy with myself today for staying out of the mess for the first hour. Previously, days like this could have caused a frustrating loss. Hopefully I can keep up that behaviour, although it is in no way easy yet.
Watching this for the first half hour I couldn't see any way in for me. A lot of up and down, and no good retracement entries, and a lot of big bars, that are not kind to my stop loss calculations. In my head I was guessing that there must be a lot of money changing hands, and people shouting, trying to stop price falling further after we broke through our range yesterday. So my plan became to wait till the money runs out and watch for a breakout, and hope for a friendly retracement. Eventually the up moves started losing power. They seemed to be getting 3 or 4 bars to go up followed by 10 or so down or level.
1. Finally, I got my breakout below yesterdays's low, with a little retracement for a short with a small stop loss. Again my trade management lets me down a bit. I'm trying to be sensible about exits, and not just use a points target, but the line that I drew could be drawn in many ways. Either way I'm out for a small profit, and looking for the next trade.
2. After that exit, I'm back in again on a retracement. This short was exited when we stopped going down. My 1 contract was not the straw that broke the camel's back today, to cause a stock market collapse. Maybe tomorrow.
3. There is a long here off the double bottom, but I was too busy typing away to notice it until it was gone.
Attachments
Friday 3rd October 2014 :- Market Preview
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We made a low around 928 yesterday, and the price moved well outside the channel that I drew on the hourly chart. Somehow we have ended up above 4000 again, so where we will go today is anyones guess.
Today I will try to find some good retracement entries, but I don't see any strong areas nearby to be tested. I'll let it play itself out, and try to jump onboard if any of my defined entries occour.
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We made a low around 928 yesterday, and the price moved well outside the channel that I drew on the hourly chart. Somehow we have ended up above 4000 again, so where we will go today is anyones guess.
Today I will try to find some good retracement entries, but I don't see any strong areas nearby to be tested. I'll let it play itself out, and try to jump onboard if any of my defined entries occour.
Attachments
Friday 3rd October 2014 :- 1 Min Chart Review
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The end of another week, and I still have a lot to learn, but at least I can see the direction that I need to travel. There were a lot
of trends this week, and some easy entries for me. I didn't take all of the entries that I should have, and on the ones I did enter, the exits weren't always good. However I am aware of which parts of this probelem are technical, and which are psychological and I will be working on these over the weekend. I need to get in "The Zone" as they say.
On the plus side, this is the first week where my trading profits have exceeded my spending in the real world, although part of this is because I currently don't have any large expenses to pay out, as I spend a lot of time just starting at bars on a screen. Either way that was one of my goals when I started out doing this, so I just have to improve my trading consistancy, and repeat this for the next 52 weeks of the year
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Today was okay. It was actually a good day for trading, with great entries right at the start of trends. I'd guess that a trader who trades properly with a really good plan, could make 40 or 50 points today. However, in my case I did not take some of the trades that were on my plan, so that needs to be worked on at the weekend.
1. This one is a miss. I was looking at the fact that we had turned at the 50% point of the move down, and thinking short, when I should have just looked at the line break with retracement. First mistake of the day.
2. Took a long on the next retracement, which hit my target point.
3. Took another long on the next retracement, which stopped out on the same bar.
4. This long comes after we passed through the overnight high and retraced to close above it. I exited on the break of the trend line, and because we were moving into the areas of congestion from the 29th and 30th of September.
5. After managing the previous trades, I needed a pause for breath here, which shows that the emotional side has not gone away. I didn't enter the short here, where there is a clear break of the upward trend line, with a retracement that makes a high around the lows of the previous top.
6. I put a short on the retracement here, but it couldn't break descisively, and after 5 minutes of going nowhere I decided to exit and wait for another chance. The first mouse got the cheese at the original retracement at the trend line break.
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The end of another week, and I still have a lot to learn, but at least I can see the direction that I need to travel. There were a lot
of trends this week, and some easy entries for me. I didn't take all of the entries that I should have, and on the ones I did enter, the exits weren't always good. However I am aware of which parts of this probelem are technical, and which are psychological and I will be working on these over the weekend. I need to get in "The Zone" as they say.
On the plus side, this is the first week where my trading profits have exceeded my spending in the real world, although part of this is because I currently don't have any large expenses to pay out, as I spend a lot of time just starting at bars on a screen. Either way that was one of my goals when I started out doing this, so I just have to improve my trading consistancy, and repeat this for the next 52 weeks of the year
.Today was okay. It was actually a good day for trading, with great entries right at the start of trends. I'd guess that a trader who trades properly with a really good plan, could make 40 or 50 points today. However, in my case I did not take some of the trades that were on my plan, so that needs to be worked on at the weekend.
1. This one is a miss. I was looking at the fact that we had turned at the 50% point of the move down, and thinking short, when I should have just looked at the line break with retracement. First mistake of the day.
2. Took a long on the next retracement, which hit my target point.
3. Took another long on the next retracement, which stopped out on the same bar.
4. This long comes after we passed through the overnight high and retraced to close above it. I exited on the break of the trend line, and because we were moving into the areas of congestion from the 29th and 30th of September.
5. After managing the previous trades, I needed a pause for breath here, which shows that the emotional side has not gone away. I didn't enter the short here, where there is a clear break of the upward trend line, with a retracement that makes a high around the lows of the previous top.
6. I put a short on the retracement here, but it couldn't break descisively, and after 5 minutes of going nowhere I decided to exit and wait for another chance. The first mouse got the cheese at the original retracement at the trend line break.
Attachments
Monday 6th October 2014 :- 1 Min Chart Review
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Not a good day today, none of the trades went anywhere. After all the trends last week, I was whipped and sawed today.
1. This was an entry off the retracement on the line break. I held on to this one too long, when it became obvious that we were in a range, when the price didn't break below the lows, and we made a higher low.
2. Another short entry which was stopped out on the next bar.
3. Again a short failure. Again, I am maybe giving it too much time to move. Most of my good trades have broke out straight away. I will review the historical charts again.
4. This time I put a long on the retracement. Stopped out a few minutes later. Not my day today.
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Not a good day today, none of the trades went anywhere. After all the trends last week, I was whipped and sawed today.
1. This was an entry off the retracement on the line break. I held on to this one too long, when it became obvious that we were in a range, when the price didn't break below the lows, and we made a higher low.
2. Another short entry which was stopped out on the next bar.
3. Again a short failure. Again, I am maybe giving it too much time to move. Most of my good trades have broke out straight away. I will review the historical charts again.
4. This time I put a long on the retracement. Stopped out a few minutes later. Not my day today.
Attachments
Tuesday 7th October 2014 :- Market Preview
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We have returned to the 4000 area again. It seems to have provided support and resistance a number of times in recent weeks on the hourly chart attached.
We have an overnight low at 3993, where we turned during the night. Since then we are trending up towards the overnight high at 4010. There is a further swing high at 4020, from yesterday afternoon. These areas may provide the opportunity for a trade, but we are not at the extremes by any means, so we may not get any strong moves. I will watch and try to get in if a trade to match my plan is available.
Any improvement on yesterday will be welcome.
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We have returned to the 4000 area again. It seems to have provided support and resistance a number of times in recent weeks on the hourly chart attached.
We have an overnight low at 3993, where we turned during the night. Since then we are trending up towards the overnight high at 4010. There is a further swing high at 4020, from yesterday afternoon. These areas may provide the opportunity for a trade, but we are not at the extremes by any means, so we may not get any strong moves. I will watch and try to get in if a trade to match my plan is available.
Any improvement on yesterday will be welcome.
Attachments
Tuesday 7th October 2014 :- 1 Min Chart Review
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Another day without success. While the price moved up 30 points from the low, it did so in a step motion, with large rises with no retracements, followed by ranging behaviour.
Before the open we had been trending downwards, and we then broke through the 5 Min trend line, and yesterdays low. This indicated weakness before the open.
1. We had a retracement after breaking through the overnight low. This one could not get past the previous swing low, and I exited for a small loss. The entry and exit moved to the next bars when I changed to a higher timeframe and back again.
2. After making that higher low we attempted to break above the overnight low, and then settled back to sit above 74 for about 30 minutes. Neither buyers nor sellers were in command. Eventually we broke through the overnight low, and the first retracement closed aboe that low. I put a long on which was stopped out quickly. I guess the previous swing high played a part here.
3. Finally I put on a long after a breakout with retracement. Stopped out again.
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Another day without success. While the price moved up 30 points from the low, it did so in a step motion, with large rises with no retracements, followed by ranging behaviour.
Before the open we had been trending downwards, and we then broke through the 5 Min trend line, and yesterdays low. This indicated weakness before the open.
1. We had a retracement after breaking through the overnight low. This one could not get past the previous swing low, and I exited for a small loss. The entry and exit moved to the next bars when I changed to a higher timeframe and back again.
2. After making that higher low we attempted to break above the overnight low, and then settled back to sit above 74 for about 30 minutes. Neither buyers nor sellers were in command. Eventually we broke through the overnight low, and the first retracement closed aboe that low. I put a long on which was stopped out quickly. I guess the previous swing high played a part here.
3. Finally I put on a long after a breakout with retracement. Stopped out again.
