Birth of a trader

[frank8800]

Quote from NoDoji:

Frank, I highly recommend you follow the CL Redux thread closely each day. I provided, at no charge, the ultimate short signal today when at 10:02am ET I announced that I was leaving my my desk.

Funny! I do follow it, but I've found sometimes when my concentration level is high, I look up and an hour has past and there's 5 new pages on the thread.

I did take 1 sim trade late morning. I had to leave the office, but I liked the setup. I put the trade on and left for 45 minutes. came back to 30 monopoly ticks.

 

[frank8800]

Debated on posting an entry today. For most of the day, I was a like a dear in the headlights. There were several trades I tried to put on, but the entry was so conservative none of them were filled. There were several very nice entries, especially in 6E that I simply didn't take. I seemed to be looking for reasons not to trade.

The first pullback entry in 6E had huge orders sitting on the offer, so I convinced myself that there would be too much resistance for a long. It wasn't.

The second opportunity 6E made a triple top/triple bottom right near the EMA with small bars. This was obviously a bull flag, but I saw it as weakening demand and didn't take it.

The 3rd opportunity 6E formed a small, inside bar after 3 legs up, and 08:33 3min candle showed some selling pressure. I hesitated on this, then put the order in but too late. Price shot up. Another leg up.

There were 2 others (one would have been a stop out).

I'm just mad now.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from frank8800:

The first pullback entry in 6E had huge orders sitting on the offer, so I convinced myself that there would be too much resistance for a long. It wasn't.

The second opportunity 6E made a triple top/triple bottom right near the EMA with small bars. This was obviously a bull flag, but I saw it as weakening demand and didn't take it.

The 3rd opportunity 6E formed a small, inside bar after 3 legs up, and 08:33 3min candle showed some selling pressure. I hesitated on this, then put the order in but too late. Price shot up. Another leg up.

Opportunity #1: Your 7:54am bar closes, your buy stop's @ 1.3509. If it doesn't get triggered by the close of the current bar, trail your buy stop to just above the high of each bar that closes until it does. As long as a trend line, 20 EMA or previous support pivot aren't taken out, you're trailing the buy stop until price reverses back into the direction of the trend and triggers it. If a key level break negates the trending move, remove the buy stop and re-evaluate the action for a possible consolidation range or a reversal.

RE: Huge orders on the offer - When price is moving up and I see huge size on the offer at a level, I assume price will work its way to at least that level because I've noticed that with CL and 6E size at a level acts a magnet and price far more often than not slices right through that level whether the orders get lifted or pulled at the last second. This goes for trends in either direction. If the size gets lifted and price doesn't move at all, it often signals a true S/R level.

Opportunity #2: This is one of favorite setups. a resistance shelf at or just above the EMA, following a strong move off lows. It served as resistance 3 times, but did not cause a selloff. The fact that price dipped a couple pips below .3506 may have attracted sellers. If price now breaks that resistance shelf, your with-trend pullback entry is triggered and the trapped shorts will start covering. If this setup occurs following a good upward run off lows (like in this case), it very often results in a measured move. Since price had moved 61 pips off the .3458 low to the last high of .3519, you place your buy stop @ .3513 and consider a target of 60 pips from the range support @ .3503. Look how close it came to that level on just one push up!

Opoortunity #3: As before, you're trailing your buy stop as each bar closes to get taken into the trade off the pullback. It's a strong trend, and that small green bar with the slightly HL offers a low-risk pullback entry. Target a break through the previous high.

Quote from frank8800:

There were several very nice entries, especially in 6E that I simply didn't take. I seemed to be looking for reasons not to trade.

You absolutely know how to pick entry zones with the trend. You know what to do, but are struggling with how to do it. Your trading will be so much easier if you place stop orders ahead of the price trigger. Not only does this prevent missed fills, it only takes you into a position when a level is broken by some other nutcase who's willing to jump in first.

 

[DoubleTop]

I had a meeting to go to this morning so I personally didn't get to trade after 6:45 PST time. But this is how my charts looks like and I got to put on 2 contracts. Hopefully, this helps show you the big picture of things a little bit. The thing that I hope you get out of this is, don't forget the big picture. We are the fly on the big market makers back, we just need to follow where they are. After price retested the swing low of 5:55PST time I felt this was a safe trade. Plus I knew that the swing traders would be looking long today after it tested this zone. I feel that this trade was ok to take anywhere from my level @ .3469 to the top of this zone @ .3472. with a risk of 10 ticks, and a 1st profit target of 30, and second of 100. No i didn't get all of the move, but it wasn't bad for "setting and forgetting it". Remember your risk/reward ratio before putting on your trades. You know about the checklist I run though before I trade, I would really recommend that everyone do the same. But that's just my thoughts.

 

[frank8800]

Traded brains for guts today. Was determined to trade the signals. A lesson learned is to trade ALL the signals and not cherry pick. After 2 losers in 6E, I passed on a winning trade. Then traded another loser.

6E Trade #1
Saw this pullback just after booting up. Hadn't done any pre-game stuff, but it looked like a valid signal. After entering the trade, I looked at the 60 min chart and this was buying right at the top of a range. -6 ticks.

Waited a couple of hours for all the news to die down.

6E Trade #2
The peaks in 6E were getting weaker, then it dropped below the EMA and made a LL by 1 tick. Figured this was the first leg of a down move, but it wasn't. -6 ticks.

The next pullback opportunity had a doji close over the EMA followed by a red candle closing below. I chose not to take this winner.

6E Trade #3
Thought there might be one more leg up on this. There wasn't. -8 ticks.

CL almost bored me to tears this morning. It was doing a slow, painful climb with nothing but overlapping bars. The bars finally started to show some direction and character around 07:50. I had been watching that 85.29 pivot high for a break out, and it finally came. However the move was short lived. For the next 2 hours CL marched painfully up.

CL Trade #1
The first breakout bar occurred at 09:53. I didn't like the small doji that followed, and I didn't really know what to make of the next bar. Double bottom with the doji and 5 ticks higher. I was waiting for a pullback that didn't come. Eventually I entered the run on the 4th pullback. Got 19 MFE and moved my stop to BE+2 because I was worried about slippage. Stopped out BE+2.

The need for acting decisively on these surges made itself evident as I watched price move without me while I pondered the setup. After reviewing the recording of this move, it's obvious I'm spending too much time thinking and not enough time reacting.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from frank8800:

CL almost bored me to tears this morning. It was doing a slow, painful climb with nothing but overlapping bars. The bars finally started to show some direction and character around 07:50. I had been watching that 85.29 pivot high for a break out, and it finally came. However the move was short lived. For the next 2 hours CL marched painfully up.

The need for acting decisively on these surges made itself evident as I watched price move without me while I pondered the setup. After reviewing the recording of this move, it's obvious I'm spending too much time thinking and not enough time reacting.

CL had some clean pre-market action from around 3:00 to 6:00 your time, but after that what a chop fest. After the NYMEX open (where I took a short that quickly retraced for b/e), I definitely had a long bias, but the chop just sucked the life out me. I had 8 trades in less than an hour and came up negative despite most of the trades being in the direction of painful move up. I felt like I was a step behind on every entry. I was reacting instead of acting. When I came back much later, I managed to catch a short and long that both paid off. Good thing I had to leave or I'm sure I would've churned away more of my pre-market profits during the remaining chop :eek:

 

[frank8800]

I don't get in until 4:45 or so, and it takes me about 15 minutes to get make coffee and get settled. Looking at that early morning time from 3 - 5 am PST, I think you'd be trading with yourself. The volume bars are too small to even see!!

Quote from NoDoji:

CL had some clean pre-market action from around 3:00 to 6:00 your time, but after that what a chop fest. After the NYMEX open (where I took a short that quickly retraced for b/e), I definitely had a long bias, but the chop just sucked the life out me. I had 8 trades in less than an hour and came up negative despite most of the trades being in the direction of painful move up. I felt like I was a step behind on every entry. I was reacting instead of acting. When I came back much later, I managed to catch a short and long that both paid off. Good thing I had to leave or I'm sure I would've churned away more of my pre-market profits during the remaining chop :eek:

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from frank8800:

I don't get in until 4:45 or so, and it takes me about 15 minutes to get make coffee and get settled. Looking at that early morning time from 3 - 5 am PST, I think you'd be trading with yourself. The volume bars are too small to even see!!

I've been dealing with a problem recently having nothing to do with trading. It's required a lot of my time in the past couple days and caused me to wake up really early this morning with a solution. Since I was up so early I was watching my charts early and I managed to put on four profitable trades between 4:30 and 5:45 am your time

I don't care too much for the spread that sometimes appears, but the range is so small that "wide" stops are never more than my max even accounting for the spread.

 

[Handle123]

Am recuperating in San Antonio for next couple weeks, hoping it is last chemo treatment, can't sleep, glad I bought me laptop.

One of the very best trades I like to do on currencies and financials is the 5:30mdt trade where some report comes out and market moves in one direction which sucks in the inexperienced, and then goes the other direction so I can get in.

I got to say Frank, you are so very consistent, but you don't seem to learn from mistakes or this journal. Look at your EMA as the Earth, you can take a rocket ship up, but at some point, it runs out of fuel and falls back down to Earth (EMA), but you keep getting a helicpter to try to suspend that rocketship in mid air and the helicopter is quickly running out of fuel and falls down faster. Why not wait for retracement back to EMA?

I seldom ever buy/sell beyond an inside bar, they mostly never work, so many do them and often go the other way.

Normally lots of trades means I would be in chop, so buying recent pivot lows the answer.

 

[frank8800]

Friday was a crazy day - no time to post and barely time to trade. In and out of the office, phone calls, etc. This is Friday's log.

Trade #1
Looking to get in on the run up. Watching for an entry on the 1 min chart. Was waiting for the bars to consolidate. When long on the second push and was expecting price to break the 07:23 pivot high. When it did on the 07:27 bar but failed to follow through, that was my signal to exit at BE but didn't. Held the trade. -8 ticks.

Had to leave the office. Got back at 09:30 and saw price weakening.

Trade #2
Price closed below the EMA after skimming along for a 6 bars. The next bar failed to resume the uptrend or even break the EMA. Started trailing a stop under that bar. The 09:40 bar was a small inside doji. Don't usually like taking trades of doji's, but price really looked weak. Got filled on the next bar. Trailed my stop from the 1 min chart and stopped out +15 ticks.

Had to make some ugly phone calls and emails, so I minimized the screens to concentrate. When I came back, I saw I missed a textbook pullback entry that dropped for over 140 ticks!! Not that I would have captured most of that, but it was exciting to see an entry I would have (or at least should have) taken work so well.

Finished slightly positive. Decent ending to a crappy day.

With the holiday and the craziness in CL, today seems like a good day to take off and review.