Quote from BlueStreek:
Thanks, one of the struggles for me since I am reducing scalping trades from my new strategy going forward for now is the following:
Your 6 winners for 20plus = 154 points for an average target of 25.6
The problem is in what my target should be and sticking to it for the trade to completion, so if I put in a bracket order 20, 25, 30 ,35 with a 15 tick stop.
How many of your 6 trades in retrospect at the end of the day would have netted 35, 30 points if you just stayed with the trade?
I know what you said about needing to take advantage of your opps while they are there.
I guess what I am asking is what do you think the ideal starting point should be for a target, and then adapt from there as the trade develops?
Divorce it from your self, but from a pure independent perspective, how many of your 20 pointers would have been scratches if you didn`t take the 20?
The reason being that 6 x 35 would be 210 ticks, what I am trying to develop is if I can teach myself to stay with the trade longer, and if this makes sense from an overall profit standpoint.
Just your take , that`s all. thanks
My first trade was pure counter-trend and my fixed 20-tick target was the pivot high to the tick. It was surreal, but sometimes you get lucky.
I stepped away to grab breakfast and missed the proper entry on a with-trend trade, but got in quickly on the second invitation, and used a previous support level as a target zone, got 40 ticks.
Next, pure counter-trend, took fixed 20 tick target only to watch it run another 24 ticks. Sometimes that happens but I've let 20 ticks turn into nothing so many times, I decided counter-trend fixed targets are for the best.
Then counter-trend long off a first reversal signal, fixed 20 tick target lifted 2 ticks from the pivot high. Good luck again!
Took a with-trend short, but the previous slightly higher low (first reversal signal) convinced me to move my stop to b/e after nearly 15 ticks profit, out b/e. (I later had a couple other b/e's that went 15 and 18 ticks before coming back.)
So now I had a long bias, but price didn't trigger a long entry and I found myself short again, so I targeted a breakout of the low at that point. Here's where my bias made me a bit jumpy to the short side. Price broke out, but only by a few ticks then started to tick up. I assumed a failed breakout and took 20 ticks profit. It then immediately commenced to run nearly another 60 ticks without me. I didn't re-enter because I couldn't believe it could keep moving lower!
I then took a solid counter-trend long setup and was stopped out for the loss. I decided to short again if price broke out that new low, but a long trade was triggered instead at the same price as the long I was just stopped out of and I took 31 ticks when price appeared to stall and pull back without reaching previous resistance. Well, had I waited patiently I would've gotten the break through previous resistance for another 34 ticks.
You see, I'm targeting previous S/R levels when I'm with the trend, and taking 20 ticks fixed profit on most counter-trend trades. But I'm often impatient and untrusting and leave a lot of money on the table by not waiting for price to reach those larger profit target zones on the with-trend trades.
I recommend if you're with the trend, target a new high or low somewhere near the next S/R level to be tested. Those targets get hit more often than not. If a trade has moved 30 ticks in my favor, I will then begin trailing my stop and tightening it as the target zone comes near.
The interesting thing about pure price action trading is that you can have a bias, but end up in trades that are opposite of your bias! That happened to me twice today. When that happens, it's always best to trust price and patiently allow it to approach profit target zones before moving your stop.
They should just fucking add a "Ticks" field to booktrader (in addition to "Amount" and "%").