Quote from bdeanfl:
JR,
Would appreciate your input re the attached chart to see if I have the concepts right.
I passed on the breakout at #1 (10:20est) because a higher high had not taken out the 10:05 bar. I also passed on #2 (11:30est) because the breakout occured at 11:29, 1 min. from the time zone exit. I took the b/o on the 2:35est bar going short at 991 with my stop at the high of the b/o bar 992. Stopped out at 992.
Went long on the 3:25est bar at 994.25 and exited at 998.25 for 4pts. The mid-point line on my chart is the middle default line from BB, I found it works as good as any MAVG I can come up with. I only have the ES feed from Esignal, so I can't do inter-chart analysis with the DAX etc. at this time.
By the way, I don't know if visitors to this forum realize that you have given them a Trading Methodology, Broker, Trading Platform, Charting Program as well as what to trade. If I had these tools when I started it would have shorted my learning curve by several years.
Many thanks for sharing your insights with us. I for one am most appreciative.
I would say your analysis is very good. One thing though: I suspect you're not following DAX/ESTX50 yet? See my attachment at the top of page 16. There was the first trade of the day. It could have been executed in the ES to catch that initial down move. Correct analysis of 10:20 EST - also worth noting that we'd just had a big move down already, so the chances of another one are smaller in my mind. Correct analysis of 11:30 EST also. Time is getting too close to the "shit" middle of the day, plus we'd already have "the" move in my opinion. If you'd caught that DAX or ESTX50 early bird move (maybe executed in the ES) ...then that's it - STOP TRADING. One winning trade per time period and you must stop! When in doubt, pass on it.
14:35 EST breakout - I see why you took it (it fit the rules). Nice stop movement limited your loss to just a point - well done. If you can do that often i.e. take 1 point losses versus 4 point gains ...and continue to pick your trades carefully ...you can see how you'll come out ahead in the long term! What I would say about that trade, was that there was an "outside bar" involved. I fucking hate such bars - they nearly always screw things up. Plus, there were multiple bars at the same low price which I don't like to see. A single spike for the pivot is preferred by me. This is all discretionary stuff, but that's the direction I am hoping this thread will take i.e. people figuring out how to fine tune their analysis ...not acting merely like robots.
15:25 EST final trade. Glad you caught it - although I would not have said the overall momentum was up at that particular time! Although there is the case that the market had failed to go lower, we hadn't yet had our final "move" yet ...plus a 1-2-3 breakout pattern was also shaping up.
What people are hopefully seeing with these trades is that when they work, they SHOULD work right away with very little looking back. As such, when I enter and the market isn't giving me anything in the first two bars, I am usually tigthening my stops right up close behind a relevant bar, as you did in that 14:35 trade. If there's no profit after about 4 bars but my stop hasn't yet been hit ..I may just "bail" on the trade. I want the trade to look good right from the outset ...while allowing it just a little wiggle room in the beginning (but not too much).
The most important thing to remember is to restrict your trading activity. Do as few trades as possible and exercise great patience in waiting for the best looking setups. This is much harder than it seems. Oh, and get your four symbol screen set up to maximise the chance of getting the best looking setups. Usually, you'll trade at least once everyday if you are flexible enough to trade DAX (or ESTX50) in addition to ES. But if you don't trade that day: so what? You just preserved your capital and fine tuned your analysis - which is often more prductive than trading!
