Diary of a very bad trader!

Quote from Brianharvey:

If I was still in (and using my typical hard stop/target approach), I'd just be waiting for it to hit either my stop or limit. (unless I got a new buy signal, in which case i'd reverse the trade)

If price is just sitting here, then it would seem neither buyers or sellers were in charge at that point in time.

If it resumed it's downtrend now, it would likely be without me being on the train. I'd need a signal of some sort to get on board. You could say that 'price moving down' is 'signal' enough, but then you'd need to quantify 'down' and it's not as if there's a certain tick amount that means price is likely to carry on in a particular direction. Also taking every tiny move as a signal like a puppy chasing it's tail sounds like a recipe for disaster. (commissions+chop+'noise' etc)
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More progress. And once you've defined "up" and "down" for yourself, you then have to determine (1) where your entry opportunities are and (2) what to do when up and down switch places.

You can't trade price unless you're looking at it. Forget about your hopes and dreams and indicators and focus on price and what it's doing, or not doing, which can tell you just as much. You may not win huge, but at least you'll stop losing.

Edit: Incidentally, you'll notice that price is sitting at the midpoint of the opening range. Eventually, if you continue to trade price, that will become important to you.
 
Quote from djmartin:

Even if your buying pullbacks in a up trend your still a contrarian because your trying to time the turning point. The funny this is when your trying to time turning points you actually can use tighter stops and take more shots at it, you can be wrong a couple of times and then catch the move.
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I've found that if you enter trends on pullbacks using limit orders where you believe price should turn, then you're trying to time the turning point.

But if you let price actually turn and sweep you into position off a likely S/R level by using an initiating stop order, the odds of a successful trade are higher, and if the likely S/R level breaks down first, you know not to initiate the trade without further favorable price action.
 
Quote from NoDoji:

If you're averaging 10 trades a day using a 5-min chart, you're scalping. IMHO, a 25-tick stop is ridiculous for a scalper. If you were holding for 40-50 tick targets, and had a very consistent 45-50% win rate over each series of 10 trades, then a 25-tick stop makes sense. But in the current CL market environment (which has been going on for about 2 years now), catching individual 40-50 tick runs is the exception, not the rule.

I sent you a PM.
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I could never learn to scalp CL. Could you please send this PM to me as well. I assume there is something of value in it regarding trading CL intraday. Thanks nod.
 
Quote from NoDoji:

I've found that if you enter trends on pullbacks using limit orders where you believe price should turn, then you're trying to time the turning point.

But if you let price actually turn and sweep you into position off a likely S/R level by using an initiating stop order, the odds of a successful trade are higher, and if the likely S/R level breaks down first, you know not to initiate the trade without further favorable price action.
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Your right, there's a couple different ways to try to time turning points. My mentor always told me that you pay for confirmation, the more confirmation you need the bigger your stop. In your defense, the market can keep going down in the case your trying to buy a pullback with no confirmation. I don't wait for full confirmation, I wait for price to stop going down and some kind of pause in the market and of course it has to be near some kinda support level. I look at it like this, as long as you have a bias thats half of the battle. The problem with losing traders, they don't know when to switch there biases.
 
Quote from Brianharvey:

Also TODAYS chart
(I've add my own dots in on the chart, as it looks too messy using ninjatraders arrows/text)
Red=short, green=long, blue=exit
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Hi Brian,

The chart you posted appears to have candles that are all the same color. When backtesting entry signals, I find that there is value in knowing if the previous candles were up vs. down (white vs. gray or green vs. red, etc.) and this info gets incorporated into the trading rules.

With regard to exits, you might also consider backtesting the idea of entering a limit order at the same time that you place the initial entry order that exits half your position when price goes in your favor for a certain distance. An example might be to exit half if the price goes either 1/2 or 2/3 of the current 10-bar average true range. When I made this change to one strategy, the win % and profit factor were both improved.

I'm with NoDoji on the entries: entering with stop orders has worked the best for me too.

I noticed that at 8:00 in the morning where I am (Central time, US), your chart says 14:00. What country are you trading from?
 
Hi, Slope.

Thanks for your post.
I actually use green/red(up/down) candles when back-testing, but I know that lots of people don't like to look at colourful charts (including me too an extent) and so used the black candles for this thread.

I am trading with only 1 contract and so am unable to utilize and scaling in/out methodologies, but thanks for the suggestion.

Oh.....and i'm in Sunny Old England!
 
Experimenting in market replay today with a random day's data.
Using very tight stops, and trying to get out as soon as it starts going against me.
As suspected, lots of stop outs, a few 'bad' stops where it stopped me and then went in the anticipated direction without me. Some where I thought 'OK. Just get back in the trade then!'' for it to then just chop me up due to very tight stops, and then finally a lovely large trade which I let run in my direction until it looked like it was moving the other way.

In hindsight the day was a strong trend down day, though.

Naturally, advice received has been very mixed so far
(stops are too tight. Stops are too big. You need to be trading reversals. You're trading against the trend- trade with it. You're trading WITH the trend but didn't manage the position well etc etc.

Brain hurts, but still grateful for peoples posts.

Will update my live chart on Monday showing my activity

And here's todays replay stuff (21st october)

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Quote from Brianharvey:

Experimenting in market replay today with a random day's data.
Using very tight stops, and trying to get out as soon as it starts going against me.
As suspected, lots of stop outs, a few 'bad' stops where it stopped me and then went in the anticipated direction without me. Some where I thought 'OK. Just get back in the trade then!'' for it to then just chop me up due to very tight stops, and then finally a lovely large trade which I let run in my direction until it looked like it was moving the other way.

In hindsight the day was a strong trend down day, though.

Naturally, advice received has been very mixed so far
(stops are too tight. Stops are too big. You need to be trading reversals. You're trading against the trend- trade with it. You're trading WITH the trend but didn't manage the position well etc etc.

Brain hurts, but still grateful for peoples posts.

Will update my live chart on Monday showing my activity

And here's todays replay stuff (21st october)
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You have the raw material here for a decent methodology. Rather than hijack your thread, I offer what would have transpired had you simply followed the course of the shifts between demand (blue) and supply (pink), as detailed in my own threads. Take from it what you will.

There are four trades, three shorts and one long. The shorts are all profitable. The long results in a small loss. There are no stops, no targets, no indicators, no calculations.

Hope it all works out for you.
 

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