Do you use Pivot Points and High and Low of Day S and R areas?

[toucan]

Do you ever get caught up with too much thinking like this?

all the time. i am always unsure about trading until i enter. i have traded with another trader for 17 years. we each have our own process for trading, but if we enter trades close to one another, 90% of the time he enters before me. i tend to think too much.

Is most of your trading trying to capture roughly 10-15 NQ points like shown and being in the trade for just a few minutes? How many trades might you take in an average day?

my initial stoploss varies from week to week as NQ volatility changes. the current range is 10-15 points. this weeks initial stoploss is 10 and my profit target is 20. for profits, most often i can capture about 15 points, some i get 10 points and a few i get 20 points. For losses, i usually end up about 5-6 points with some at 1 point due to market orders and spreads, and just a few at 10 points. on a trending day, i can take 10 or more trades and on choppy days, i take about 5 trades... or less if the first trade that i take is a loss. most of my trades are less than 5 minutes, some less than an hour and a few more than an hour.

 

[Sekiyo]

the current range is 10-15 points

Current ATR for NQ on a daily basis is around 250points.
What leads you to this 10-15 points range ?
5% of daily ATR is ~12.5 points

I use a 20pts range chart for NQ
And 10pts on the DOM.

FutureTrader71 was talking about harmonic rotations,
But I haven't taken it into my toolbelt.

 

[toucan]

Current ATR for NQ on a daily basis is around 250points.
What leads you to this 10-15 points range ?
5% of daily ATR is ~12.5 points

I use a 20pts range chart for NQ
And 10pts on the DOM.

trend volatility changes over time, so i developed an algo that looks for the most common trend that meets my trading process criteria. take NQ for example. my algo says that using a 10 point stop, if i take trades randomly, i have a 53% probability of a profitable trade (profitable but maybe not to profit target). i can improve that probability by trading good setups. it also says that the average length of the most common trend is 3-4R (during covid this range was 5-6R). so if i can get in the trend within 1-2R of the start of the trend, i have 2-3 R left to possibly profit from. Last, i know the average ATR for the times that i trade is enough to take 5-10 trades.

 

[NoahA]

Do you ever get caught up with too much thinking like this?

all the time. i am always unsure about trading until i enter. i have traded with another trader for 17 years. we each have our own process for trading, but if we enter trades close to one another, 90% of the time he enters before me. i tend to think too much.

Is most of your trading trying to capture roughly 10-15 NQ points like shown and being in the trade for just a few minutes? How many trades might you take in an average day?

my initial stoploss varies from week to week as NQ volatility changes. the current range is 10-15 points. this weeks initial stoploss is 10 and my profit target is 20. for profits, most often i can capture about 15 points, some i get 10 points and a few i get 20 points. For losses, i usually end up about 5-6 points with some at 1 point due to market orders and spreads, and just a few at 10 points. on a trending day, i can take 10 or more trades and on choppy days, i take about 5 trades... or less if the first trade that i take is a loss. most of my trades are less than 5 minutes, some less than an hour and a few more than an hour.

Thank-you for all the info. I don't want to keep "shaking you down" for information too much... but I'm curious to ask about how it works with your trading friend. Does he use different types of charts and hence sees things a little differently? Is his personality more suited for taking risks and hence why he can jump on sooner? And if you guys are chatting in real time and calling out trades, does this influence the way you trade? And most importantly, how do his results compare to your own? Is there something that you admire about him that you wish you could do yourself?

 

[toucan]

Thank-you for all the info. I don't want to keep "shaking you down" for information too much... but I'm curious to ask about how it works with your trading friend. Does he use different types of charts and hence sees things a little differently? Is his personality more suited for taking risks and hence why he can jump on sooner? And if you guys are chatting in real time and calling out trades, does this influence the way you trade? And most importantly, how do his results compare to your own? Is there something that you admire about him that you wish you could do yourself?

We talk during the day when we we aren't trading, but its more how to improve our trading and not calling out trades. We have both discussed and implemented improvements over the last 3years that resulted in better profit consistency. He uses minute and momentum charts and I use only tick charts. He developed indicators for the way he trades and mine are totally different. We have both been at this long enough that we tend to see the same price action using very different charts and indicators. He is about 40 years younger than me, so he takes more risk and I'm more risk averse. He makes more money than I do. So far this year. He hasn't had a losing day and I have had a few. This year profits are better for both of us. We both have our strengths and our discussions have made both us better traders. We weren't this way in the beginning but over time we found ways to help each other.

 

[NoahA]

We talk during the day when we we aren't trading, but its more how to improve our trading and not calling out trades. We have both discussed and implemented improvements over the last 3years that resulted in better profit consistency. He uses minute and momentum charts and I use only tick charts. He developed indicators for the way he trades and mine are totally different. We have both been at this long enough that we tend to see the same price action using very different charts and indicators. He is about 40 years younger than me, so he takes more risk and I'm more risk averse. He makes more money than I do. So far this year. He hasn't had a losing day and I have had a few. This year profits are better for both of us. We both have our strengths and our discussions have made both us better traders. We weren't this way in the beginning but over time we found ways to help each other.

Thank-you for the very thorough write-up!

 

[StevenBruce]

Based on the thread title it is clear that what everyone is looking for
are reliable references on whatever time frame they trade. There are
several that work including

1) Previous session H/L
2) Initial Balance (first hour)
3) First 15 min
4) Weekly/Monthly H/L

Basically its all about framing price action in a way that
lets the trader make accurate decisions (is the market reversing
or continuing at these points)? The answer is simple really. Because
traders (and software coders) use a variety of these (Lets call them
“points of reference”) traders need to learn to interpret what happens
when price tests these points. My system looks for either a test/failure
or a test/retest or P/b followed by continuation on a strong bar (closing on or near its high or low. Based on context (a different conversation)
I find that using this general rule set (and with practice looking at how your market acts) I am right 68-75 percent. If you have a reasonably sized account, trading say three (3) contracts in the Emini futures, one should be able to structure reasonably successful trades on a session basis