ES Journal - 2012

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Quote from PO:

thanks, close on what time chart? 5 min? 1 min?

1 minute. I have it set up with a one minute bar chart, with a 1 period SMA on it. You could also use a 1 minute line chart if that's your preference, they essentially show the same information. Here's an example of my chart setup:
 

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Josh,
I don't want to be rude or to embarrass you in any way.

But if you were to go back and read EVERYTHING you wrote, the answer to your "2 bad weeks" will jump out at you.

To give you a tip. I could care less if the week low is 'x' or last weeks high was 'y' or the intra day volume is < or > the previous period. Only NOW matters.

I had a chance to look at my father's work papers from the 90's and believe me they were methodical to the "oonth".Same thing every day. So I asked him what he was thinking about the market.

Answer: "I don't, It is what you see there."

He said nothing has changed other than recalculation of indices and he never used indicators.

His biggest hang up;computers,simply hates them,but he knows that is the way. And , unbelievably later started trading with indicators (2) !!Funny thing, I don't use indicators.

See ,times have changed but market behaviour has not.

Your comments/postings are very useful to some people,but I have a feeling they are detracting you from trading along with the fact that you want to be 'right' in all your trades.

It is either that or you may not have a sound strategy that you can trust. Or more seriously, you are under capitalized to be able to carry any 'risk'.

I don't know,but if you can take these comments to help you , it might give others, more experienced than me , to follow up to help you.

Good luck.
 
Quote from bigsnack:

1 minute. I have it set up with a one minute bar chart, with a 1 period SMA on it. You could also use a 1 minute line chart if that's your preference, they essentially show the same information. Here's an example of my chart setup:

thanks. I just looked at it and do you really mean the close of the bar below 600 or the low of the bar below 600. I don't think you can easily see where the bar is closed on that chart because the white line so overpowers the bars.

Not trying to be a stickler, just trying to understand.

thanks again.
 
Actually if you have the white line on the chart, the white line should be the close. Agreed that it can be a bit hard to see at times, that's why I coded a simple indicator that will throw a green dot up if the tick closes above 600. In the moment I am just looking for either a green or red dot, that makes it a bit easier.
 
Quote from bigsnack:

a move back down to 1310 would essentially be a lower low (violating the low put in around 1315). If we put in a lower low and then continue down into 1305's, that's the tried and true definition of a downtrend. I'm not saying it won't go back up from there, but I would need to see confirmation that the uptrend is resuming, and then I would just buy the next pullback. So I wouldn't catch the low necessarily, but by waiting for some confirmation I can still get a good entry with little to no heat, plus I won't be caught holding the bag if it turns into a falling knife situation.

So for example, yesterday (1/24) when 1305 broke down, that constituted a down trend for you, since a lower low was made, and you were looking to sell? If not, at what point were you looking to buy?
 
Quote from Macho:

But if you were to go back and read EVERYTHING you wrote, the answer to your "2 bad weeks" will jump out at you.

To give you a tip. I could care less if the week low is 'x' or last weeks high was 'y' or the intra day volume is < or > the previous period. Only NOW matters.

I had a chance to look at my father's work papers from the 90's and believe me they were methodical to the "oonth".Same thing every day. So I asked him what he was thinking about the market.

Answer: "I don't, It is what you see there."

Thanks Macho -- I may be a bit lost, sorry :( Are you saying that your father was only trading what he saw, right at that time, instead of past data?

Quote from Macho:

Your comments/postings are very useful to some people,but I have a feeling they are detracting you from trading along with the fact that you want to be 'right' in all your trades.

You are probably right about this; I will not post any more charts or thoughts, only trades that I take. Sometimes I am distracted, and I let posting cause me to lose my focus. I have been thinking about this and will take what you said to heart.
 
Quote from Macho:

To give you a tip. I could care less if the week low is 'x' or last weeks high was 'y' or the intra day volume is < or > the previous period. Only NOW matters.

So I asked him what he was thinking about the market.

Answer: "I don't, It is what you see there."

He said nothing has changed other than recalculation of indices and he never used indicators.

See ,times have changed but market behaviour has not.

Very good stuff, Macho.

I spent some time journaling while trading (which is "thinking while trading" but on paper, and I used a real pen and real paper to separate my clicking/trading self from my over-thinking self) and realized that every mistake I made (hesitation/chasing/missing a trade, jumping the gun without a valid signal, moving stop to b/e for no valid reason, taking profit before target) was the result of me believing I knew what price was going to do, instead of simply trusting the odds of my plan working in my favor if I followed it.

Trading what you see is very difficult at times. Josh and I had the opportunity to spend time trading together not too long ago and he may have come out of the experience thinking I have this easygoing total trust of price action, but in fact a majority of the time I think/feel that price can never go where my trading plan tells me it will go more often than not.

But I know from months of analysis and execution that my trading plan works consistently and I have to hold my nose and trust it. The only setups I "feel" really comfortable with are 1-min with-trend continuation in a strong trending move (which "looks" and "feels" like price is reversing because it's gone too high or too low) and a "trap" setup a couple of us affectionately call the "ATM setup" (Brooks has comprehensive coverage of bull and bear traps in his first book). The rest of my core setups pretty much look and feel rather improbable at the hard right edge, but when price tells me to enter, that's what I'm supposed to do.

I think learning to trust price action takes longer than anything else.
 
Quote from JoshDance:

You are probably right about this; I will not post any more charts or thoughts, only trades that I take. Sometimes I am distracted, and I let posting cause me to lose my focus. I have been thinking about this and will take what you said to heart.

I think that's a good idea, Josh. I posted the same sort of advice on PO's journal a while back, but I was way wordier than Macho was with you, lol.

I think posting charts showing technical setups is great. "Here's a big symmetrical triangle. If price does X, I'll be a buyer, if price does Y, I'll wait for confirmation and be a seller," that kind of thing is helpful to everyone.
 
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