ES Journal - 2023/2024

[flash crash]

Shorting this market feels like David versus Goliath.

TWD over the last 5 years:

80 % negative with the average change being -0.71 %.

This reminds me of the play on statistics where someone would say "80% of the time it works 100% of the time."

You might want to consider that 20% of the time it doesn't do what it does 80% of the time?

It tested yesterday's low. It tested the post Fed breakout high.

Looking at a daily bar chart, I'd be inclined to feel that ES will now go to today's daily globex open.

 

[Laissez Faire]

Stopped and done for the week. Several of my entries were in the money, so I suppose I got too greedy and overconfident. No biggie, though.

If we move strong above 5545 I would be slightly surprised, but maybe I shouldn't be.

Probably better opportunities next week.

 

[flash crash]

Several of my entries were in the money, so I suppose I got too greedy and overconfident.

I would prefer to trade for the big legs. Many of my trades go +5 or + 6 points, and then I'm stopped for a minimal profit or a small loss.

I go back and forth in my mind between which would be the better plan. Should I hold and trail a stop hoping for the 20+ point moves that I feel I really want, or simply take a fixed 5 or 6 point profit and move on to the next set up?

 

[Laissez Faire]

I would prefer to trade for the big legs. Many of my trades go +5 or + 6 points, and then I'm stopped for a minimal profit or a small loss.

I go back and forth in my mind between which would be the better plan. Should I hold and trail a stop hoping for the 20+ point moves that I feel I really want, or simply take a fixed 5 or 6 point profit and move on to the next set up?

No easy answers here, but generally, I think it's a good practice to never let, say a 10 point unrealized profit go back to even. If you're 7-8 points in the money and lock in 5 points, you're vulnerable to getting stopped out on noise.

Not ever day offers 20 point moves either, unless you got in at the very high or low. So, I think the key is to take what the market offers. Some days it's much - other days it's less.

Today, my thought was the market could still do multiple tests of the Opening price before finally selling off, so I figured trailing would mean a certain premature stop-out.

Funny thing is this market can still sell off and make new lows today.

 

[Picaso]

Anyone knows what's the sweet level for tomorrow's expiration?

I don't know. And I'm not even sure there's such a thing, but I imagine there's a lot of calls which the MMS would like to see expire out of the money.

And we should close below 5545.

5220 maybe.

I'm watching two levels. Yesterday's low at 5525.50, and last Wednesday's high at 5518.75. 18.75 was the high of the Fed rate news breakout.

1 % down is not uncommon on TWD. That's 5490.

Thank you very much, gentlemen for the pointers.

I will be (probably) playing with small size the range between 5425-ish and 5445-ish.

But who knows, maybe Schizo gets a breakout/stop-run to 5460.

I agree with Laissez-Faire that 3WD tend to be rangebound with a negative bias, we'll see if we stay within this range the next few hours.

 

[TrailerParkTed]

Thank you very much, gentlemen for the pointers.

I will be (probably) playing with small size the range between 5425-ish and 5445-ish.

But who knows, maybe Schizo gets a breakout/stop-run to 5460.

I agree with Laissez-Faire that 3WD tend to be rangebound with a negative bias, we'll see if we stay within this range the next few hours.

Schizo handle’s these days like a Boss!

 

[Picaso]

I would prefer to trade for the big legs. Many of my trades go +5 or + 6 points, and then I'm stopped for a minimal profit or a small loss.

Not ever day offers 20 point moves either, unless you got in at the very high or low. So, I think the key is to take what the market offers. Some days it's much - other days it's less.

Agreed.

Not everyone can be a flipper like Schizo [edit: you read my mind, TrailerParkTed ]. When you tend to have a directional bias (like me) and want a large R/R (like me), trading in markets that look range bound makes little sense.

In days like this, either I don't trade or I use minimum size (and I mean minimum, think of switching to micro-ES if you normally trade one mini-ES contract, or 10 shares, etc.) and consider the day as practice.

 

[theapprentice]

nothing for me on the ES/NQ/YM side of things.

Only 1 daytrade today which was on CL:

Still holding the longs I had yesterday.

NQ is stinging a bit. YM doing great for me! ES losing.

But thanks to the buffer built up over the prior week or 2 i'm in zero pain and still very green overall so just gonna leave it alone. Always feel quite cozy being long anyway!

Will see if I have to jiggle anything around next week or not in case we actually get a selloff! *gasp*

 

[flash crash]

I wish I could get a five minute chart to plot inside the daily ohlc bars. I feel that would be instructive for me.

If price were to have broken above 5845, the levels I'd look to for guidance are easy to see on the daily bar chart. Today's high of day, 6/18 open & 6/20 close, then yesterday's high.

If price breaks below the 5518.75, then I'd look to see if buying steps up again at 5500, which was the close/open level on 4 consecutive days while ES waited for the Fed rate decision.

 

[flash crash]

i'm in zero pain and still very green overall so just gonna leave it alone. Always feel quite cozy being long anyway!

You're going to have to change your name from theapprentice" to "thejourneyman."