Nod
A suggestion: Rather than feeling obligated to make "live" calls on specific trades and or describing the action of that trade itself, consider just posting about the trade "setting up" and let the readers decide for themselves what to do.
Example: (this is after the fact but was some of the thought process during real trade) ...That 1155est bar just closed and shows a small KEY bar that also failed to knock off the higher bogie at 1161.75 after taking out the lower high at 1158.50. Four bars later at 1215est you might consider a short at approx 1157.x and place a STOP LOSS at the high of the bar that followed the KEY bars close, that bar had a high of 1158.x.........you have seen 3 bars since that high and price has not taken that 1158.x out.......thus your STOP is there.
Ok, lets assume you went short at 57.x and price went down to the then low of 1153.75 and closed at 1154.75. You are in the pink..........
The next bar takes out the trendline down from the 1159.x high and the high at 1157.50 high at 1215est and if still short you will be concerned as that bar reaches up to 1156.50 from the previous bars low of that 1153.75 mentioned. THAT bar crossing the down trendline is your first clue that the short might be in trouble even as you are still in the pink. You are tough, you are steeled, you decide to wait until the bar closes.........and it closes 5 tiks lower at 1155.25.........you feel better, stay short. Your STOP now is at the high of that just closed bar at 1156.50, You just sat through a retrace and price comes back below the trendline, you just sat through a failed trendline failure which took out some weak Shorts, (you might do a add-on to your short here).
Price goes sideways for the next few bars (this is normal in general), you are eyeballing the 3 same lows on the last bars at 1153.25 as support........IF taken out you will have a shot at the RTH low at 1148.x, thats your first target.
BOOM!!!! DOUBLE BOOM!!!!, price hits your target in style and that bar goes down to 1146.x and closes at 1147.50
Did you get 10 handles? Traders need to think like that or however they fly their dogfighter plane in action.
ACE pilots, are thinking AHEAD of their planes. Pilots should never run out of Altitude, airspeed and ideas at the same time.
(it is easier to read the action on a chart than to type some of the thought process out. haha) :eek:
PS: the trick to using KEY bars is you DO NOT want to see price come back and cross the KEY bars initial opening tik...........if that happens, the KEY bar is ruled invalid,....... natch.