ES Journal Archive (2011)
- Thread starter Buy1Sell2
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Bought near bottom of day, and ES goes just enough to stop me out before going higher. Then I took a few shorts in CL and ES thinking ES was just teasing and would break back down which it did not. So finally believed that market was going higher and went long CL with decent target which finally got me 1 winner for the day. This winner actually made up for most of my losses although still slightly down for the day. Thoughts on day is that I need to give stop enough room in case we have a false breakdown on ES, it really sucks to be right and get stopped out.
In my two losers earlier today, I bought after I saw support hold, however, the error I made was that I never really saw the order flow turn bullish (in fact my first fill at 52 I was bulldozed quite handily). I don't know where you bought, but I'm guessing it was around 45 to 47... IMO at the bottom here it did not get bullish until 3:02 -- the absorption at 2:58 was a good first clue on the break of the prior low, but it didn't mean much until the rally back up to 47. So I don't think your stop was too small--imagine how you'd feel if it had continued dropping at 3:00, and hit 38 or so, and you had given it lots of room and still got stopped out. I think the problem is you bought too early, without having good confirmation of bullish sentiment. If you had waited for the bounce which happened around 3pm, you could have gotten in probably at your original price or even better, am I right?
In my opinion this is the hardest thing to do and the biggest question-- timing of the entry versus size of the stop. A perfectly timed entry needs practically no stop at all. However, trying to time the market perfectly will likely result in more losses than profits due to missing good trades too (as I often do). But just entering with little regard for timing requires stops to be very large, so the monetary risk is increased. I have found time after time again, probably 80% of the time, when I take a trade based on a predefined area I was looking at, that when the trade winds up being a winner, I would have gotten the same price or usually better, if I had waited for some price action and order flow confirmation, and then entered. If the trade was a loser, then I could have avoided that loss by waiting. This is something ND has tried to help me with and whereas I used to NEVER wait, I'm at least waiting probably half the time now. It's so hard to do, for fear of missing out.
Just my $0.02 and take it for what it's worth.
GordonTheGekko
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Good work!
You are right about where I went long. Also, yes, my stop was below the low since yes if stop broke I thought the market would continue to go down so no reason to fight it.
As to bullish order flow, please explain this more since I don't understand what you mean.
I think I should have also waited for my indicator to turn green before going long that 1st time. Yes, once it bounced back above support, that was confirmed bullishness.
As noted, I finally did see that the market wanted to go long and my last trade was good. Except for my 1st trade, the others I did not average into and had very tight stops on my shorts. I guess that was my other mistake, I should not have averaged into my 1st order as the market started to go against me.
As to bullish order flow, please explain this more since I don't understand what you mean.
I think I should have also waited for my indicator to turn green before going long that 1st time. Yes, once it bounced back above support, that was confirmed bullishness.
As noted, I finally did see that the market wanted to go long and my last trade was good. Except for my 1st trade, the others I did not average into and had very tight stops on my shorts. I guess that was my other mistake, I should not have averaged into my 1st order as the market started to go against me.
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