Quote from Eldredge:
John,
I do have a couple of questions if you are inclined to respond. Have you tried entering trades in all of the markets you watch when you get a signal in one? Have you eliminated the time of day requirement completely with your current DAX trading? If so, has it been replaced by any other "filter" - volume etc. Thanks for the information on what you are currently doing. If you would like to elaborate further I would certainly be interested, but I can understand if you don't want the hassle.
Hi Eldredge,
You can ask whatever you like - note from the original thread that any genuine poster was always answered. It was only the spoilers who got me sidetracked! As far as time of day goes, I think flexibility could be order. What I do in the DAX is to take the first 2 or 2.5 hours (that's 03:00 - 05:00/05:30 EST) as my main trade time. It's a great time period because most of you yankee traders aren't there to mess things up! If I've made one or two good trades then I'll just stop. But suppose I've made nothing and the DAX has congested this whole time ...then I might stick around one more hour to see if the move happens then. Same logic for the ES. If nothing has happened 09:30 - 11:30 EST then give it another hour rather than blindly shutting down. My second targeted time period in the DAX is 08:30 - 11:30 EST (i.e. as US Bonds open). Another good time period.
As far as filters go, I can't remember if I put this on the original thread but when looking for a pivot high, try to use ones where the upper Bollinger line was also moving upwards at the time the price spiked, and vice versa. If you think about the logic of it ...you'd be aiming for a 'spike' which represented price expansion rather than price contraction. After all, the idea of these breakouts is to FIRST have momentum, then a brief pullback before going back in the original direction. If we don't have the momentum then what good is the pullback? I don't apply this as a blanket rule but it's often a good pointer.
The trouble with the ES is that one gets a move, then it starts pulling back and keeps pulling back. Driving John mad! There is no question as the other poster noted that the huge institutional involvement in the ES makes it nuts. It constantly 'backs and fills'. One has to be extremely patient to sit through a lot of noise to hold for a decent size winner. The DAX on the other hand with it's lower volume ...when it wants to run, it will RUN. No messing around. When I hit a breakout in the DAX, if it's not profitable after just 3 minutes I am gone. Because I know what "should" happen when I'm right. But you can't play the ES that way.
Romeo: as far as DB goes ...he's OK with me. Doesn't matter that he backtracked a few times. He posts in a lucid manner and doesn't appear to differentiate between a new poster and an elite one. He can also be funny. I suspect he probably just 'debates' more than he trades but hell, if that were a crime, this board wouldn't exist. And you have one major problem: Gordon Gecko agrees with you!!!!
Because it's actually a much bigger problem that Gordon Gecko has arrived on this thread. I can't imagine a kiss of death worse than that. Next thing I know, he'll have 5000 posters on here all "helping" him with their pearls of wisdom about what job he should do while he builds up another trading stake. Read any of Gordon's "woe is me / I'm so pathetic / but I'll also be the greatest trader ever later on" stuff and it's enough to make you reach for the bucket. Actually, it's the thousands of 'helpful' replies he gets from elite members that are truly insufferable!!!!
The guy I miss most around town is Bubba Jack Hershey whom I see also got banned. He was such a babbling incomprehensible fool that I miss our encounters. He was actually a really funny bloke the way he would waffle on! But I digress, and hope I answered your Q's ....