Matcha's Dow E-mini Journal

[Bolimomo]

Quote from Matcha:


Asia market is so exciting. Can same chart reading, price action, chart patterns, same methodology be applicable in that market too? Or should I say the mass psychology and human behavior are same as US market?
Matcha

On "Mentor":

My view is that it would be wonderful if one gets a good mentor to help him/her get started. It can be priceless. I wish I had an uncle or friend or somebody who could help me when I got started. It really makes things easier.

However, I think that mentorship, commercially acquired or otherwise, would only work if the mentor and mentee are aligned in their approaches to the market. A good mentor is hard to find, let alone a mentor who trades the same way that you would like to. If you want to day trade, a position-trade mentor may not be as useful to you. For this reason I opted not to pursue the OTA's mentorship program. I do not want to take their "scan, scan, scan" approach to find some who-knows-what-they-do-and-who-cares stocks everyday to trade (especially everyday at 5:30 am Pacific time). There are commonalities between different approaches (day-trade, swing-trade, etc..). You should be aware of them. For example, since you day-trade you need to know the "time of day" patterns intraday. The highly probable reversal times. For swing trades, they may not be as relevant.



On Asian markets:

Take the Hong Kong market (Hang Seng index) for example... because it is the only one I look at. My contact who lives over there told me that the HK stock market is controlled by big mutual-funds/hedge-funds. I am not sure how right he is. But "day trading" the Hang Seng can be very difficult. For one thing the market only open for 4 trading hours. 10:00 am opens... 12:30 pm closes... 2 hour lunch... 2:30 pm opens... 4:00 pm closes. This 2-hour break can kill any intraday momentum. For it's human behavior. You see people in auctions... they will bid up an artifact at a much higher price than they normally would... because they are worked up. Can you imagine the auctioneer says: "okay, the price is now 3 millions but let's take a lunch break, we will resume after lunch"... and when people cool down and think about what they were bidding, they might change their mind. After lunch, nobody would pay even a million dollar for the piece.

I just stay with what I know best. The US stock markets. I look at Nikkei and Hang Seng and Footsie and DAX everyday to see the overnight developments and how they may affect the US markets. I don't trade others. At least for now. Maybe one day.

I already trade 7 hours a day in the US market hours to make a living. Don't want to spend another 3 to 5 hours to trade a market that I don't live in. The HK stock market is highly sensitive to China's developments and announcements.

 

[Matcha]

Quote from Bolimomo:

On "Mentor":

My view is that it would be wonderful if one gets a good mentor to help him/her get started. It can be priceless. I wish I had an uncle or friend or somebody who could help me when I got started. It really makes things easier.

However, I think that mentorship, commercially acquired or otherwise, would only work if the mentor and mentee are aligned in their approaches to the market. A good mentor is hard to find, let alone a mentor who trades the same way that you would like to. If you want to day trade, a position-trade mentor may not be as useful to you. For this reason I opted not to pursue the OTA's mentorship program. I do not want to take their "scan, scan, scan" approach to find some who-knows-what-they-do-and-who-cares stocks everyday to trade (especially everyday at 5:30 am Pacific time). There are commonalities between different approaches (day-trade, swing-trade, etc..). You should be aware of them. For example, since you day-trade you need to know the "time of day" patterns intraday. The highly probable reversal times. For swing trades, they may not be as relevant.



On Asian markets:

Take the Hong Kong market (Hang Seng index) for example... because it is the only one I look at. My contact who lives over there told me that the HK stock market is controlled by big mutual-funds/hedge-funds. I am not sure how right he is. But "day trading" the Hang Seng can be very difficult. For one thing the market only open for 4 trading hours. 10:00 am opens... 12:30 pm closes... 2 hour lunch... 2:30 pm opens... 4:00 pm closes. This 2-hour break can kill any intraday momentum. For it's human behavior. You see people in auctions... they will bid up an artifact at a much higher price than they normally would... because they are worked up. Can you imagine the auctioneer says: "okay, the price is now 3 millions but let's take a lunch break, we will resume after lunch"... and when people cool down and think about what they were bidding, they might change their mind. After lunch, nobody would pay even a million dollar for the piece.

I just stay with what I know best. The US stock markets. I look at Nikkei and Hang Seng and Footsie and DAX everyday to see the overnight developments and how they may affect the US markets. I don't trade others. At least for now. Maybe one day.

I already trade 7 hours a day in the US market hours to make a living. Don't want to spend another 3 to 5 hours to trade a market that I don't live in. The HK stock market is highly sensitive to China's developments and announcements.

I have some relatives and friends who are in China doing some swing and day tradings. I am very worried about them since they don't really know what they are doing. They simply just buy, buy. buy and hold. In the past few years, some of them are very very profitable. Market handed lots of people free money. They are in the market at the right time. But I am very very worried...
Hang Seng is more established than Shanghai index. If I were to look into Asia and trade, I would start to sim Hang Seng mini. Not now for sure. There are just so much to learn in trading, ha!
Right now, I only want to focus on my Dow emini. Step by step. I am paying a lot attention to intraday reversal time, Gap trading these days. Still very new to me. You remind me of looking at overnight Asia market reaction and how they affect to Dow.
I am interested in knowing Asia market. So when I go back to Asia. I have something to talk about with my relatives and friends

 

[~~~]

Quote from dst888:

Do you mind telling us about how you found/met your Mentor? You learned from him/her in person or by seminar, training program or any other communication vehicles?
Thanks.

i worked for him and i was a good apprentice ..i learned from him in person, not by some seminars or training program etc. My mentor is retired now.

take care and good luck dst888

 

[~~~]

Quote from Matcha:

I had been searching a mentor on my own a while back, including attending trading schools, seminars, but now I decided to do it on my own.

I have to say so far I am so grateful that I met Bolimomo who read my post everyday and gave me his insights and tips here.

If one day I could be a profitable trader, I would like to help new traders too.

Asia market is so exciting. Can same chart reading, price action, chart patterns, same methodology be applicable in that market too? Or should I say the mass psychology and human behavior are same as US market?
Matcha

You can't find a mentor by attending trading schools or seminars.. what we learnt from school, books etc are only technical, but when we're in the working society.. practical is the most important! When a great mentor met good apprentices = A Solid Good Team ..When one is working, the boss looks at the profit he/she can bring into the co. not his/her 3.9 or 4.0 GPA or a Phd.cert. I was lucky enough to earn a fat salary and a great guru/mentor guiding me along the trading path. I am now repaying back to the society by doing some charity works and training my apprentices.

Bolimomo is smart and wise = Good Mentor.

Psychology plays an important part in trading,... don't just look at the chart patterns, price action ... must learn to be flexible, don't be Stubborn.
The Asia market and US market are basically the same..regardless of the East or West .. Human is human, most are motivated by $/greed.. but more than 90% losing $ in trading..in other words.. majorities are losing big $$$ to the minorities. U wanna be the minority

Asia market is going to get more and more exciting ..no doubt about it.

 

[~~~]

Quote from Bolimomo:



I think that mentorship, commercially acquired or otherwise, would only work if the mentor and mentee are aligned in their approaches to the market. A good mentor is hard to find, let alone a mentor who trades the same way that you would like to. If you want to day trade, a position-trade mentor may not be as useful to you.

My contact who lives over there told me that the HK stock market is controlled by big mutual-funds/hedge-funds. I am not sure how right he is.

I just stay with what I know best. The US stock markets. I look at Nikkei and Hang Seng and Footsie and DAX everyday to see the overnight developments and how they may affect the US markets. I don't trade others. At least for now. Maybe one day.

I already trade 7 hours a day in the US market hours to make a living. Don't want to spend another 3 to 5 hours to trade a market that I don't live in. The HK stock market is highly sensitive to China's developments and announcements.

True... one must not be a "Jack of all trades.. but good at none"

We trade in different markets because we have a good team of traders.
Your friend is right about the HK market and most markets are "controlled/manipulated" by the big boys .. kinda like big fish eating the small fish..it sucks but it's a reality.

 

[Matcha]

Only traded the last 2 hours today. Only 2 trades were taken. I had been very patient today waiting, waiting and waiting for the “perfect” set up.

I listened to one of seminars about E-mini S&P on INO TV over the weekend. It was an old recording session. But it’s pretty insightful. This guy talks about their strategy that they only traded the first and last hours. The 2 sessions give traders the strong trending patterns and most reversal trades happened during the 2 hours. They only take 2 trades per day.(one trade in each sessions). Although they all have losing days and winning days. They could win 4-5 days in a row or losing 4-5 days in a row. They also have extremely bad month and great month. The great month offsets the bad month. So net, net they are very profitable. They also don’t wait too long to enter. They are OK with being stopped out than sacrifice high profit margin trades. I don’t think I can be that accurate right now-taking 2 trades perday and be profitable. But I am working on taking only the “perfect and high quality” trades. Trade more efficiently and effectively. The thing is, for my personality, I need the instant gratification, more satisfaction than adjusting the losing mentality, so I need more win rate. Less trades but more win rate, to me now, is to take only pull back trades within trend.

The market was in a range bound pretty much most of the day. First trade was stopped out at long position. It wasn’t a “perfect” trade. Second trade was flipped to the short side after being stopped out for long. It worked nicely. It was a break out trade –break out from range bound

Trade 1: Long. I thought it was range bound trade. Buy at the low, sell at the high. My stop is too wide
Entry: 9899
Exit:9889
-10Pts
Trade 2: Short. ,measured move and floor pivot point (S1 level) played out nicely too. But I took profit at the 9825 zone-last S level...Didn't have the guts to wait for more points.
Entry:9885
Ext:9828
57Pts

Today, +$230, 50% win rate

Market is so bearish now. If tomorrow price can’t hold the 9800(5/25 low) level, I will continue to be on the short side.

 

[Bolimomo]

Do you play with Fib?

(Sorry my example is done in S&P as I don't have emini Dow feed. But the concept is the same and the price moves are very similar.)

Friday ES down 30 points or so. With a move this big, the following day should be moderately-bearish.

Mark Friday's high-to-low (US hours only). Note the Fib retracements. Overnight (weekend) it went down a bit to 1052 but went back up to 1070 before open. I never believed this move-up will hold. 1070 = 38.2% retracement. That should be a good fade point. Later on today it went to retest the overnight low of 1052 and broke it.

I didn't trade ES today but this morning's gap up on AAPL to 258... and subsequently moved up to 259. I shorted it after the opening. It worked very well.

 

[Bolimomo]

Quote from ~~~:


Your friend is right about the HK market and most markets are "controlled/manipulated" by the big boys .. kinda like big fish eating the small fish..it sucks but it's a reality.

Thanks for confirming this and your kind words, ~~~.

I know the boom-bust stock cycles in Hong Kong. When you see restaurants offering Shark Fin Mixed with Steamed Rice, bottles after bottles of Remy Martin XOs along the wall... and that older folks and house wives lingering around the plasma monitors in the local banks watching stock quote crawlers, talking about which stock to buy next instead of what's for dinner... the top is near.

 

[Matcha]

Quote from Bolimomo:

Do you play with Fib?

(Sorry my example is done in S&P as I don't have emini Dow feed. But the concept is the same and the price moves are very similar.)

Friday ES down 30 points or so. With a move this big, the following day should be moderately-bearish.

Mark Friday's high-to-low (US hours only). Note the Fib retracements. Overnight (weekend) it went down a bit to 1052 but went back up to 1070 before open. I never believed this move-up will hold. 1070 = 38.2% retracement. That should be a good fade point. Later on today it went to retest the overnight low of 1052 and broke it.

I didn't trade ES today but this morning's gap up on AAPL to 258... and subsequently moved up to 259. I shorted it after the opening. It worked very well.

No need to apologize

I do use FIB sometime.swing high to swing low on previous leg, previous retrace, then found confluent zone. But I only use my eyes to measure while intra-day trading.

I copied your method on YM. it was 23.6% level FIB retracement level was the turning point. And it formed a Double bottom pattern. Pretty cool

 

[dst888]

Thanks for the reply. It was very Lucky of you that you had a great mentor and he showed you the right path.

Quote from ~~~:

i worked for him and i was a good apprentice ..i learned from him in person, not by some seminars or training program etc. My mentor is retired now.

take care and good luck dst888